RAISING THE MONSTER

The monster is never born.
Someone teaches it how to become one

We like to believe that monsters are strangers. The man in the white van. The predator lurking in the shadows. But what if the monster is much closer than we dare imagine?
Matilde is a devoted mother whose overwhelming need to protect her young son begins to consume both their lives. When a forgotten memory suddenly resurfaces, she embarks on a journey into her past in search of the origins of her fear. 
Her investigation leads back to her mother Águeda's youth in Germany during the 1960s, to a troubled adolescent boy shaped by humiliation and silence, and to the Valladolid of Matilde's own childhood, where a series of kidnappings and assaults on young girls cast a shadow over an entire community.

As buried memories emerge, Matilde begins to understand how violence is created, how fear is inherited and how entire societies become complicit through silence.

Profoundly unsettling and deeply humane, Raising the Monster explores the hidden mechanisms that shape predators—and the generations left to live with the consequences.

A powerful literary novel that examines the origins of violence with extraordinary emotional  depth and psychological insight.