Hache Pueyo's (But Not Too Bold, Cabaret in Flames) first full-length novel, Tyrant in the Cracks, is a dark fantasy of time rifts and what ifs, where two characters much face who they might have been only to find themselves bound to each bound by fate.

In a tropical island country brimming with magic, cracks appear in any surface, visible only to those with a natural and trained talent for the occult. Professor Cícero Dangeris—ascetic, beautiful, disciplined—is among the very few, and together with his quiet assistant Eco, he embarks on a journey to track said fissures and study their secrets.

The cracks show echoes to another timeline, one in which the brutal military dictatorship that oppressed the island never ended. There, a puppet general commands the nation, controlled by another version of Dangeris—debauched, excessive, hedonistic—who is obsessed with finding an elusive mirror of a girl he sees through fissures since he was a child.

As they travel the island through an underwater train, new realities appear, proving how easy it is for people and countries to change. What Dangeris finds in those images are his own secrets, from the past he tries to hide to the desires he would rather repress, and there’s only one common denominator between all his parallel lives: Eco herself.

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Praise for this book

Praise for Tyrant in the Cracks



"Tyrant in the Cracks shows us how fragile our reality is, and how horrifying it can be when that reality shatters. Hache Pueyo gathers up the shards of identity and politics and assembles them into an utterly devastating picture. A thrilling, upsetting, intimate journey."—Charlie Jane Anders

"Deeply strange, deeply thoughtful, magically written: a compelling love story and an even more compelling look through the cracks into a soul."—KJ Charles

"A beautiful, devastating story about what we fear, who we love, and the lives we build between the 'cracks' of history itself." —Sunyi Dean



Praise for Cabaret in Flames

"A full and delicious feast. Read this book slowly, savor every bite. In turn, it will leave you deeply satisfied and still wanting more." -- Daniel José Older, New York Times bestselling author

“Elegant, voracious, a book that eats up every scrap of your attention and demands you hang on by the tendon as Ariadne wanders deeper into a labyrinth of mysteries.”—Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author of The Library at Hellebore



“A dark and dangerous story of survival, secrets, and—despite all odds—love. I read it with the doors locked and the lights on. Hache Pueyo’s monsters are all they seem, and more. Her heroes continually surprise in a world where hunger devours everything except revenge and hope for a better world. Stunning and breathtaking.”—Fran Wilde, Nebula-winning author of Updraft and Riverland, and A Philosophy of Thieves



“Cabaret in Flames is lush and beautiful, yet sharp and painful in all the right places; it's exactly what dark fantasy should be.”—A. C. Wise, author of Out Drowning in the Deep



Praise for But Not Too Bold and Hache Pueyo



"An intoxicating feast for anyone who has found beauty in the monstrous."—Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth

“Pueyo weaves an exquisite web of a tale, full of enigmatic characters, eerie atmosphere and all-consuming passion.”—Laura Pohl, New York Times bestselling author of The Grimrose Girls

“Pueyo knows exactly how to blend darkness and evil with cuteness and gorgeous prose. . . . A master of Latin American dark fiction.”—Renan Bernardo, Nebula finalist and author of Different Kinds of Defiance






About the AuthorHACHE PUEYO is an Argentine-Brazilian writer and translator. She won an Otherwise Fellowship for her work with gender in speculative fiction, and her work has appeared as H. Pueyo in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, among others. She is the author of A Study in Ugliness & Outras Histórias, But Not Too Bold and Cabaret in Flames.
Title: Tyrant in the Cracks
Author(s): Hache Pueyo
ISBN: 9781250370501
Copyright 2027
Release Date: March 16, 2027
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Countries: United States, Canada | Learn more about available countries
Language: English
Format: None available | Learn More about our supported formats
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