“The villa, once beloved, was better left behind in all its tragedies.” You can try to escape a family curse, but in the end the sins of your past will always find you. A young woman named Sophie becomes a reluctant witness to just this sort of Gothic reckoning in The Villa, Once Beloved by Victor Manibo, which came out back in November. I loved Victor’s debut sci-fi thriller The Sleepless, so when I heard he was writing a Gothic novel set in his homeland of the Philippines, I knew I had to check it out! The Villa, Once Beloved does a beautiful job of blending classic Gothic tropes with Filipino folklore, a suffocating tropical setting, and the region’s dark history of colonialism and political corruption. Continue reading Review of The Villa, Once Beloved—Filipino Gothic