Loba

I’ve been on a quest to read more books set in South America, as well as more horror, and these two aims converged in Loba by Valentina Cano Repetto. Set on the coast of Uruguay, at the easternmost lighthouse in the country, it follows two timelines of a remote village. Cabo Polonio is known for its sea lions (lobos marinos), but its curse is kept secret from outsiders. In 1852, Amalia is a young woman trapped with a cruel man. She claims to be a loba (sea lion), and she needs only to find her pelt to be free of these villagers who call her crazy. A century later, in 1951, Delmira is a wife on the run from domestic abuse. Her husband is a lighthouse keeper, but she’s gone ahead of him to their next destination, in Cabo Polonio. She plans to work in the lighthouse for a month and earn enough money to escape for Brazil before her husband can stop her. But the lighthouse is a dangerous place, and La Loba will cause Delmira to go mad and succumb to death if she’s not careful.

What I Liked:

• Escaping domestic abuse. The most prominent theme in Loba is the pattern of cruelty and violence that men inflict on women. Amalia is kept in chains and barely has enough food and water to survive. Delmira has been beaten by her husband for a decade. This is a painful book to read, and I’d caution readers who are sensitive to such themes. And yet I appreciated it for its unflinching portrayal not just of the evil in this world, but of the way our two main characters fight back. Can either escape before it’s too late? When no one, not even your neighbors and so-called friends, are willing to help, how can a woman find safety and freedom?
• Disorientation of time and memory. Cabo Polonio doesn’t experience time the same way most of us do. Sometimes the hours speed up or slow down; the ocean’s tide doesn’t follow a normal schedule. The characters’ sense of reality is called into question a lot. If she sees a ship crashing into the rocks, is it really there? What about these false memories of someone else’s life pushing to the surface of her mind? Hallucinations, the so-called luz mala, the ocean as its own character… This book makes everything feel slippery and unreal, adding to the Gothic horror of this remote beach setting.
• Selkies and lost treasure. Amalia claims to be a selkie, a loba whose pelt has been kept away from her. She doesn’t belong in this human form, and she fears that she’ll lose her loba self entirely if she doesn’t return to the sea in time. No one believes her… but maybe the shipwrecked captain Diego does. He’s looking for a century-old treasure chest. Can Amalia and Diego both find what they’re looking for? Or are their aims in opposition from the start?
• Amalia and Delmira are each vividly drawn. They have a lot in common in terms of suffering abuse from men. But where Amalia is feral and describes things through her sense of nature, Delmira is cagey and focused only on escape. Amalia’s mind is faltering, whether from madness or a lost sense of self. Delmira’s been psychologically abused (in addition to physically abused), and has internalized the narrative that she’s stupid. Both women have been broken down so much, and yet each fights in her own way.
• Sea lions. I enjoyed the prominent role the sea lions (lobos) play throughout the novel. They can be dangerous, but they can be protective, too. Jacinto is the only villager who cares about them, and I loved his close connection with the animals, especially the one loba in particular.

Final Thoughts

Loba is a powerful and heartbreaking novel about cruelty, survival, and the lines between supernatural phenomena and madness. The setting and characters jump off the page, and the disorienting writing makes for a truly disturbing read. I had to take my time with this one, but the final 100 pages flew by. Check trigger warnings before reading, but if you dare, Loba is a stunning and memorable Gothic tale.

Special thanks to Angry Robot and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy Loba here – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Loba by Valentina Cano Repetto
Audience	Adult
Genre	Horror
Setting	Uruguay
Number of Pages	400
Format I Read	Ebook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	November 10, 2026
Publisher	Angry Robot

Official Summary

The Hacienda meets The Haunting of Alejandra in this split timeline gothic horror novel set in a remote lighthouse on the edge of Uruguay, following one woman’s escape from an abusive marriage… and into a haunting.

She’s not the first lighthouse keeper to lose her mind on the shores of Cabo Polonio, but she’s determined to be the first to survive it.

Delmira Torres knows fleeing to Brazil is the only way she’ll be free of her abusive husband. But to get there she’ll need money; it’s why she takes a posting at a lighthouse in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay, a small town where time doesn’t seem to move quite right.

There, she has only a month until her husband and her secrets catch up to her. But the position comes marred by the legend of La Loba, who stalks the lighthouse and the nearby fishing village, and by the spiraling visions that begin to plague Delmira.

A century earlier, Amalia arrives at the same lighthouse. Held captive and desperate to escape her dire situation, her story may hold the answers to Delmira’s torment.

Both of them, desperate for freedom and determined to survive, must find a way to outlive the horrors of Cabo Polonio.