Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.

She was trapped between competing desires, a desire for a more meaningful connection, and a desire to never change.

She wished for eternal youth and endless marriage.

I'm Annie Jones, owner of the bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week we're casting Sylvia Marino Garcia's Mexican Gothic.

I'm joined by two casting experts and now regular podcast contributors Courtney Kinsey from the front porch royals correspondent and co host of the podcast I do declare and Juliana Helms of at Juliana reads on Instagram and the creator of the popular Who Would You Cast Poles on Instagram? Hey guys.

Hello.

Welcome back to From the Front Porch.

Thanks.

Okay, I'm super excited to talk about this book Mexican Gothic had been on my TBR list for a long time, so this kind of gave me the push I needed to pick it up.

Juliana, why don't you before you give us the synopsis, if listeners are new, tell them what casting call is and kind of what prompted your own polls on Instagram?

Absolutely, so I have a feature on my Instagram polls every other Saturday where I do Who Would You Cast?

So I ask for my followers and fellow readers to send me two actor nominations for each of the characters in the book and I post up those two options once we've narrowed it down a bit and people vote on who they would like to see cast in that role.

It's really fun. I get a lot of submissions each week and it's fun to see how everyone envisioned the actual human being to play the characters in these books.

I love this series that you do and I find myself invested even if I haven't read the book yet.

Oh, me too, me too, especially because every now and then I slide in kind of my own recommendation. Nobody else mentioned it, but I just feel like it's spot on and I feel really invested.

Sometimes people are like 2% votes for my person.

Courtney, had you already read Mexican Gothic have you already read this?

No, but it was also on my TBR list, so I was really excited because I love a good October creepy read.

This really fit the bill for me. This was perfect. Juliana, tell us a synopsis of the book.

Absolutely. So Mexican Gothic is set in 1950s, Mexico, right outside of Mexico City.

And it follows Noemi Tabuata who's been sent to check on her recently married cousin Catalina who sends a mysterious letter claiming that her husband's ancestral home called high place is haunted and someone is poisoning her.

As Noemi spends more time in the house with the members of the Doyle family, she begins to think there might be some truth to her cousin's claim.

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