CW: sexual assault, animal abuse, loss of a child, violent death

Fleeing a plague-ridden country, Angustias and her husband, lose their newborn sons and must find a place to bury them. On the border between two unnamed countries, Angustias meets Visitación Salazar, the larger-than-life curator of the city cemetery, aptly named The Third Country. Visitación cares for "her dead" despite rivals that continuously try to take the land, primarily the town's mayor and a cartel called "the irregulars." Angustias stays on at the cemetery, partly for food and shelter, but mostly to stay close to her sons who she's still grieving. Through the course of the story, Angustias finds that eventually, we must all move on and let our dead rest, even if we ourselves cannot.

The book functions as a metaphor for the purgatory of loss, both of those we love and, especially, for the grief and loss that accompany migration. I found the overall themes in this book to be resonant, but the execution a bit lackluster. I wasn't particularly interested in the various townspeople and even the main plotline barely held my attention. This may be up your alley, though, if you're a fan of Mariana Enríquez's writing.

This novel about a woman's struggle to find peace feels at times like a fever dream as she navigates a world where a plague has wiped the memories of those it afflicts.

In "No Place to Bury the Dead," author Karina Sainz Borgo crafts the vividly human characters of Angustias and Visitación, who fight to give the grieving and the dead the respect they deserve - even as criminals and crooked politicians try to claw back the land on which they bury the dead.

Angustias' journey begins alongside her husband. They flee their home amid the plague, searching for a better life. Instead, they find only heartache, poverty and crime, as well as the deaths of their infant twin sons.

It is then that she meets and begins working for Visitación, who has created what might be described as an outlaw funeral home and cemetery.

Borgo's incredible prose breathes vivid life into the migrant experience. There are some points where the storytelling switches from first-person to third-person with some confusion, but this feels a little more like a translation issue and not intentional. Still, this is a beautifully sad and terrifying book.

I struggled to get into this book and ended up DNF’ing it around the 27% mark.
However, I think this was more of a me thing than the book itself. What I read was well written. Maybe I will try and give it another chance in the future.

No Place to Bury the Dead is not just a book—it’s an experience. It’s raw, haunting, and painfully real. Karina Sainz Borgo delivers a powerful story about grief, survival, and the desperate search for dignity in a collapsing world.

Set in an unnamed Latin American country ravaged by a memory-erasing plague, this novel follows Angustias Romero as she tries to give her twin sons a proper burial. What unfolds is a poetic yet gut-wrenching journey through a world where loss is constant and survival is brutal. The writing is lyrical, the atmosphere suffocating, and the emotions? Absolutely devastating. I will say, the pacing is slow, and I wish some of the side characters had more depth. Overall, this book is a powerful meditation on exile, survival, and the cost of remembering. It’s not a book I’d recommend for everyone, but if you love stories that challenge you, this one is unforgettable.

This book, while not being my usual "type," was so well written and really taught me a lot about the migrant experience and how devastating it can truly be.

No Place To Bury The Dead is equally emotional and haunting. This book offers so much more than exploration of grief but of culture, survival and more importantly how culture survives when the world is ending. The Horror is there also but the social commentary is what really got me in this one. This is a must read, particular in the current political climate. It can be a tough read but it is certainly worth it.
As always thank you to Titan Books for the advanced copy to review, my reviews are always honest and freely given.

No Place to Bury the Dead is a haunting, emotionally heavy read that follows a mother’s desperate search for a resting place for her two sons in a world wrecked by plague. The book doesn’t just focus on grief—it dives deep into cultural rituals, survival, and the harsh realities of a society trying to hold itself together. I was especially drawn to Visitación, the woman running the burial grounds, whose backstory and fierce, almost reverent approach to death made her one of the most compelling characters. The religious and cultural layers woven throughout added so much depth to the storytelling.

Where it lost me a bit was the structure. The short chapters made for a quick read, but at times, things felt a little messy—like a chaotic blend of soap-opera-style interactions that pulled me out of the more powerful moments. Still, the writing is evocative, and some passages genuinely stopped me in my tracks. If you’re into literary fiction that explores grief, survival, and cultural traditions around death, this one is worth checking out. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

🪦NO PLACE TO BURY THE DEAD🪦 by @laksb and translated from the Spanish by @lizmondo was a dystopian fever dream of a story that "illuminates the often-overlooked human dimension of the migrant crisis." Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publisher @harperviabooks for the e-ARC.

💀💀💀

Angustios Romero is looking for a place to bury her newly deceased twin baby boys while running from a spreading memory-stealing plague that decimates the mind of anyone who is infected with it. She finds herself in a somewhat liminal space known as the town of Mesquite (in an unknown Latin American country) where corruption reigns and the town is filled with refugees, storytellers and terrifying gangs that prey on newcomers. When she finally puts her babies to rest in a cemetery called the Third Country, she meets charismatic and stubborn Visitación Salazar who is dedicated to caring for the dead. When the cemetery becomes the target of a wealthy land baron named Alcides Abundio, Angustios is caught in the crossfire.

A meditation on loss, struggle, grief, death and the preciousness of life, I was absolutely charmed and devastated alike by this story. It asks questions such as who deserves housing, access to land or dignity in life and/or death. It discusses the fact that folks with nothing are often asked to accept even less. The clash of personalities of all of these characters was mesmerizing to experience.

Read this one if:

💀Quests and walking adventures are of interest to you
🦴You love magical realism mixed with horror elements
💀Strong character verbal and mental battles intrigue you
🦴You are a supporter of the rights of refugees and want to see that played out in a fictional novel

No Place to Bury the Dead was an excellent read. I loved the writing and it was propulsive. Great character study. I would read more from this author.

Rating: 2.15 leaves out of 5
-Characters: 2.75/5
-Story: 2.75/5
-Writing: 4.75/5
Genre: Horror, Magical Realism
-Horror: 1/5
-Magical Realism: 5/5
Type: Ebook
Worth?: Eh

I want to first thank Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this!

The story was just honestly more sad than scary. The struggles were laid in front of us but I felt no real emotion behind the words.

This book has me sobbing. As a mother of premature twins, with heart defects, I was with our lead the entire time. Of course she wants to do right by them. She gave birth to them.
This book is almost too good. It is not an escape. It was just fulltime breaking my heart.
The book gets better and better as you go. I love all the symbolism and I even somehow loved the violence.
I love the ending!

No Place to Burry the Dead was a bit slower paced than what I normally like. I enjoyed the peek into the migrant story but felt that the topic was bleak.

Karina Sainz Borgo paints a bleak picture of a world where violent gangs, corrupt politicians, and ruthless businessmen hold all the power. Oh wait, that’s starting to sound like real life! The setting is harrowing, yet compelling; drawing clear parallels to real-world issues. In this dystopian hellscape, the characters have been hardened by suffering, and the author contrasts their harsh realities with the tenderness and care they show to the dead. The themes of life and death are beautifully written, particularly through Visitación, who provides dignity and peace to those who have passed.

The synopsis had led me to expect a story that would be continuously pulling at my heartstrings, and while it began with an alluring emotional intensity, that grip loosened as the story progressed. I struggled to finish it. While I appreciated the atmosphere and the novel’s insight into migrants in desperation, I struggled with the execution. The pacing was slow, especially in the middle, and the story only seemed to gain momentum in its final third. Visitación was a compelling protagonist, but the supporting characters lacked complexity and depth. The short chapters, though they make for a fast read, often felt disjointed, and at times, the narrative veered into a chaotic, almost soap opera-like style. This left me feeling disconnected, diminishing my emotional investment in the novel.

This book does succeed in capturing an interesting cultural and political climate and then projecting it into a world that feels like a not-so-distant future. My personal disconnect may not reflect the experience of others. But, this was a book I found incredibly depressing which makes it hard to recommend to others.

In this haunting magical realist novel, Sainz Borgo explores grief and memory through the lens of an unnamed Latin American country ravaged by a memory-erasing plague. The story follows Angustias Romero, who, after losing her children, finds herself in the surreal town of Mezquite and its mysterious Third Country cemetery.
While the premise is compelling and the imagery striking—particularly in the portrayal of Mezquite and its cast of desperate characters—the narrative sometimes gets lost in its own metaphorical wilderness. The relationship between Angustias and Visitación Salazar, the cemetery's formidable caretaker, provides emotional anchor points, but their conflict with the menacing landowner Alcides Abundio feels less fully realized.

Sainz Borgo's prose creates a dreamlike atmosphere that effectively blurs the lines between reality and hallucination, life and death. However, this same ethereal quality occasionally undermines the story's emotional impact, keeping readers at arm's length from the characters' raw grief. Despite these shortcomings, the novel offers a unique meditation on loss, memory, and the politics of death in a land where violence dictates law.

I haven't been confused by a book in awhile. I wanted to like this book. I wanted to enjoy the visuals and symbolism that is portrayed in the pages.
Yet, something felt lacking for me. I honestly don't know if I could fully tell you what the story was about, aside from a story of grief and women trying to be strong in a world that wants to beat them down. That, however, is very surface level. There's more, I know that, but I don't know what.
I think this may have been a right book for the wrong time for me.

DNF at 51%

I paired the audiobook with the e-book and was so excited to read this, but unfortunately was not able to get through it. I think this was intentional, but a lot of this story felt really disorienting - but not in a way I could keep up with at all. I'm fine with not feeling grounded in a story if I can at least hold on to the main plotline and characters, but it was hard for me to do that. I found myself repeatedly rewinding the audiobook to confirm who was talking and what was happening. After about 15% the story reached a standstill that I don't think it got over by the time I DNF'd and that was just too long for me to hold interest.

This may be a soft DNF that I will attempt later but for now I have to put it down.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback.

A dark look at a mother’s grief, power dynamics in Latin America, immigration, plagues and how all humans deserve to be buried in some form or fashion. This was truly harrowing and heart wrenching as a mom myself, but the pacing was strange. I kept reading with my eyes and not my brain at somy points so id have to go back and reread. Other than that it'll be sticking with me for quiet some time.

While hard to get through due to the content I am just enamored with the style. Even at its toughest moments I was so enthralled with the world and culture being explored. Karina Sainz Borgo is an autobuy author for me now.

a very dark and twisted look into a very interesting culture. There are stories within here that I felt were so unique and new from anything else i have read !