Hello friends, happy Wednesday, I hope you’re all having a good week so far! Today I’m going to be posting my review of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novel Velvet Was the Night.

This book was nominated for the long-list Canada Reads 2022.

Velvet Was the Night by: Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Maite is a secretary who keeps a low profile and loves to escape the political unrest of the city by reading romance novels. When her neighbour, Leonora, mysteriously disappears, Maite finds herself caught in the rush to find her. Only, she’s not the only one looking for Leonora, Elvis, a criminal who loves to escape his own life, is too. This novel was a whirlwind to read. So much happened in what felt like such a short amount of time; the reader felt like if you blinked you missed something. The fast-paced-ness of it all really helped keep the reader in the story; if this was told slower, it would have been less engaging and harder to keep up with. Moreno-Garcia is a gifted writer; she has this poetic magnetism to her writing that puts a spell on the reader because her words are so captivating. Her characters could be doing something so mundane, but she makes it seem exciting. Her one main character is meant to be this boring secretary, but she feels anything but boring; she’s given these small quirks that make her rather interesting and memorable. She’s probably more memorable than any of the characters; she is obviously given more depth but even the other main character is unforgettable. Told from the point of view of two different characters. At first it was hard to figure how they were connected, and for a little bit the reader was convinced they didn’t come together, but patience and everything started to unfold in the craziest way. The plots were exciting and engrossing; it was truly never a dull moment. The back and forth points of view really helped with the pace and was really great storytelling. The description of this being like Pulp Fiction was very accurate; this was just as high-octane and entertaining.