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Alicia is in the Basement
Not yet published
Expected 24 Mar 26One summer afternoon, Santi and Maria's daughter disappears from a public park without a trace.
After months of agony and fruitless investigation that only serves to tear his life even further apart, Santi learns of a being that unleashes an entirely new kind of horror on the young family's life:
"He Who Does Not Speak With Children."
After months of agony and fruitless investigation that only serves to tear his life even further apart, Santi learns of a being that unleashes an entirely new kind of horror on the young family's life:
"He Who Does Not Speak With Children."
120 pages, Paperback
Expected publication March 24, 2026
80 people want to read
About the author
Santiago Eximeno
146 books159 followersSantiago Eximeno escribe sobre la futilidad de la existencia, sobre la irrelevancia, sobre la lucha de clases, sobre lo social y lo emotivo, todo pasado por el tamiz de lo grotesco, de lo terrible, de lo fantástico. Su obra rezuma sentido de la maravilla y demencia a partes iguales. Ha publicado novelas, libros de relatos, libros de ficción mínima y numerosos relatos y microrrelatos en diferentes antologías y revistas. Ha diseñado juegos de mesa, juegos de rol y ficciones interactivas. Y como siempre le recuerda su madre, su segundo apellido es Hernampérez.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 23, 2025
Throwing all the stars at this one... it’s easily going to rank as one of my favorites of the year. Tenebrous Press went for broke here and this is by far their best!
Alicia Is in the Basement is the painstaking, demented journey of a man who loses his daughter in a public park one afternoon. It’s a dark, terrifying glimpse into what it means when a child goes missing and how far a parent might go to bring her back home.
Already trapped in a fractured marriage, with another child on the way, the disappearance shatters Santi and Maria. Maria needs to move forward. Santi cannot. Will not. After months of realizing the police will never find her, Santi begins his own investigation. What he uncovers is a chilling pattern of missing children and a trail that leads to a mysterious, awful entity known only as He Who Does Not Speak With Children.
The final pages will leave you staring into the abyss, where hope and horror blur together in the most devastating way.
For fans of Ben Tanzer's The Missing and Nicholas Cage's Pay the Ghost.
Alicia Is in the Basement is the painstaking, demented journey of a man who loses his daughter in a public park one afternoon. It’s a dark, terrifying glimpse into what it means when a child goes missing and how far a parent might go to bring her back home.
Already trapped in a fractured marriage, with another child on the way, the disappearance shatters Santi and Maria. Maria needs to move forward. Santi cannot. Will not. After months of realizing the police will never find her, Santi begins his own investigation. What he uncovers is a chilling pattern of missing children and a trail that leads to a mysterious, awful entity known only as He Who Does Not Speak With Children.
The final pages will leave you staring into the abyss, where hope and horror blur together in the most devastating way.
For fans of Ben Tanzer's The Missing and Nicholas Cage's Pay the Ghost.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Thank you to Tenebrous Press for the gifted ARC.
Out May 19.
Just finished this one and I’m still sitting with it.
It’s short, but I didn’t want to pause once I started. I kept thinking maybe something would shift. Maybe the father was onto something. Maybe this was heading somewhere different. You almost let yourself believe that for a second.
The story follows a father after his daughter goes missing at a park. After that, everything feels smaller. His thoughts keep looping. His life narrows. His marriage starts to feel strained without the book having to point at it. It’s just there.
The atmosphere is thick with sadness. It hangs over everything. Even the quiet parts feel heavy.
There are dark moments. There are parts where things don’t feel totally grounded. But that wasn’t the part that got to me. It was how normal it all felt. How believable the grief was. How far someone might go when they don’t know what to do with that kind of loss.
I really loved this one and hope to read morw of Eximel’s work!
Out May 19.
Just finished this one and I’m still sitting with it.
It’s short, but I didn’t want to pause once I started. I kept thinking maybe something would shift. Maybe the father was onto something. Maybe this was heading somewhere different. You almost let yourself believe that for a second.
The story follows a father after his daughter goes missing at a park. After that, everything feels smaller. His thoughts keep looping. His life narrows. His marriage starts to feel strained without the book having to point at it. It’s just there.
The atmosphere is thick with sadness. It hangs over everything. Even the quiet parts feel heavy.
There are dark moments. There are parts where things don’t feel totally grounded. But that wasn’t the part that got to me. It was how normal it all felt. How believable the grief was. How far someone might go when they don’t know what to do with that kind of loss.
I really loved this one and hope to read morw of Eximel’s work!
December 3, 2025
Special thanks to Tenebrous Press for the ARC copy they provided.
Tenebrous always serves the odd and the unusual, dare I say it, the weird, and Alicia is in the Basement is a serving like no other, a top tier terror that is all the more terrifying because for a while you can almost convince yourself the main character is getting better. That he’s actually on to something and might make a difference. Might change the terror, capture the horror that’s been creeping up on families for centuries.
And then… you are forced to remember that you’re reading a horror novel and there are no happy endings here.
Alicia is in the Basement is heartbreaking above all else, however. Love, and the depths of loss, are its center, and you will question just how far you’d go for someone you love. For the one you love most of all. The one who did not deserve to be lost, but can never come back.
The fact this book is so very human at its core is probably its most horrifying aspect. Yes, there are monsters. Yes, there is the familiar twist of insanity vs the paranormal. And yet… at the center is just this: Our human capacity for love. And how deeply we break when that sustaining love is taken from us.
In absence of love, we become monsters.
If I have taken anything from this book, I think this is it.
Alicia is in the Basement is not an easy book to read, and I think Tenebrous is spot on with including content warnings in the publication, but if you can come to this book, if you can brave the horror that is our human experience, I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Risk staring into the darkness. You just might see some of yourself staring back.
Tenebrous always serves the odd and the unusual, dare I say it, the weird, and Alicia is in the Basement is a serving like no other, a top tier terror that is all the more terrifying because for a while you can almost convince yourself the main character is getting better. That he’s actually on to something and might make a difference. Might change the terror, capture the horror that’s been creeping up on families for centuries.
And then… you are forced to remember that you’re reading a horror novel and there are no happy endings here.
Alicia is in the Basement is heartbreaking above all else, however. Love, and the depths of loss, are its center, and you will question just how far you’d go for someone you love. For the one you love most of all. The one who did not deserve to be lost, but can never come back.
The fact this book is so very human at its core is probably its most horrifying aspect. Yes, there are monsters. Yes, there is the familiar twist of insanity vs the paranormal. And yet… at the center is just this: Our human capacity for love. And how deeply we break when that sustaining love is taken from us.
In absence of love, we become monsters.
If I have taken anything from this book, I think this is it.
Alicia is in the Basement is not an easy book to read, and I think Tenebrous is spot on with including content warnings in the publication, but if you can come to this book, if you can brave the horror that is our human experience, I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Risk staring into the darkness. You just might see some of yourself staring back.
December 9, 2025
Heartbreaking and painful, I couldn't bring myself to put it down and read it all in one sitting. Definitely a top read of the year for me.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Thanks to Tenebrous Press, for providing me with an early review copy.
All thoughts and opinions are my own.
-
One of the things we are forced to reckon with, as we age and become aware of the world, is the reality of the terrible things that go on. These ugly deeds, have a current, have a pulse. Coming face to face with the reality of it all, is a heavy task, it crushes hearts, ruins lives. Some dig their heals in, acknowledging the darkness, and raging against it. I maintain that the the bulk of the Horror Fiction Community, is in this camp. Full of Warmth, pain and compassion... For others, it becomes the tipping point. The opening of that door, that peek into those shadowed corners of life, tears them asunder. They are un-made.
"Alicia is in the Basement" is a reminder of that abyssal essence that flows in the world. We do what we can, to ignore it, but it resides in us all. A disparate thing, that attains physical manifestation.
You don't read Santiago's book, as much as you find yourself trapped in a box. Forced along, through a waking nightmare. It's a fever dream that throws the facts of reality and the flow of time askew. When that great ugliness, and loss becomes your world, you will be changed.
Santiago Eximeno's novella is a heartbreaking, Stygian meditation on the cruelties of reality, loss, and the violence done to the innocent. It's a book that some part of you will plead for you not to read, not to finish, but like the narrator, you'll find yourself reading on, pushing forward, moving downwards.
All thoughts and opinions are my own.
-
One of the things we are forced to reckon with, as we age and become aware of the world, is the reality of the terrible things that go on. These ugly deeds, have a current, have a pulse. Coming face to face with the reality of it all, is a heavy task, it crushes hearts, ruins lives. Some dig their heals in, acknowledging the darkness, and raging against it. I maintain that the the bulk of the Horror Fiction Community, is in this camp. Full of Warmth, pain and compassion... For others, it becomes the tipping point. The opening of that door, that peek into those shadowed corners of life, tears them asunder. They are un-made.
"Alicia is in the Basement" is a reminder of that abyssal essence that flows in the world. We do what we can, to ignore it, but it resides in us all. A disparate thing, that attains physical manifestation.
You don't read Santiago's book, as much as you find yourself trapped in a box. Forced along, through a waking nightmare. It's a fever dream that throws the facts of reality and the flow of time askew. When that great ugliness, and loss becomes your world, you will be changed.
Santiago Eximeno's novella is a heartbreaking, Stygian meditation on the cruelties of reality, loss, and the violence done to the innocent. It's a book that some part of you will plead for you not to read, not to finish, but like the narrator, you'll find yourself reading on, pushing forward, moving downwards.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Mini review: 3.5 rounded to 4.
This one kept me interested, and I was intrigued by the twists, I just don't think it was quite for me.
While I am a big fan of a, "wait, wtf happened" story and ending, this felt like it needed more than a novella to really accomplish that successfully. I'd love to see this fleshed out to 200 pages with more character exploration and lore.
I did not like the main character, and maybe that was on purpose, but it was hard to root for him when he was just so unlikeable from the start.
I would give this author another go, for sure. This book had a very weighty, foreboding atmosphere that I appreciated.
This one releases May 19, 2026 if you wanna check it out!
Thanks to Tenebrous Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
TW: child abduction, child death, alcoholism.
This one kept me interested, and I was intrigued by the twists, I just don't think it was quite for me.
While I am a big fan of a, "wait, wtf happened" story and ending, this felt like it needed more than a novella to really accomplish that successfully. I'd love to see this fleshed out to 200 pages with more character exploration and lore.
I did not like the main character, and maybe that was on purpose, but it was hard to root for him when he was just so unlikeable from the start.
I would give this author another go, for sure. This book had a very weighty, foreboding atmosphere that I appreciated.
This one releases May 19, 2026 if you wanna check it out!
Thanks to Tenebrous Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
TW: child abduction, child death, alcoholism.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews