Things We Lost in the Fire

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2016
192
Short Story • Fiction
•
Horror & Suspense•
Magical RealismPrincipally Buenos Aires, Argentina, in contemporary times, including the 1990s.
2016
Hogarth
Hardcover • 2017
Adult
18+ years
Twelve unsettling horror stories turn contemporary Argentina into a landscape where ordinary life brushes against the supernatural. Abandoned houses, black magic, urban legends, and troubled neighborhoods expose deeper fears rooted in poverty, inequality, political violence, and social neglect. Often centered on women and girls, the collection finds friendship, compassion, humor, and love amid its darkness.
Dark
Unnerving
Suspenseful
Gritty
Mysterious
69,790 ratings
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Mixed feelings
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Reviewers praise Enríquez’s fusion of supernatural horror with political, social, and environmental concerns, emphasizing that the stories remain gripping rather than merely didactic. They also admire the collection’s thematic and aesthetic unity, its strong sense of place, and its clear, propulsive prose. The principal caution is intensity: the book is gruesome, violent, and upsetting, with frequent bodily trauma. Individual stories may appeal unevenly depending on taste, although one critic maintains that none is a failure.
This collection is best for readers who enjoy literary horror, macabre imagery, and stories that unsettle rather than neatly explain themselves. Its twelve eerie, often grotesque tales place everyday terrors within contemporary Argentina, connecting supernatural unease with inequality, violence, corruption, and the memory of dictatorship. Readers drawn to horror as social criticism will find plenty to consider, while the compassion shown toward frightened and lost characters adds emotional weight. Approach with caution if disturbing material or ambiguous endings are dealbreakers.
69,790 ratings
Loved it
Mixed feelings
Not a fan
A former children’s social worker, dismissed for negligence, who moves with her husband and believes a neighboring child is chained outside.
A mischievous one-armed girl who befriends Clara and Pablo, tells wild stories about her missing arm, and shares their fascination with a derelict house.
The narrator of “Adela’s House,” Clara explores a mysterious derelict mansion alongside her older brother Pablo and their mischievous friend Adela.
Clara’s older brother and Adela’s friend, he joins the two girls in investigating the derelict mansion at the story’s center.
A district attorney who investigates police brutality and ventures into a slum while pursuing a witness connected to murdered children.
A formerly vibrant young man who, overwhelmed by depression, isolates himself in his room and communicates with others through online chat.
A Buenos Aires tour guide whose attention becomes fixed on Cayetano Santos Godino, an early-20th-century child murderer called the “Big-Eared Runt.”
192
Short Story • Fiction
•
Horror & Suspense•
Magical RealismPrincipally Buenos Aires, Argentina, in contemporary times, including the 1990s.
2016
Hogarth
Hardcover • 2017
Adult
18+ years
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