This Thing Between Us

This Thing Between Us is a genre-bending horror novel that follows Thiago, a Chicago warehouse worker grappling with overwhelming grief after the sudden death of his wife, Vera. What begins as a story about loss takes a disturbing turn as Thiago becomes convinced that their troubles started with Itza, an Alexa-like smart speaker that began behaving strangely—ordering hundreds of pounds of raw meat, playing unsettling sounds in the night, and seeming to respond to questions no one asked. As Thiago spirals deeper into paranoia and sorrow, the line between technological malfunction and genuine supernatural menace becomes increasingly blurred. Moreno crafts an unsettling meditation on grief, isolation, and our uneasy relationship with technology in the modern world. The novel explores how mourning can warp perception and reality itself, while also tapping into contemporary anxieties about the devices we invite into our most intimate spaces. What makes this book particularly compelling is its refusal to stay in one lane—it seamlessly weaves cosmic horror, domestic dread, and raw emotional vulnerability into something that feels both deeply personal and existentially terrifying. Fans of literary horror that prioritizes atmosphere and psychological depth over cheap scares will find much to appreciate in Moreno's ambitious debut.