"A house of women and shadows, built from poetry and revenge. Layla Martínez' tense, chilling novel tells a story of specters, class war, violence, and loneliness, as naturally as if the witches had dictated this lucid, terrible nightmare to Martínez themselves."
–Mariana Enriquez, author of Our Share of Night
"If you're in the mood to read a story about a haunted house that will make your skin crawl, then I cannot recommend
Woodworm by Layla Martínez enough. This book has everything, from witches to saints to angels that look like praying mantises to some of the most unsettling portrayals of ghosts that I've come across in a long time."
–Polygon
"Martinez's debut novel takes cabin fever to the max in this story of a grandmother, granddaughter, and their haunted house, set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. As the story unfolds, so do the house's secrets, the two women must learn to collaborate with the malevolent spirits living among them."
–The Millions
"Martinez debuts with a sophisticated ghost story about a former nanny suspected of involvement in a child's disappearance...breathes new life into the classic haunted house motif through her vivid exploration of generational trauma, violence, misogyny, and class. Readers won't soon forget this striking tale."
–Publishers Weekly
"Spanish author Martínez's fiction debut, succinctly co-translated by award-winning Hughes and McDermott, draws on her maternal grandmother's stories of surviving Franco's Spanish Civil War. Here, Martínez deftly alchemizes male entitlement, class privilege, and casual violence into damnable attributes."
–Booklist
"Martínez's prose is fairly straightforward with a menacing snarl....There are interesting dynamics simmering underneath, not least the palpable sense of inherited trauma and the oppressive nature of inequality....A ghost story buried in a family closet laden with skeletons and sins."
–Kirkus Reviews
"It pounces on us from the first line and doesn't let go until the last, if it lets go. The Gothic revival continues to expand and produce great works."
–Edmundo Paz Soldán, author of Norte
"Woodworm is a true literary event."
–Belén Gopegui, author of Stay This Day and Night with Me
"This book is the revenge of an intergenerational would, the embrace of barbarity, the loss of morels when trying to protect your loved ones. This book is the miserable and the wretched saying 'enough is enough.'"
–Alana S. Portero, author of Bad Habit
