THE HOUSE DREAMS OF BIRTH & DEATH.When the Velasquez family moves into a quaint adobe home surrounded by forest, it's the beginning of Isela's dream life. Isela Velasquez is a pathological liar with strange impulses that terrorize her at night. She wants the perfect family, but she regrets becoming a mother.Olivia Velasquez is four years old when she first meets the house. Spending most of her days alone, Olivia befriends the house and looks after it. At night, the house whispers into Olivia's dreams, creating a bond between them.The house takes on a maternal role after it gives birth to a brand new room. An immaculate conception, turning the two-bedroom house into a three-bedroom home. The new room lures Isela inside and shows her pieces of herself that she's refused to look at in her adult life. It teases her. It haunts her. When Olivia gathers the courage to enter the newly born room, she finds warmth and safety. The room creates lush and vibrant ecosystems right before her eyes.DAUGHTER OF ROT blends magical realism with dreamlike botanical horror and explores the intertwining of toxic parenting with childhood innocence.PRAISE FOR DAUGHTER OF ROT:"Every book by Rios de la Luz is transformative, dreamy, and gut wrenching. Daughter of Rot is her best work yet and a must read this year by one of the best writers out there." — V. Castro, author of The Haunting of Alejandra"Daughter of Rot pulses with crisp, enchanting language and a matter-of-fact reckoning of painful truths. This magical coming-of-age story about healing bloodlines and reclaiming the wilderness of one’s birth devoured me in a single breathless sitting." — Jennifer Givhan, author of Salt Bones"Suffused with lush imagery, Daughter of Rot follows little Olivia as she endures cruelty and neglect from her parents and finds solace in an eerie room of her house. With a hint of mischief and a boundless imagination, Rios de la Luz plays with our notions of mothers, monsters, and home. A glittering, gothic fever dream." — Pik-Shuen Fung, author of Ghost Forest"Lush and elegiac, de la Luz writes in the language of blood and flowers, detailing visions that are, in turn, beautiful and nightmarish, natural and unnatural. Daughter of Rot speaks the strange grief of surviving loss and loneliness, of being unloved, of creating protection spells while navigating visions of ancestors and tormentors without knowing which is which. This story is a powerful song." — ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate and author of the light of your body"In Daughter of Rot, Rios de Luz turns magical realism into her own hauntingly aching genre. Rich with the language of grief for what should be but isn’t, this novella swallows you and spits you back out into a world where survival is both a terror and a magic you create for yourself. Exploring generational trauma, mother wounds, and perceptions of home, Rios proves to be a voice that challenges and innovates at each turn it is a joy to spend hours in her world." — Yesika Salgado, author of Corazón"Rios de la Luz weaves magic and reality in a dreamlike swirl of lyrical prose. Daughter of Rot is a thoroughly engaging, beautifully written novel, a wild beast of light and darkness. Glorious, potent, and revelatory." — Adam Gnade, author of After Tonight, Everything Will Be Different