We have a trinity of women across time and space in this book. Santa Muerte or Mictēcacihuātl is an Aztec deity of death exists in another dimension but still present after the fall of the people at the hands of the Spaniards. Milagros, who becomes the titular Queen of the Cicadas, begins her journey from Mexico in the 1950s with a family friend who was part of the bracero program and begins a new one at the Texas farm where most of the story takes place. Belinda, jaded middle-aged woman of the present who attends a wedding at the farm and begins her own new journey with a fascination for Milagros.

This one was difficult to classify. Horror in the sense that the "monster" isn't the monster. Mythological / religious retelling in Mictēcacihuātl. Magical realism for Milagros and Belinda's stories. Folklore in the Queen of Cicadas herself. Discussion of identity, racism, and disparities woven throughout, but not in a preachy way. Ultimately, it takes the best of these and weaves them together. So many things going on, and they work so well. I wanted to keep turning the pages and not take a break. It helps that Belinda is about my age, and I therefore relate to her story in a more personal way. It also helps that I know a lot of the background, including about Santa Muerte / Mictēcacihuātl, the bracero program, and cenotes. If you aren't familiar with these things, I recommend a quick google (with images!) for a deeper experience of this book.

Thank you to V. Castro, Flame Tree Press, and Netgalley for the chance to read an advance ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! V Castro is a master writer of horror, but this is so much more than a typical horror story. The basic plot of this story revolves around an urban legend of La Reina de Las Chicharras. The legend tells of a young murdered woman who seeks vengeance. Castro weaves together this ugly tale of hatred with events that are occurring in the modern world. This book gives a beautiful look of the culture of the indigenous peoples who lived in Mexico before the conquerors invaded and nearly decimated the civilization that had thrived for years. I especially enjoyed the insight into the religious practices and how those practices were passed down to the descendants throughout history. Moreover, Castro shows the mistreatment that Mexican workers experienced while working on American farms and how Cesar Chavez was working to help ensure that conditions were improved. Castro further shows how prejudices against Mexican people continue in the modern world. I also liked how Castro writes strong female characters that are multidimensional.

The Queen of the Cicadas combines folklore and myth. The story has dual timelines with the first focusing on Belinda who is in Texas for her friend's wedding. The farmhouse in Alice, Texas just so happens to be the site of the murder of Milagros Santos, now known as La Reina de la Chicharras, or Queen of the Cicadas.

Belinda becomes fascinated by the story of Milagros and decides to investigate the urban legend and bring some closure to the Milagros family with the owner of the farm, Hector.

The second timeline focuses n Milagros and the events that lead up to her racially motivated murder on that farm. Milagros was a migrant worker who picked cotton the farm and sent the money back to her family in Mexico until her death.

The dual timelines were a little confusing at first, but once I got into the rhythm of it, I was able to follow. The plot is very well done and made me want to keep reading to see what happened next. I felt the characters were well rounded and I enjoyed getting to know them.

Not only is this a tale of horror, it is also a look at migrant workers who were brought to the US using the bracero program and the conditions that many faced. The bracero program was a government program that brought people from Mexico to the US because there weren't enough farm workers to tend the farms because of World War II

My appreciation to Flame Tree Press, author V. Castro, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Flame Tree Press and Netgalley for the e-arc!

Here we have a super interesting historical horror with a salient hook right up my alley: Mexican mythology blended with female rage and the never-ending nature of injustice born from hate, all wrapped up in one neat, super dark package. I adore that part of the macro, and it is definitely what shines the brightest. The character gallery is unapologetically honest, even when it comes to uglier things, and every character is honestly just very believable, even if this isn’t the longest piece of fiction. Despite the many mythological elements, this is also a refreshingly down to earth horror, in that it doesn’t overplay the presence of the supernatural, but rather seems more interested in the implications of their presence, and exploring what made them necessary in the first place. I guess what I’m trying to say is, this isn’t necessarily a terribly scary novel, but it is absolutely horrifying.

Where it sadly lost me at times was stylistically. I just wasn’t completely swept away by the authorial voice on a micro level, as much as I dig the macro, and the pacing on a sentence level also didn’t work entirely for me. Not to say there weren’t moments where it did, but on the whole the style was not entirely my cup of tea. This is where reading is so subjective though, because I can think of a few people in my immediate circle, who would love this exactly because of its style, and even more than that, it’s a rather good fit for horror and there’s clear intent behind all of the choices made. No matter what, I am glad that I read this, and I still personally got a lot out of it. Thematically, it is stunning, and I’d happily recommend it. Final rating is probably around 3.5/5 stars, rounded up.

La Reina de Las Chicharras is a horror story about revenge, racism, and a lost otherworldly queen of sorts. The concept for this story is really cool and the characters are powerful, but the writing is a mess. It's hard to follow, weirdly structured and clunky with clumsily long paragraphs, and disorganized switching narratives and settings.

I was also disappointed that it's not scary horror, it's gross-out. The beginning was great and had some suspenseful buildup, but then it's just bugs and guts and over-explaining. It also has some weird, awkward sexual scenes and references that I was not expecting or I would def not have requested this book.

The beginning is powerful, a story of oppression, hate, racism, but then it's like the book takes a hundred other turns and can't decide what the point is. It's religious but not religious? A haunted house tale but also not? And for a book that heavily features cicadas, it never properly described the sound they make which bugged (hehe) me more than it should have because we have cicadas for our whole summer and they drive me a little crazy.

It reads like a second draft. If only it stuck with murder, revenge, magical bloodlines, and a lost culture. Everything else made it a mess.

So lots of Content Warnings for this one. A wretched, gnarly, tortuous murder. Rape, sexual assault. Horrid and hateful racism. Gross body descriptions, like guts and stuff. Tons of bugs, bug noises, bugs biting, etc.

Thanks NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for an ecopy on exchange for my honest opinion.

This book is extraordinary. I really loved the story, the setting, the writing.

It's an absolutely compelling combination of folk horror and a study of racism, xenophobia, and misogyny that links events and attitudes of seven decades ago with what's happening in contemporary America, particularly the Mexican/Texas border area and the migrants who have been needed, used, and abused in that region for a century or more.

The horror elements are terrifically well written and capture the ancientness of the spiritualty of Mexican and pre-Christian myth and legend and weave it into a tale of patient revenge, closure, and redemption.

What I also found very strong was how evocative the writing was of place and time - you could feel the heat of of the border region, the tension of the interactions in the 1950s, the fish-out-of-water feelings of the two main characters during their trip to Mexico (despite their both having deep ties to the people and place).

It's a bit of a lazy cliche to compare it to Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic but they do both capture a dark (though not always evil) otherworldliness, particularly in the 1950s sections of this novel. I've been reading quite a bit of English and American folk-horror in the past couple of years and this one holds up very well against the likes of Max Porter, Sarah Perry, James Brogden, and the aforementioned Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

This is going to make a terrific film or, better still, mini-series if it makes it onto the screen.

**I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review**

A must-read for Tejanos.
The Queen of the Cicadas follows Belinda who returns to her native Texas for a wedding. What was supposed to be a quick trip back turns into something much more as she discovers that the childhood legend of la reina de las chicharras is true and much closer to her than she realizes. The story moves between eras between Belinda's present day and Milagros's time as a farmworker during the Bracero program in Texas. Milagros's story, steeped in the supernatural with pre-colonization gods, hits home for those who had family who also experienced the horrors of racism and murder on Texas farms pre-Civil Rights.
Castro does an incredible job on touching on the often forgotten migrant workers in the stories of American exceptionalism. She weaves an incredible tale that also shows how places built with so much bloodshed and hatred can still feel like home, even in spite of these things.

I was thoroughly engaged during my first V. Castro reading. Queen of the Cicadas is equal parts horror rush and cautionary campfire tale. I really cared about Milagros and the disgusting treatment she endured. The scenes in which Belinda comes in contact with Mictecacihuatl were probably my favorite; her fascination was captivating and exciting. I especially appreciated that the editor/publisher/agent didn’t force the author to Americanize her speech in this novel by giving us Spanish translation. Castro speaks freely (as far as I can tell), which added to the authenticity of this novel and the horrors contained within. The author doesn’t hold back, which I found to be an important element to the story. If there is something the reader doesn’t know, they can look it up. It’s better that way. It promotes cultural research.

The only problem I really had with this novel was that the chapters and scene breaks were laid out in such a way that they did not flow or transition smoothly; as a result, I was sometimes confused as to which narrative I was reading, especially since Belinda’s scenes are in the first person and everyone else is presented in the third.

Queen of the Cicadas is an unnerving story that often blends the line between fiction and nonfiction. You get the horror of reality coupled seamlessly with the horror of a campfire tale. You’ll fidget and feel uncomfortable. You’ll hold your breath and feel electricity. V. Castro has a vivid imagination and a wonderful way with words, so you can bet this reader will be paying attention to anything with her name attached.

Review by Aiden Merchant - www.aidenmerchant.com

Wow this was my first experience with X. Castro’s writing and I loved every second of it. I love reading women in horror and Castro has such a valuable and distinct voice. This book is steeped in Mexican American culture that made the story so rich and amazing.
In addition to that, I love how the story is sort of based on an urban legend, as that is one of my favorite types of horror. And the absolute best part is that the women that Castro writes are so powerful and I LOVE reading about characters like that especially in horror. There are so many good things to say about this book and it is one I will be recommending all the time when it releases!

A vivid, fast-paced horror novel with sharp-edged observations that cut like glass, THE QUEEN OF THE CICADAS first made its way into my hands as an advanced reader copy. Needless to say, it was an ARC that immediately caught my eye.

A story centered around vengeance? Death gods, and urban legends? All of these elements are things that I naturally gravitate towards, so I couldn’t wait to start reading. THE QUEEN OF THE CICADAS started off more or less where I thought it would, but by the end, it had morphed into an entirely different narrative.

The surprise was a welcome one that left me thrilled.

Without spoilers: CICADAS has all the trappings of an “urban legend horror book,” if that’s the sort of vibe you go for. There is an unspeakable crime that fractures a community for generations to come, an evil deed so profound that it blights the land upon which the event occurred.

Mictecacíhuatl (as this novel's supernatural entity) has so much curiosity and wit, a sardonic, almost flippant quality to the way that she views things. This is combined with an intuitive understanding of other people’s motivations, along with a deep rage that she has nursed through the centuries towards the colonial injustices that she has observed.

For me, Mictecacíhuatl reads as a reclamation, as a person who is taking back her own narrative. She's not so much the driving power behind an urban legend, so much as she's yet another woman in a long line of women who has been wronged.

“Unlike things like gravity and the sun, justice is a commodity, like oil or cotton or tobacco.”
– V. Castro, The Queen of the Cicadas

🦗I received an e-ARC of this story from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. The Queen of the Cicadas (2021) will release on 22nd June!🦗

V. Castro is an author who has been on my radar for such a long time now, and I’ve heard overwhelmingly positive things in response to many of her releases. They’ve also been appearing thick and fast as of late – which I think is testament to the author’s amazing work ethic and output – and so I figured it was high time for me to finally check one out! I’ve started with this, her upcoming title with the excellent Flame Tree Press and their Fiction Without Frontiers imprint. I’m a big fan of this publishing house too, so immediately went for this novel when it popped up on NetGalley. And after reading this one, I’ll definitely be checking out more of Castro’s stuff just as soon as I can.

The Queen of the Cicadas, or La Reina de Las Chicharras, follows a woman named Belinda Alvarez, who returns to Texas for the wedding of her closest friend Veronica. The farmhouse where the wedding is being held is the site from which a notorious urban legend was born: the titular La Reina de Las Chicharras. As Belinda gets to know the farm’s current owner Hector, the pair are drawn into the tale of Milagros, the woman behind the legend, and the gruesome circumstances of her murder during the 1950s. The jaded and uncaring townsfolk ignore her death, but someone – or rather something – takes notice: namely the Aztec goddess of death, Mictecacíhuatl.

Obviously it goes without saying that the real horror on display here is not the so-called Queen of the Cicadas, or even the goddess Mictecacíhuatl, but the abhorrent treatment of Milagros by the racist and backwards members of the family she works for, and the indifference displayed by the rest of the townsfolk of Alice, Texas. There are some pretty grotesque scenes and descriptions in this book, but one that stands out is Milagros’s death itself. Castro doesn’t shy away from presenting the macabre reality, and though it sometimes makes for a challenging read, it is also an important one.

Without giving away too much in regards to the plot, I do just want to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the way Castro explores what would happen if a deity like Mictecacíhuatl was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be real and exist, and examines the ramifications of such a revelation. What starts as a relatively contained story of a woman investigating an old urban legend on a farm in Texas quickly unfurls and grows into something so much more significant, as themes of faith, belief and devotion also weave into the narrative.

Whenever I read a book, I always take notes down of passages that I find interesting, powerful, or resonant, and naturally, it often so happens that the more notes I feel compelled to jot down the stronger I think the book is. By the time I was done with this book, I had quite a hefty pile of notes, which I personally think is testament to the strength of the writing. This feels like such a personal book, and the raw, unflinching manner in which it confronts some tough subjects and important issues head on is truly impressive. The author doesn’t beat around the bush, and instead tackles these topics with lucidity and honesty.

Obviously as a white English guy I haven’t experienced anything close to oppression or lack of representation, but I’ve seen plenty of people from a similar background to Castro praising her work on confronting these issues and offering that representation through her stories and characters – praise that is fully deserved, as she is doing an admirable and commendable job of championing underrepresented or disenfranchised voices through her writing.

On the subject of Castro’s writing, it is fantastic not only for its natural flow – which makes it very easy to devour quickly – but also for the unfiltered, often brutal honesty it is laced with. There’s real heart and passion to the author’s voice, and it makes for an engrossing and impactful read. The characters were all very well-written as well. I absolutely loved the friendship between Belinda and Hector, and during the sections that concerned Milagros’s story, you could really empathise with her torment. These parts were by turns painful, infuriating and emotionally affecting – the injustice of Milagros’s fate was illustrated perfectly, and it only made it all the more satisfying to see these awful people get their just desserts.

I think the only real problem for me was that sometimes the pacing was a little uneven, particularly towards the finale, in which the tempo slows down quite considerably. It just felt like it lost some of the earlier momentum during the final act, though I did enjoy the ending itself, and thought it fit the narrative perfectly. That minor point aside though, this is a sensationally good book – the story is both mesmerizing and deeply unsettling, and Castro’s writing is incredibly readable and so heartfelt.

VERDICT: The Queen of the Cicadas is a passionate and powerful read that takes a familiar basis for the urban legend of the titular queen and spins it into something all of its own. The story Castro weaves is wonderful – at some times dreamlike and fantastical, and at others nightmarish and downright disturbing. Altogether, this is a terrific book with a powerful current of social commentary and an honest, often brutal, dissection of some important issues.

It’s a high ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from this reviewer. I also want to say a humongous thank you to both the author V. Castro, publisher Flame Tree Press, and to NetGalley, for providing the ARC and giving me the chance to read and review it early.

Horror and supernatural fans will be left satisfied. I’m left with a racing heart and speechless. This urban legend/super natural tale is a page turner. Highly recommended. Hard to find words to describe how much I love this book.

So, I’m not Mexican, but I’m from L.A. and Mexican American history and culture has very much been a part of my own upbringing. A good friend of the family was part of the zoot suit riots. I knew who La Llorona was before I hit first grade. We learned about Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta. My closest friends growing up were Mexican and I sometimes spent more time in their own houses than I did my own. So while it’s not 100% my culture…it’s kind of part of my culture by proxy if that make sense.

In Queen of the Cicadas, V. Castro brings us a tale of racism and retribution wrapped up in a dark fable steeped in Mexican culture and history. The story of Milagros resonates – it’s all too familiar for those who’ve heard the stories of what happens to the women out in the field – even more so to those whose family members live it, even today. The mixture of modern day Mexican American culture and ancient Aztec culture works wonderfully here, throwing the reader into a story that is incredibly rich and beautifully terrifying.

If I had any issue with the storytelling, it was in the transition between modern times and the older times. For me, the transitions weren’t seamless, occasionally causing me to stumble.

But, oh, I enjoyed the story immensely and loved the way everything ended.

I will very happily read the author again and again!

*ARC provided via Net Galley

Another excellent story from this author. Great folk lore that I had never heard of before. I enjoy everything I've read by this author.

Violet is writing amazing works with a sense of justice unserved in the real world, but imagined in her works, with own voices storytelling.

Thank you Flame Tree Press and Netgalley for providing this ARC. I enjoyed the historical background highlighting the plight of farm workers, migrants, and women but wasn’t as enamored of the horror part of the story line. By the end, I realized I wasn’t very invested in the main character and didn’t really care what choices she was making.

This is another great book released by V Castro this year! Yet again, she delves into Hispanic traditions in a compelling way. I love the characters in this one so much and loved the perspective of childbearing in this book. V Castro is definitely an author to be paying attention to for a fresh female perspective in horror fiction. I seriously can't think of anything I didnt enjoy about this book and horror fans will want to buy and read this book as soon as it releases.

Brilliantly layered and steeped in Mexican culture and folklore with a side of Aztec myth, this Urban legend begins as a tale of revenge but evolves into something more.

I love, love reading a book that plays in two different timelines and this one tells the story of Milagros in 1952 and Belinda’s story in 2019. Milagros’s story is heart-wrenching and brutally honest while Belinda’s is flawed and redeeming. In QUEEN OF THE CICADAS, V. Castro delivers a great urban legend while addressing horrors that marginalized people face presently.

V. Castro is a top-notch storyteller and this novel is incredibly powerful with some of the most terrifying and original scenes of the year. The Queen of the Cicadas is a novel that spans decades and weaves together the story of Belinda and Hector as they investigate the legend of La Reina de Las Chicharras and Milagros, a 1950s South Texas farm worker. It’s an emotional story that sticks with you long after you read the final page and is easily one of the best books of the year.

Death is hardly the end for Milagros, a murdered migrant laborer turned urban legend, in V. Castro's The Queen of the Cicadas. Tortured to death in the late 1950s on the farmstead where she briefly lived and worked, her spirit now haunts the refurbished farm-turned-hotel. Belinda learns of Milagros while staying at the hotel for a friend's wedding and becomes obsessed with the dead woman's story and the myths surrounding her, particularly that of La Reina de las Chicharras, the Queen of the Cicadas.

Making use of two timelines for much of the book allows Castro to explore Milagros's history through Belinda, who talks with and befriends hotel owner Hector, as well as the aged local priest who served the town back in the 50s. Castro spares no expense detailing Milagros's murder and the fates of her attackers in the aftermath of the woman's death as La Reina de las Chicarras delivers justice. The Queen of the Cicadas is a sort-of Candyman or Bloody Mary figure, updated here with a nifty Latinx twist.

Belinda and Hector's excavations into the past gives Castro plenty of room to deftly explore social and political issues, primarily the ways in which hate crimes were investigated, or more accurately were not, by white lawman in the '50s and how little has changed in the realm of race relations between US caucasians and Mexicans given the rise of vile and vulgar racists like Donald Trump, who established concentration camps along the US border to imprison Mexican immigrants, wherein they were routinely abused by ICE officers and some women were forced to undergo surgeries without consent or postcare treatment. That anybody in the US ever thought Trump was a suitable candidate for office of the presidency shows just how little this progressed and much farther we still have to go to grow and improve as a nation. Some of the best moments in The Queen of the Cicadas, in fact, come with seeing these racists and authoritarians get their just desserts via extrajudicial supernatural means (even if it rather localized to the Texas/Mexicos border...but god, what a dream it would be to see La Reina de las Chicarras pay a visit to Mar-a-Lago!).

The supernatural elements here are absolutely delicious and are built off Aztec mythology. I found a lot to appreciate in Castro's commentary regarding these legends and the ways they have not only been forgotten but destroyed in the white man's conquests and colonizations and replaced with Christianity. For all those (typically white America) readers who still question why, in the 21st Century, it's important to read diversely, this is why!. So much rich history has been eradicated and supplanted by centuries of genocide, and all we've been left with is homogeneous, regurgitated, whitewashed bullshit. Thank Cthulhu for Latinx authors like Castro, Cynthia Pelayo, and Gabino Iglesias, who are pushing horror forward with their challenges against a stagnant status quo and enriching this genre with their OwnVoices perspectives, infusing their tales of terror with fresh takes built of their own cultures, personal histories, and viewpoints.

It's this that ultimately makes The Queen of the Cicadas a special, and at times quite poignant, work of horror. While it does have some elements that make for easy comparisons - like the titular Candyman/Bloody Mary-esque figure - it also offers glimmers of hope for those beatdown, underdog cultures to regain their prominence and fight back against the evils that have been inflicted upon them. What begins as an urban legend grows into something far more subversive and intriguing in Castro's capable hands. Long live La Reina de las Chicarras!