Goddess of Filth

"Five of us sat in a circle doing our best to emulate the girls in The Craft, hoping to unleash some power to take us all away from our home to the place of our dreams. But we weren't witches. We were five Chicanas living in San Antonio, Texas, one year out of high school."

One hot summer night, best friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline hold a séance. It's all fun and games at first, but their tipsy laughter turns to terror when the flames burn straight through their prayer candles and Fernanda starts crawling toward her friends and chanting in Nahuatl, the language of their Aztec ancestors.

Over the next few weeks, shy, modest Fernanda starts acting strangely―smearing herself in black makeup, shredding her hands on rose thorns, sucking sin out of the mouths of the guilty. The local priest is convinced it's a demon, but Lourdes begins to suspect it's something else―something far more ancient and powerful.

As Father Moreno's obsession with Fernanda grows, Lourdes enlists the help of her "bruja Craft crew" and a professor, Dr. Camacho, to understand what is happening to her friend in this unholy tale of possession-gone-right.

V. Castro is a Mexican American author from San Antonio, Texas now residing in the UK. She is a full-time mother, a Latinx literary advocate, and co-founder of Fright Girl Summer, a platform to amplify marginalized voices. She writes Latinx novels of horror, erotic horror, and science fiction, including her most recent, Hairspray and Switchblades. Connect with Violet via Instagram and Twitter @vlatinalondon or at vcastrostories.com. You can shop V. Castro's merch at La Muerte Market and VCastroBoutique.