Ann Davila Cardinal Books In Order

Publication Order of Five Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Ann Davila Cardinal is a Director of Recruitment for Vermont College of Fine Arts and a novelist. Ann has an MA in sociology, an MFA in Writing from VCFA, and a BA in Latino Studies.

Her stories have appeared in many anthologies, including Women Writing the Weird, A Cup of Comfort for Mothers and Sons, and has contributed to the Encylopedia Latina. Ann’s essays have appeared places such as Vermont Woman, American Scholar, Latina Magazines, and AARP.

Ann comes from a long line of Puerto Rican writers, including poets Jose Antonio and Virgilio Davila, as well as fiction writer and her cousin Tere Davila.

She cycles four seasons each year, and needle-felts tiny reading creatures.

Growing up, she grew up on horror. She read horror novels, horror comics, whatever she was able to get her hands on. During the late sixties and early seventies, the idea of young adult novels was very new. Judy Blume was the first realistic contemporary YA Ann had heard of, and didn’t talk down to her readers, a shocking thing back then. There weren’t really any horror YA novels.

She read the classics and, once Stephen King began getting published, everything that he wrote. Teens are usually drawn to some dark things, dark tales, especially during dark times. It makes her like the idea of telling stories to them, but ones that have some hope to them.

During the early seventies, she would arrive for her summer-long stay at her great aunt Ana’s house in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, with comics like Monsters Unleashed, Tales From the Crypt, and Creepy in her suitcase. Her aunt would shuffle through each of them with a look of disgust, making the same disapproving clucking sound with her tongue she did when she saw a beggar or a dead animal out in the street.

She would ask why Ann couldn’t read something that was nice, since her aunt didn’t find them to be appropriate for a little girl to read. She would tell her aunt that it was her aunt that bought them for her.

Truth of the matter was, that her mom didn’t care what she read, just as long as she was reading something. Besides, she was the one that gave her used copies of “Frankenstein” and “Dracula”, telling her they were real Gothic literature. When she was just ten years old.

When Ann was among the rest of the world, it was much more of a gender issue for her during that time. Girls in her school didn’t read or watch horror, all they liked were romantic comedies, the band Poco, and Disney movies. She learned through time to keep this interest in horror to herself.

Ann was inspired to write “Five Midnights” because of her interest in the myth of El Cuco, Latinx’s answer to the boogeyman. She was fascinated with the fact that he was used as a way to get kids to behave. She has spent her entire life straddling two worlds, and it has made assimilation an interest of hers, or the choice not to assimilate.

Lupe’s story is partially inspired by Ann’s own story. When she was a little girl, her widowed mom would ship her off to Puerto Rico so that she could drink. Ann resented this abandonment, however, her family on the island was great to her. During high school, her mom sobered up and Ann decided to take a new direction, becoming a punk rocker when she was fifteen.

Not until her mom got sick in Ann’s late twenties that she started forming a relationship of her own with her family during adulthood, going to the island herself. After she died, she fully embraced that side of her identity as a way to hold on to her mom and realized that her family in Puerto Rico actually saved her life as a kid. She wanted Lupe to fully discover this side of herself earlier, as Ann wished she had.

Her debut solo novel, called “Five Midnights”, was released in the year 2019. Her work is from the young adult fantasy genre.

“Five Midnights” is the first novel in the “Five Midnights” series and was released in the year 2019. Five deadly fates. Five friends cursed. Five nights of retribucion.

If Lupe Davila and Javier Utierre are able to survive being around each other, surely they can solve a series of grisly murders that is sweeping through Puerto Rico. However, the clues have lead them out of the real world, and right into the world of legends and myths. If they really want to catch the killer, they are going to need to step right into the shadows in order to see what’s lurking there. Monster or killer.

Readers found this to be quite an enjoyable read, and liked the urban legend/supernatural elements that were worked into the story. Ann’s vivid imagery surrounds you, pulling you right into the heart of Puerto Rico, whether or not you have actually visited the place. Each of these characters feel totally real and are entirely fleshed out, and is without any villains or heroes, just teens trying to navigate through through adolescence.

“Category Five” is the second novel in the “Five Midnights” series and was released in the year 2020. After the hurricane, some smell the blood and some see destruction.

The little island of Vieques, which is located off the northeastern coast of the main island of Puerto Rico, is attempting to recover after hurricane Maria, however now the battered island now is half empty. To make things worse, like on the main island, developers have come in to buy up all of the land at just a fraction of its worth, taking full advantage of the island while it’s down.

Javier, Lupe, and Marisol have come back to investigate a series of murders that follow in the shadow of a new supernatural threat in the wake of this hurricane.

Readers enjoyed this one just as much as the first, and loved just how brilliantly the supernatural elements are used here. Fans enjoyed catching up with these characters once more, and liked how the characters are developed from the first novel.