Notes from the Shelf

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The Possession of Alba Diaz by Isabel Cañas – Grim & Unsettling
Genre: Horror
Pages: 384
Rating:  ★★★★★
Buy: Bookshop.org

This post contains spoilers.

Book Blurb

When a demonic presence awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn’t trust… from bestselling author Isabel Cañas.

In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong.

Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can’t help but notice her every time she enters a room or the growing tension between them… and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood grows stronger.

My Thoughts

The Possession of Alba Diaz hooked me from the very start. There’s something magnetic about the writing that immediately pulls you into its darkness. It didn’t end quite how I expected… until it suddenly did. The story twists itself into something dark and unexpected, and by the time I reached the final pages, I realized it had been circling back toward that ending all along.

This book is grisly and haunting, but in a purposeful way. As the story unfolds, you can almost feel the shadows creeping in, closing the walls tighter and tighter around Alba. The atmosphere builds with quiet dread, and the deeper I got, the less certain I was about who could be trusted. The line between friend and foe blurs until the only person Alba can truly rely on is herself.

At its core, The Possession of Alba Diaz is about power, autonomy, and what it costs a woman to claim both. It’s a story about what a woman has to become in order to live life on her own terms, even if the world calls her a monster for it. By the end, that transformation feels both terrifying and liberating.

Dark, unsettling, and emotionally charged, this book delivers more than just a horror story; it’s a sharp look at the price of freedom and the danger of underestimating a woman determined to survive.

Final Thoughts

The tension, the uncertainty, and the darkness slowly creeping in made it impossible to put down, and Alba’s journey is as thought-provoking as it is chilling. The Possession of Alba Diaz is perfect for readers who enjoy horror that’s as much about psychology and character as it is about scares. By the end, it leaves you thinking about freedom, autonomy, and what it truly means to survive — and maybe even what it means to become a little monstrous along the way.

If you like books by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Rachel Harrison, or other dark, psychologically rich horror stories, this one is worth adding to your TBR.

If you want to check out ‘The Possession of Alba Diaz’, consider purchasing it through Bookshop.org. Supporting this link helps sustain independent bookstores and keeps this blog thriving.

Read Other Horror Reviews:
Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

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