Tiny Threads brings together a psychological horror novel that deals with corporate greed, the fallout of gentrification, the marginalization of people of color, and the inherent misogyny in the fashion industry. Rivera summarizes it best. “The factories have been poisoning brown communities for decades while powerful men believe that their sexual predations are right. Truth can always be found in the horrific.”
Tiny Threads By Lilliam Rivera – Book Review by Debra K Every
I love me a slow burn horror novel and Tiny Threads by Lilliam Rivera hits all the right notes. Up until now, Rivera has been known as a writer of young adult novels, middle grade books and even a graphic novel. Tiny Threads is her debut in the adult arena and we are all the luckier for it.
Tiny Threads is the story of twenty-year-old Cuban-American, Samara Martín, excited to leave her New Jersey home for Los Angeles where her dream job in the fashion industry is waiting. She will be working for the legendary designer, Antonio Mora.
But one by one, her preconceived notions are destroyed, as reality—and beyond—take hold.
The Los Angeles where Samara imagined herself living, turns out to be the city of Vernon located on its outskirts; an industrial town built around a slaughterhouse that is the source of Vernon perfume—a stench of death spewed from the factory’s smokestacks. Antonio Mora located his company in what he believed was a soon-to-be gentrified neighborhood. The juxtaposition of a slaughterhouse with all its inherent images (and smells) side-by-side with an haute couture fashion house catering to the wealthy, is a brilliant set-up for this novel, both narratively and metaphorically.
As for the fashion, itself…the author has managed to create a wholly distinctive line that is in keeping with the dark, foreboding of the novel. If there is any book where illustrations would be welcome it’s Tiny Threads. I wanting to see these designs; violent, visceral-inducing expressions of rage.
Samara realizes all too quickly that the shining star of Mora’s early career has waned.
And there is no one more aware of that than Mora himself, with his mercurial temper and tendencies to abuse all who are around him. The stakes of his next show are make-or-break. Mora knows it. His staff knows it. And Samara is kept in a vice of pressure to produce a show that needs to rock the fashion industry.
As her pressures increase, Samara turns, more and more, to drink. It starts with a glass of wine at night. Then a bottle. Then a splash of vodka added to her morning coffee. Which turns into more. It’s not just the pressures of her workplace that are affecting her. It’s the visions. The sounds. The dreams. She is regularly woken at 2AM to the sound of…rats? Or is it something else?
Tiny Threads, yes, is a horror novel but Rivera is grappling with something more.
She’s interested in examining what happens when greed moves into a community as she explores how deeply the people are affected, not only with their inability to afford where they live but with the way their environment has been polluted and even the way they are treated. This community has been cowed by the wealth that is moving in. They feel less-than in their own homes, beaten down.
Lilliam Rivera’s craft is on full display as she adeptly imbues her novel with a sense of dread. The build-up is slow and patient—something that takes a lot of courage and discipline for a horror author to embrace. By the time we get to the second half of the book, we are rewarded with a train wreck of classic horror. If there was anything I could have wished for, it was to have more at the end. The overall pacing was so carefully calibrated that the ending felt abrupt. But that is only because I was so invested in the tale that Rivera wove.
Tiny Threads brings together a psychological horror novel that deals with corporate greed, the fallout of gentrification, the marginalization of people of color, and the inherent misogyny in the fashion industry. Rivera summarizes it best. “The factories have been poisoning brown communities for decades while powerful men believe that their sexual predations are right. Truth can always be found in the horrific.”
Fans of a slow-build, socially conscious horror novel will love Tiny Threads.
Tiny Threads By Lilliam Rivera
In this gorgeously sinister novel of supernatural suspense, a young woman gets her dream job working for a famous designer–and discovers the dark side of the glamorous world of fashion.
Fashion-obsessed Samara finally has the life she’s always dreamed of: A high-powered job with legendary designer Antonio Mota. A new home in sunny California, far away from those drab Jersey winters. And an intriguing love interest, Brandon, a wealthy investor in Mota’s fashion line.
But it’s not long before Samara’s dream life begins to turn into a living nightmare as Mota’s big fashion show approaches and the pressure on her turns crushing. Perhaps that’s why she begins hearing voices in her room at night–and seeing strange things that can’t be explained away by stress or anxiety or the number of drinks she’s been consuming.
And it may not be just Samara imagining things as her psyche unravels, because she soon discovers hints that her new city–and the House of Mota–may be built on a foundation of secrets and lies. Now Samara must uncover what hideous truths lurk in the shadows of this illusory world of glamour and beauty before those shadows claim her.