Every now and then, I pick up a book for research and end up getting completely swallowed by the story. That is exactly what happened with Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez.

I went into this book for two reasons. First, Muñeca takes place in 1968, which is the same time frame as The Forgotten Bruja, the second book in my Las Cerradoras series. Second, I wanted to see if it could work as a comp title for my own story.

After reading it, the answer is absolutely yes.

Muñeca is a perfect comp title for The Forgotten Bruja, not because the stories are the same, but because they are speaking to each other in that beautifully haunted way gothic stories tend to do. Both stories follow queer women of color living in a time when being queer is not only frowned upon, but punished. That kind of silence is not passive. It is survival. It shapes how a character moves, what they say, what they hide, what they want, and what freedom looks like to them.

And Cynthia Gómez portrays that with so much honesty.

The 1968 setting in Muñeca does more than place the story in a specific year. It creates pressure. It creates consequence. It helps the reader understand the obstacles already waiting for the main character before the horror even fully reveals itself. The world itself is a threat. The rules of the time are a threat. The expectations placed on women, queer people, and women of color are a threat.

That is something I paid close attention to as a writer.

In Muñeca, the main character sets out with a clear motivation: save an heiress from a curse in exchange for money, so she can finally have the freedom to leave and live somewhere else. Somewhere she can breathe. Somewhere she does not have to keep shrinking herself to survive.

That motivation immediately reminded me of Isadora in The Forgotten Bruja. Isadora returns to Ohio in 1968 with one goal: bury her mother, sign whatever paperwork needs to be signed, and return to France, where she has built a life that feels closer to freedom. She does not come back looking for answers. She does not come back looking for magic. She definitely does not come back looking to reopen the wounds her family left behind.

But gothic stories love to ruin a woman’s plans.

In both Muñeca and The Forgotten Bruja, the main character believes she is stepping into one story, only to discover she is tangled in something much older, much deeper, and much more personal than she expected. In Muñeca, what begins as an attempt to break a curse becomes a reckoning with family lineage, inherited magic, and the ways power can be twisted by those who use it.

One of the key differences between the two stories is how magic functions. In Muñeca, the magic carries a nefarious weight. It has been tainted, particularly through the way the main character’s grandmother uses and executes it. There is something dangerous and corrupted in that inheritance.

In The Forgotten Bruja, the magic is different. It is not inherently nefarious. It has been buried. Forgotten. Lost through silence, trauma, and time. That magic has to be uncovered and relearned, which brings a different kind of ache to the story.

Still, both books share that sharp emotional thread of a queer woman trying to run toward freedom while the past reaches for her ankles.

And that is where Muñeca shines.

This book is short, but it is packed with substance. Every word feels intentional. There is no wasted space, no filler, no wandering around just to make the story longer. Cynthia Gómez and her editing team did such a strong job making sure the story stays tight while still giving the reader atmosphere, tension, longing, dread, and emotional weight.

I read it in one sitting because I did not want to put it down. I did not want to step away and risk losing the thread of the story. I wanted to stay inside the haunting. I wanted to know how everything connected. I wanted to see how the curse, the romance, the family history, and the horror would all come together.

And it delivered.

Muñeca is a 5-star read for me. It is queer, gothic, eerie, romantic, and unsettling in all the right ways. It is for readers who love horror with family secrets, forbidden romance, complicated magic, and women who are trying to survive worlds that were never built to let them be free.

If you love queer gothic horror, weird girl lit, cursed family legacies, forbidden romance, and stories where the past refuses to stay buried, Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez needs to be on your list.

This is one of those stories I know I will keep thinking about for a long time.