The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto

February 1, 2023
When Rafa Alvarez and his two best friends decide to bring their favorite role-playing game into the real world, the consequences become just as real. Between his father's strict nature and his mother's worsening illness, Cuban American Rafa has retreated into playing The Forgotten Age with Beto and Yesi. However, after they attempt to steal a slushie machine from the school cafeteria as part of the game, Dad decides Rafa would best learn his lesson by spending a month on a ranch...all the way across the country from Florida in New Mexico. When Rafa arrives at Rancho Espanto, or Terror Ranch, he forms new friendships with Korean American Jennie Kim, the librarian's daughter, and Black barn manager Marcus Coleman, an army veteran. But when a strange man in a green sweater begins to appear, causing chaos for Rafa, the seemingly sedate ranch becomes the site of an exciting--and slightly terrifying--mystery to solve. Together, Rafa and Jennie work to uncover the strange (possibly paranormal) happenings at Rancho Espanto. While the mystery lies at the core of this novel, the exploration of themes of loss, grief, and identity add complexity. Readers familiar with these subjects will see themselves in Rafa as he struggles to come to terms with and understand his mother's condition and build his own identity. An intriguing mystery with a satisfying emotional payoff. (Mystery. 8-12)

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 15, 2023
Grades 4-7 Cuevas' riveting middle-grade novel follows Rafa, a Cuban American boy who is sent off to a ranch in New Mexico as punishment for a school-prank fiasco with his friends. When Rafa gets to the ranch, he discovers that little is what it seems, and there are more mysteries afoot than he expected from a boring detention job. Rafa usually finds comfort in his favorite role-playing game, the Forgotten Age, but when the very same game and a slushy-machine heist gone wrong results in disaster and punishment, he must learn to establish new friendships and apply hard work in the real world. Readers will relate readily to Rafa's easygoing, creative, voice-y narration and sympathize with him when he is sent far from home to meditate on his actions. As the emotional clues and multiple time lines and multiverses swirl around him at the eerie ranch, Rafa and his new friends must unravel the truth behind the mysterious figure haunting Rancho Espanto and sabotaging Rafa's hard work, learning in the process much more about themselves and their priorities than they originally expected. In a twist that is equal parts haunting and poignant, readers of all ages will be compelled to reflect upon their own lives and legacies after this gripping read.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 27, 2023
Ten-year-old Cuban American Rafa Alvarez and his friends Beto and Yesi, who are obsessed with the fantasy tabletop role-playing game The Forgotten Age, take the adventure out of doors and into the real world in this boisterous telling by Cuevas (Cuba in My Pocket). When a prank they pull as part of their game goes wrong, Rafa’s father sends him from Florida to New Mexico, to spend a month helping Marcus Coleman, an old college friend, run Rancho Espanto—Terror Ranch. There, Rafa meets Marcus, a Black Army veteran turned barn manager, and affable Korean American Jennie Kim, the snack-obsessed daughter of the local librarian. Rafa slowly acclimates to the ranch’s sedate lifestyle, which helps him process his mother’s worsening cancer. But a stranger in a green jacket, believing the ranch to be haunted, pressures him to leave, even going so far as to frame Rafa for vandalism around the ranch, which puts the youth at odds with his new friends. Via Rafa’s vulnerable first-person narration, Cuevas crafts a whirlwind mystery populated by a compassionate community of lovable characters with effervescent personalities, to explore themes of grief, healing, and PTSD with tenderness and well-timed humor. Ages 8–12.

March 1, 2023
Cuevas (The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez; Cuba in My Pocket, rev. 11/21) presents another humorous, sensitive, and compelling story, with hints of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Rafael, a twelve-year-old Cuban American from Miami, likes to lose himself in role-playing games with his friends. These extended fantasy adventures help him forget how much his life has changed since his mother became ill. After a game-based prank goes badly, his father sends him away for the summer to Rancho Espanto in New Mexico. There Rafa makes new friends while working as a ranch hand, but still living mostly in his fantasy world. When he encounters what he believes is a ghost and has glimpses of alternate realities, Rafa must confront his own "ghosts" and deal with his fears in real life. The character experiences northern New Mexico through a newcomer's eyes, and Cuevas's descriptions of grooming horses, hiking in canyons, and eating green chilies are vivid and immediate. The author incorporates Cuban Spanish words and phrases naturally into the narrative. Topics of illness, death, anxiety, and PTSD give this book some depth but do not overwhelm the story or detract from its appeal to a diverse ­audience. Lara K. Aase

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

October 27, 2023

Gr 3-7-In this intriguing paranormal fantasy-mystery, 12-year-old Cuban American Rafael "Rafa" and his best friends' harebrained scheme to steal their school's slushy machine lands them in trouble. Rafa is banished from Miami to a Santa Fe, NM, ranch for the summer that's an artists' retreat, a scientists' research center, and potentially haunted. His first day there Rafa sees cows in the canyon that no one else seems to see, and a strange man who tells Rafa that he shouldn't be there. Assigned to help Black barn manager Marcus, a military vet, Rafa is blamed when the horses escape the corral. With help from his only peer on the ranch-purple-braided, talkative Korean American Jennie Kim, daughter of the ranch librarian-Rafa investigates some very odd and inexplicable incidents. Jennie tells him about the outlaw cattle-rustling brothers who lived in the canyon in the 1800s and reputedly still haunt it. They suspect one of brothers' ghosts is behind these strange occurrences. Their investigation leads them into a dangerous and otherworldly paradox. Beyond the story's scary, mysterious, and humorous aspects, it sensitively explores the characters' invisible scars from illness, PTSD, death, grief, and anxiety. VERDICT The emotional resonance for readers in this appealing story is in how Rafa and other characters come to terms with transformative events in their lives in a very real and relatable way.-Sharon Rawlins

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2023
Cuevas (The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez; Cuba in My Pocket, rev. 11/21) presents another humorous, sensitive, and compelling story, with hints of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Rafael, a twelve-year-old Cuban American from Miami, likes to lose himself in role-playing games with his friends. These extended fantasy adventures help him forget how much his life has changed since his mother became ill. After a game-based prank goes badly, his father sends him away for the summer to Rancho Espanto in New Mexico. There Rafa makes new friends while working as a ranch hand, but still living mostly in his fantasy world. When he encounters what he believes is a ghost and has glimpses of alternate realities, Rafa must confront his own "ghosts" and deal with his fears in real life. The character experiences northern New Mexico through a newcomer's eyes, and Cuevas's descriptions of grooming horses, hiking in canyons, and eating green chilies are vivid and immediate. The author incorporates Cuban Spanish words and phrases naturally into the narrative. Topics of illness, death, anxiety, and PTSD give this book some depth but do not overwhelm the story or detract from its appeal to a diverse audience.

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)