An Immaculate Deception by Isabela Livino
Dutton (September 2026)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
I could come up with a dozen comp titles for Isabela Livino’s An Immaculate Deception, including Mexican Gothic, Rebecca, Rosemary’s Baby, The Hacienda, Psycho, Blood on Her Tongue, Carrie, and The Woman in Black. That doesn’t mean this story isn’t original; rather, there’s something here for every gothic fiction and horror fan. There’s black magic, ritualistic practices, the overbearing and controlling mother trope, and a box full of ghastly, bloody secrets.
Set in 1870s Brazil, Livino’s debut Gothic horror story follows Madalena, a woman raised in a deeply religious household by a very Margaret White-esque mother. When Madalena falls pregnant, her mother says if she doesn’t marry the father, Leandro, she must surrender the baby. Leandro is loving and kind, and Madalena is certain he will propose. But just as she’s about to tell him the news, a violent storm sends their carriage off the road.
Madalena awakens in Leandro’s isolated, mysterious home under the care of the very strange Doctor Lobodo. In the disorienting days that follow, Leandro is physically present but distant, his eyes missing the charm she’d come to love, and he looks as if he’d just come back from the dead. Madalena has this nagging feeling that Leandro is keeping things from her. In this, we get the incredible mystery element that gothic horror fans love, where unsettling details stack into a wavering tower of revelations that will inevitably fall.
Gothic horror and historical fiction fans reading this review, this is so up your alley. An Immaculate Deception is one of the most unputdownable books I’ve read this year. Sanity and a web of secrets simultaneously unravel into a masterful twist that even the mothers of the gothic horror genre, like Daphne du Maurier, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Shirley Jackson, would be proud of, and readers won’t soon forget.
Atmospheric and unsettling, An Immaculate Deception is a new blood-red gem in the gothic horror genre and a new personal favorite that will forever be among titles I list when asked for gothic book recommendations.
