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Book Reviewed by:Two teen con-artists must execute an almost impossible scam at an exclusive mansion in this thriller that's White Lotus meets Mexican Gothic - for teens.
Lola and I grew up hearing that we could become anything, but our parents hadn't meant it the way gringo parents did. They meant it as a warning.
Lola and Lisandro are actors during Hollywood's Golden Age, but you won't see them on any silver screen. Instead, these siblings use their talents to scam the rich and famous out of their ill-begotten cash. They have their act down to a science: Lola plays the tragic ghost who haunts the mansions of the wealthy, and Lisandro plays the brave spiritualist who will help her soul find peace. For a small fee, of course.
The siblings have their sights set on their next target: The Coterie, the opulent estate of newspaper tycoon Bixby Fairfax and his famous mistress Blythe Bell. A score this big will allow them to move… well, anywhere but here. But this job requires them to do something they've never done before: switch roles. And as strange things keep happening at The Coterie… things that even Lola and Lisandro can't explain.
As they are drawn deeper into The Coterie's gleaming façade and tensions rise between brother and sister, one question looms over them. Will they be able to pull off their act? Or will this be their last performance?
LOLA
I knew why people came to The Coterie.
They came for discretion. No photographs or photographers were allowed up here except for a few times a season, and only with the express permission of the resort's hosts.
They came for luxury. The sheets were fine enough that film actresses swore they prevented wrinkles. Original paintings by Goya or Gainsborough lined even the most infrequently used hallways. Rumor had it that the women bathed in champagne and the men polished their boots with it.
Perhaps most of all, they came so they could lord it over everyone else; an invitation here was so coveted that they could spend the rest of the season twisting the knife. But I suppose you had to be there. Or, Oh, but I've already said too much. We really like to keep things private up there. Or, I wish you'd been there to see it yourself.
Then there was me, the uninvited guest. I was here for revenge.
Papá always thought I had no patience. You don't know how to wait for anything, mija, he would ...
Lisandro and Lola schedule Spiritualist demonstrations at posh hotels and stage hauntings in the weeks leading up to them. Lola, in ghost makeup, makes eerie appearances, enhanced by mirrors, fake blood packets, and other props. (One of my favorite parts was reading about the special effects.) In the demonstration, Lisandro "channels" her to appear, and the hotel management is then all too eager to pay him to make her go away. The book opens as they prepare to haunt The Coterie, where they soon find a real mystery—one they have to trust outsiders to help them solve. I really loved the complexity of the characters. Lisandro and Lola can be utterly shameless in manipulating people in their acts, even stealing from the hotels and their wealthy guests. Yet, they have some hard ethical lines, such as never using their act to take advantage of the bereaved. There's clearly a lot going on in this book, plot-wise. While it seems like the many story elements could be chaotic, Anna-Marie McLemore's deft prose style means everything stays balanced. There isn't a lot of filler or info dumping to make the book more complex or challenging. Instead, there is an immediacy to the luscious language, ripe with sensory details that will pique the interest of goths of any age
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