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The coalescence of a literary fiction dealing with grief and a horror story describes Gus Moreno's debut novel This Thing Between Us. It starts with the line:
Your parents wouldn't let me bury you in a tree pod, mostly your mom.

And throughout the book Thiago speaks to his wife, Vera as he moves backwards and forwards through his tale. I found the first part of the book stunning, in a kind of yank my heart out way. The writing is modern, edgy, beautiful and filled with the pain of grief.

As it starts with Vera's funeral he writes:

That cousin. The one whose two boys both had sunken Richard Ramirez eyes. It looked like the oldest one was forced to write something. He wrote, “Sory tio and tia that Vera died but life is life.� It was like he reached into my head and turned off the spigot. Instead of wiping away tears, I was laughing. I was gripping the back of the pew. Life is life. You had to be so inexperienced and emotionally dulled by YouTube channels to point out such an obvious truth and not recognize the lack of sympathy that went into it. At a wake. Leaving it for the parents and husband of the deceased to read....

I knew right away it would have been the thing we’d have said to each other as a joke if we’d read it at someone else’s wake. Life is life. If one of us overdrew from our account. Life is life. If your mom begged you to visit her and then spent the whole time criticizing you. Life is life. If you missed the train and your phone died. Life is life. Shorthand for Shit happens, get over it.

As he goes through his wife's funeral and his life preceding, we begin to see some of the horror that is building. They have cold spots in their condo, their Itza ( a kind of "Alexa" made by the mega international company Sahara) begins placing orders on its own and doing other strange things.

We eventually move into full on horror mode, which speaking frankly, I don't read. I am not an expert. I did recognize that he tipped his hat to other horror authors and film makers. We have a nod to Stephen King with a Saint Bernard like Cujo, but others I am much less sure of. In the end, I wasn't sure if it was a carefully crafted puzzle that I failed to put together or random bits of spaghetti that stuck to the wall in interesting, entertaining and artful fashion.

I want more writing from Gus Moreno and I hope he moves outside of the horror genre.

I don't read horror, either. But your review tempts me.

Jgrace wrote: "I don't read horror, either. But your review tempts me."

The first part was so excellent. The second I could imagine in a horror film.

I also wanted to let people know that he wrote it because he was coping with the grief for his sister-in-law and was having a tough time dealing with it. In his Acknowledgements he says:

"And so, Carol. This book doesn’t exist without you, and I’d like to think you’d take credit for it, telling people it was your book, how I couldn’t get one published without you. Thank you for my niece and nephews. Thank you for always being yourself. Whatever of you is in this book, there’s more in my head, even more in your husband and children, in Jonathan, the Luques, your comadres, your students, your brothers and parents, and on and on. May we never do you justice. May there always be more to say."

Jgrace wrote: "I don't read horror, either. But your review tempts me."

So, I found a review on NPR which is quite good and got some things which I had missed about the book and also about tips of the hat to other horror books.

This may help decide you about reading it.

For the most part< I will say it didn't scare me or freak me out or keep me from sleeping which horror books and movies sometimes do.