Ann Dávila Cardinal

Ann Davila Cardinal is an American author of young-adult horror and literary fiction whose work draws heavily on Puerto Rican setting and folklore. Her debut, Five Midnights, follows a Puerto Rico-set mystery entwined with the legend of El Cuco and was a Bram Stoker Award finalist for Best Young Adult Novel; its sequel, Category Five, continues the story against the backdrop of a hurricane. Cardinal's adult novel The Storyteller's Death moves into magical realism, following a young woman who inherits an ability to enter family stories at the moment of a relative's death. Breakup from Hell brings a lighter, comic-horror register to a contemporary setting. Across her books, Cardinal consistently returns to Puerto Rican heritage, inherited family story, and the supernatural as a lens on cultural identity.