Celestina’s House is steeped in ghosts and memories that haunt three generations of a family. Celestina fearlessly confronts her own demons, and mala, along with devastating family secrets. This is a skilfully written and searingly honest story that you will not forget.
Kim Echlin, author of Speak, Silence
Transporting us to a Manila of dark romance and ghosts, Celestina's House is a gothic novel that reminds us how the past is never wholly escapable. Rich and sweeping and literally haunting.
Andrew Pyper, author of The Residence and The Demonologist
A finely wrought and richly textured intergenerational saga that weaves a family’s history and stories into a deeply felt meditation on love, grief, and loss. Celestina’s House is a rare, beautiful, and moving narrative of a young woman’s search for love, truth and self amid obstacles, trials and impossible odds. A ravishing and astonishing debut.
Patria Rivera, author of Puti/White
An ornately detailed, decadent, and erotic world inhabited by a fascinating array of characters, both despicable and heroic, a world that needs to be visited and savoured.
Aga Maksimowska, author of Giant
A rich, dark, and singular story of haunted love and incurable loss you won’t soon forget.
Cindy Fazzi, author of Multo
With a lush, tropical setting, an entrancing protagonist, and swirling ghosts that guide and subvert, Clarissa Trinidad Gonzalez has crafted a darkly romantic, immersive world.
Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio, author of Reuniting with Strangers
Where the novel comes alive is in its display of Filipino culture. Gonzalez, who now lives in Toronto, makes Manila and its environs vibrant on the page. The country is complicated and has problems, but it is also physically gorgeous and has layers upon layers of traditions from the Filipino to the Catholic spirits that inform actions to the unbelievable variety of food to the multitudes of languages to popular culture.
Candace Fertile, Maple Tree Literary Supplement