Ten years ago, I was in the midst of writing my first novel, a YA fantasy. I find it so fitting that today, I get to reveal the cover for my debut YA novel, THE HOUSE OF GARDENIAS, which releases September 29, 2026.

You can already preorder it by clicking here!

Of all my novels, THE HOUSE OF GARDENIAS hews the closest to its original story seed. In the summer of 2020, I had a nightmare about a young woman in a haunted house who befriended a somewhat monstrous ghost. While the plot took me years to unravel, the premise became itself almost immediately as I began writing: a Gothic fantasy set in an unnamed Latin American country, about a pragmatic, scrappy girl, a house full of ghosts, and a society grappling with an oppressive viceroy and a violent past. Here’s the official blurb:

Despite near-constant political violence in the city and an abusive father at home, Minerva Treviño’s cowardice has kept her alive for sixteen years. But even she has a limit. Unable to take another beating or miss another meal, Minerva musters enough courage to flee to a neighborhood full of rich people loyal to the deposed fascist viceroy and take a job as lady’s maid to a wealthy widow.

Minerva is happy serving Encarnación del Valle. She has food in her belly and the safety of a warm house lit by magical chispa. Why should she care who runs the country or how her employer affords the magic?

When the viceroy sweeps back into power, Encarnación gleefully retreats to the family’s mountainside estate to wait out the inevitable slaughter of the viceroy’s enemies—and of course Minerva may join her. At la Casa de las Gardenias, Minerva is surrounded by more experienced servants and the cruel, scheming del Valles. But the living residents of the house are the least of anyone’s worries, and Minerva quickly discovers that the ancient estate is home to forces far older and more bloodthirsty than anything she could have imagined.

PREORDER THE HOUSE OF GARDENIAS

This book was enormously difficult to write. I sold it on proposal in the summer of 2022 and kept drafting and revising it in spurts in between cross-country moves, having a child, losing my beloved grandparents back to back, and having another child.

It reflects a time of enormous personal transformation that was neither comfortable nor without pain. It also reflects the time in which it was written. The country in which I live has taken a turn into a dark chapter of its history, and the powerlessness and rage I feel has one outlet: my fiction.

I am so grateful to my editor, Andrew Karre, who helped shepherd it into its final shape with compassion and a sharp critical eye. I think I would have abandoned it long ago without him on board.

This novel is the project that taught me that no book is truly broken—I simply need to level up my craft to meet it eye to eye. THE HOUSE OF GARDENIAS became as voicey, brutal, and bittersweet as I hoped it would be. I cannot wait to share it with you all.

one last preorder link before we go

isabel xxxx