"Welcome to Buenos Aires, place of nightmares and twisted imaginings, where children come back from the dead and unearthed bones carry terrible curses."

Hailing the contemporary gothic, this collection of short stories is a beacon of urban legend. Full of witches, undead, curses and cultural superstition, its given me something to look forward to when I go to Buenos Aires in October.

I find it harder to review anthologies simply because each story has its pros and cons. Yet, Mariana Enriquez keeps this collection tight. They all follow the same theme, nightmarish and unholy, that I was unable to find anything wrong with them. I knew what to expect with each new story, the anticipation of what the characters would be like and how the story would fall out was a definite winner here.

Perhaps a critique would be that all the characters felt the same no matter the story, they were simply rehashed in a different way. Arguably, you could say the same for each of the stories in the sense that they had a certain predictability. Meat, however, was the only story that I found unpredictable. I didn't see the twist coming.

Ultimately, I've enjoyed this urban journey, a prelude if you like, and I would absolutely love to read more from Mariana Enriquez.