The description is slightly misleading. This is not a murder mystery, it’s just these two women swapping stories, and somehow they connect because we’re all the same. 
The title is also misleading, as anytime they are referred to as witches, it’s denied, and equated to as gifts from god. 
Not sure if the translation was lazy, or maybe it is how it is originally written, but there is way too much repetition throughout the story, and same scenes. 

I listened to this audiobook on Everand.

Brief Summary: Zoe is a journalist investigating the murder of Paloma, a transwoman from a family of Indigenous healers. To learn more of the story Zoe travels to meet Paloma's cousin Feliciana. However, as Zoe interviews Feliciana she begins to reevaluate her relationships with her sister and mother. As Zoe and Feliciana's stories weave together Zoe begins to realize the power of her voice.

Thoughts: This book was captivating and I binged it in an entire sitting. I particularly like the dual perspectives, where Zoe's was told in a direct and edited fashion and Feliciana's was a more free-flowing stream of consciousness indicative of its interview formatting. It highlighted how Zoe is constricted by the expectations of society, while Feliciana is not. It also made Feliciana's story and by extension, Paloma's story more intense emotionally, while Zoe's was more reflective and therapeutic.     

This was definitely a lot different than what I was expecting. It's very different from the description. I was expecting a story within a story format of Feliciana telling her stories to Zoe. But this is really two parallel narratives: Feliciana telling stories about her life and Zoe telling stories about hers. And narratives doesn't quite seem like the right word either. It's more like a series of vignettes. Both characters told stories mostly about their families. A lot about their sisters. There is a lot of talk of magic and healing in the stories. A lot of repetition of names and facts and moments throughout the stories. It was really interesting, but again. Extremely different from the summary I read.

Some notes: I have no idea why this is shelved as horror. I did not get any horror vibes from this at all. That was one slight disappointment because that was one of the things that made me want to read it. However, not the book's fault. I don't think it was meant to be horror. I just don't know why people shelved it there. Also, there are some chapters in the middle of the book that deal pretty heavily with rape so beware of that going in

This book was my first book in my customized subscription from my local bookstore, so I knew nothing about it when I picked it up. They did a great job picking it for me though, because I really loved it!

There was so much about this book that resonated with me. I've really fallen in love with reading books in translation in general over the past few years as I've gotten back into reading as a hobby. I particularly love the bittersweet feeling of something missing, like I understood and loved this story, but I also can tell that if I were fluent in the language AND the culture, there is richness that is just out of my grasp. I love that meta aspect of this book in particular about the multiple layers of translation at play here, where I am reading the book translated from Spanish to English, and one of the characters is giving her narration through an interpreter. The translator note at the beginning of the book was a great touch, I loved the insight about how she views her role as translator and her thought process on which words should stay in the original language. 

I was surprised to see in other reviews that folks found the narration difficult to follow. I usually am a bit picky about first person narration and was a little worried when I realized this would be alternating first person chapters. The voices for the two women are SO distinct though that it was not a problem at all for me. I suspect if I were listening to the audiobook, I might have a harder time unless they used two narrators. I never tired of the the rhythm of the language though in Feliciana's sections. It's like poetry, and I could tell the work that the translator put into it.

While overall I really enjoyed the slow contemplative pace of the book, I do think the second half of the book struggled a little bit with pacing. At about 75% of the way through, I started to feel a little bit of restlessness like "okay we're getting towards the end of the book here, is there any present-tense plot at all, or is this entire story a backward looking reflection for both of these women?" A couple of the chapters towards the end also felt like a very quick wrapping up of loose ends. But, the very last moments of the book really wrapped everything together SO beautifully and I just really enjoyed it.

I have so much I could say about this book. I found Zoe as a character to be SO relatable, and the blend of contemporaneous modern life and indigenous culture to showcase the similarities and parallels in their high level life story was so beautifully done. Read this book if you enjoy slow-moving contemplative character studies steeped in culture, poetic language, and reflections on how we are all connected.

Good book but way too difficult to follow.