Loba

On the run from her abusive husband and desperate for money, Delmira Torres takes a position as a lighthouse keeper at the remote hamlet of Cabo Polonio, the easternmost point of Uruguay. There, she has only a month until her secrets catch up with her – and that salary has to be enough for her to start a new life across the border in Brazil. However, her hopes for peace are dashed. Delmira’s arrival at the lighthouse is met with aggression from gathering sea lions and wary villagers, both factions signalling her as an outsider they want gone. Her only ally is a local fisherman who guards his secrets and thoughts closely. But he cannot save her from a series of strange phenomena – the spiralling visions that plague her, the way time slips, the compulsions she feels to harm to herself and others. Nor can he see what she sees: the apparition of a young, scarred woman, desperate for Delmira’s pain. La Loba, she calls herself. Trapped on the island a century prior, her legend promises a legacy of destitution – one she vows to pass onto every lighthouse keeper who crosses into her territory. Shunned by the villagers and isolated by mania blurring her days, La Loba’s grip on Delmira’s mind tightens. She may not be first lighthouse keeper to lose her mind on the shores of Cabo Polonio. But she is determined to be the first to survive it. Loosely based on an Uruguayan legend, Loba is a historical gothic horror novel set against the backdrop of a chilling lighthouse, exploring womanhood, femininity and body autonomy from two different timelines.