Book Review: Tiny Threads by Lilliam Rivera

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

Tiny Threads by Lilliam Rivera

Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Genre: Horror, Paranormal

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Del Rey (September 24, 2024)

Length: 256 pages

Author Information: Website

The fashion industry meets creepy paranormal in Tiny Threads by Lilliam Rivera, a novel that merges elements of gothic horror with West Coast glam. It’s a book that first piqued my interest when it was pitched as Get Out meets Black Swan meets The Devil Wears Prada, but I believe it works better as an atmospheric slow-burn suspense thriller than a true supernatural horror.

The story centers on Samara, a young Cuban American woman who has left her tightly knit family behind in New Jersey to pursue her dream job in glitzy and sunny California. It is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to work with the legendary designer Antonio Mota, who has established a new headquarters in Vernon with an aim to transform it into a fashion hub that could rival New York City. But Samara has another, more personal reason for wanting to work with Antonio. Decades ago, her late grandmother, a new immigrant, had built her own reputation as a skilled seamstress in Vernon. By returning to the place where her grandmother’s journey began, Samara hopes to feel a deeper connection to the woman she still mourns.

At first, her new life is everything she’s ever wished for. Samara quickly becomes Antonio’s rising star, earning his trust and admiration. Her days are spent helping him develop his brand’s new collection and shape his vision, while her nights are filled with corporate events and parties where she makes influential business connections. Very soon, however, her star begins to fade. Her new apartment keeps her awake with strange noises, and her dreams become increasingly unsettled. The overall atmosphere in Vernon also feels off—especially the lingering stench hanging over the entire town from its long-established slaughterhouse—casting a shadow over the plans to turn it into a fashion hotspot. Things at work begin to deteriorate as well. Antonio’s relentless demands begin to take their toll on his team, and Samara struggles to keep up with deadlines, earning disappointment from her colleagues. To make matters worse, bizarre incidents at work leave her with the chilling sensation that someone or something is haunting her.

There are many things Tiny Threads does well. With her prose, Rivera superbly sets a foreboding and almost claustrophobic tone for her story, especially in its descriptions of Vernon, an industrial setting where the fashion house is trying to flourish. There’s a pervasive sense that this was always going to be an uphill battle. For one thing, a class divide is present, and neither the blue-collar workforce nor the very culture of the town itself seem ready for the new fashion wave to take hold. There’s a sense that something is deeply wrong beneath the surface, in Vernon but also in Samara’s own mind. She experiences weird things at home, at work, and even outside her apartment building, leaving you wondering if these encounters are real or merely a reflection of her rapidly destabilizing mental state.

With its themes, Tiny Threads also attempts to comment on the dynamics of race, class, and power. At times, though, this can feel a bit heavy-handed. Samara herself often appears fixated with inequality and exploitation, and while these are important issues to explore, this tendency to let them define the way she sees the world or interacts with others can be very distracting. It also makes her character less convincing as the focused and ambitious woman the story tries to paint her as, not to mention it pulls attention away form the main plot and the eerie mystery of the supernatural events surrounding her. In addition, Samara’s desire to reconcile her identity as a minority Latina woman in the fashion industry is constantly and frustratingly waylaid by her excessive drinking, general immaturity and naivety, as well an inability to separate her personal life from her professional one.

Perhaps not surprisingly, pacing was uneven in places. The beginning of the book moves pretty fast, but the middle flounders and becomes repetitive as we follow Samara through her day-to-day life. Tensions aren’t being built quickly or engagingly enough, and when the supernatural elements finally do kick in near the end, it feels a little messy and rushed. Sometimes the novel seems confused as to what it wants to be—a gothic ghost story, or a psychological thriller? It tries to juggle both at once but isn’t really hitting all its goals. What you end up with is something more like a slow, simmering paranormal suspense mystery. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn’t quite resemble what the blurb is trying to get at.

Still, with the right expectations, Tiny Threads can be a brilliant read. While the horror doesn’t fully materialize, and some of its more genius moments can be hampered by wonky pacing, the novel excels in rich atmosphere and themes. I think it would be worth picking up for fans of slow-burn paranormal and psychological suspense stories.