Mortal Vengeance: A Grim Tale is an origin story that frames the development of a Dominican folklore figure born of a Jesuit-run Academy’s cruel character- building discipline. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The direct inspiration came from a beta reader I used to work with. She deeply enjoyed Mortal Vengeance, but she pointed out that certain elements felt underdeveloped—particularly the lore surrounding the Grim Cojuelo, the psychological drivers behind key characters, and the extent of Profesora Lourdes’ cruelty. Her critique lingered with me, and she was right. There were emotional and mythological layers I had only hinted at.

I also knew I hadn’t fully examined what pushed Marcos, right from Chapter 1 of the original novel, to declare that “the old hag has to pay.” That line carries weight. I owed readers the institutional and psychological conditions that made such a statement inevitable.

The setting itself is personal. I attended an all-boys Jesuit school for twelve years. While my experiences were not identical to those of my characters, the cadence of the speeches, the moral framing, and the rhetoric of “character formation” delivered by figures like Padre Ángel, Padre Ignacio, and Profesor Malagón are drawn directly from memory. The language of discipline. The idea that suffering builds virtue. The subtle humiliation disguised as moral instruction. That framework became fertile ground for psychological horror. A Grim Tale became a space to explore the Grim Cojuelo’s birth not as a monster, but as the consequence of repression and cruelty.

What is the most challenging aspect of writing a psychological thriller? The most rewarding?

The hardest part is control.

With Mortal Vengeance: A Grim Tale, I was navigating heavy subject matter—grooming, institutional abuse, suicide, and psychological collapse. The challenge was not whether to go dark. The story demanded darkness. The challenge was how to confront it responsibly. There is a thin line between honesty and exploitation.

When addressing suicide, for example, I had to think carefully about what to depict and what to withhold. The aim was to portray the emotional and systemic forces pushing a character toward that edge without turning the narrative into spectacle—or instruction. That balance—showing the consequences of corruption, violence, and humiliation without veering into sensationalism or “torture porn”—was difficult, but essential.

Tonal balance was another challenge. The original Mortal Vengeance functions as a slasher/whodunnit. A Grim Tale is pure psychological horror. There is no mystery engine asking “who did it?” If readers come from the main novel, they already know how this ends. Suspense had to emerge from inevitability. The question becomes not what will happen, but how it becomes unavoidable. Ensuring readers care about the journey rather than the destination was crucial.

Then there are the rules of horror itself. How much do you explain when the Grim Cojuelo appears? Is it supernatural? Psychological? Symbolic? How does Julian interpret what he sees? How does the world respond? Balancing that supernatural-psychological axis without tipping too far in either direction required restraint. Over-explain, and the horror collapses. Under-explain, and coherence dissolves.

The most rewarding aspect is precision.

While I’m not aiming for a Shyamalan-style twist, there is a final reveal—a reframing—that has been quietly telegraphed throughout the novel. Every clue is there for readers willing to pay attention. When they reach that final moment and realize it was always in front of them, that recognition is deeply satisfying.

Psychological horror works best when the reader feels implicated in the discovery. When that happens—when the realization feels earned rather than imposed—that’s the reward.

Obviously, you took great care in describing the settings throughout your story. How do you strike a balance between perfecting the mood in your thriller and developing the plot?

You have to paint a picture. If the reader can’t see it, they won’t feel it. And in psychological horror, feeling is everything.

It’s often said that “an image is worth a thousand words.” I believe that’s true—but the reverse should also hold: “a thousand words must paint a clear image.” Description isn’t decoration—it’s infrastructure. In a psychological thriller, the inner world and the outer world are constantly mirroring each other. The setting isn’t just where things happen; it’s how things are perceived. If a character is unraveling, the environment should feel unstable. If the institution is corrupt, the architecture should feel imposing, suffocating, immaculate in a way that hides rot.

In A Grim Tale, the surroundings—especially Excelsior Academy—had to function as a character. Many readers may not be familiar with the Dominican Republic beyond resort postcards. I wanted the setting to feel lived-in, specific, textured. The marble, the crucifixes, the stained glass, the speeches about virtue—those details aren’t aesthetic indulgence. They establish atmosphere, yes, but they also drive the plot because they shape the characters’ psychology. The institution becomes the pressure cooker.

The key is that mood must serve movement. If a scene doesn’t deepen tension or push a character closer to transformation, it doesn’t belong.

And transformation is crucial. Horror isn’t about the final form—it’s about the process. The unsettling part isn’t the monster fully realized; it’s watching the fracture happen in slow motion. It’s seeing the body, the mind, the belief system crack and reform. If readers don’t feel that breaking point—if they don’t sense the dread building inside the character—then the plot reveal won’t matter.

So the balance comes from intention. Atmosphere isn’t separate from the plot. It is plot. When done correctly, every description tightens the noose a little further.

If it doesn’t, it’s just pretty writing. And pretty writing has no business in horror unless it’s hiding something.

What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?

I’m currently about 80% through the first draft of the sequel to Mortal Vengeance. It’s titled Mortal Vengeance II: To Reel or Not Too Real? — and no, that’s not a typo. The novel continues the slasher framework established in Book 1, but this time it leans harder into satire. It’s slightly less oppressive in tone than A Grim Tale, but not lighter in stakes. This installment examines media, performance, and the blurred line between spectacle and truth. The horror remains — it simply evolves.

At the end of Mortal Vengeance, a character drops a seemingly casual hint that longtime readers will recognize as more significant than it appears. In A Grim Tale, I subtly expand on that thread. Without giving too much away, let’s just say a piece of fruit becomes symbolically important. Returning readers will understand. New readers will soon enough. It’s a genre blend, and yes, it’s a risk. But this series has always interrogated power structures — this time, it asks what happens when violence, trauma, and justice become content.

As for timing, I’m aiming to complete the draft soon, followed by revisions. If all goes according to plan, readers won’t have to wait long, perhaps fall of 2026.

At the same time, I’m developing a children’s series titled IMALIVE. And while that may seem like a sharp contrast, thematically it isn’t.

If Mortal Vengeance explores what happens when institutions silence young people, IMALIVE is about empowering children to believe their voices matter.

The project began as something deeply personal. When my eldest nephew turned eight, he asked me to write him a story as a birthday gift. That request became a larger idea. The core message is simple: imagination is powerful, but agency is transformative. Children can dream, yes — but they can also build, create, and shape their world.

So while one series dissects the consequences of repression, the other celebrates possibility.

They may look different on the surface. At their core, they’re both about power — and who gets to claim it.

Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Alejandro Torres | Amazon

Mortal Vengeance: A Grim Tale is a queer psychological slasher thriller set in an elite Catholic academy in Santo Domingo, where money, faith, and reputation always come first—and students like Julián Díaz are disposable.
 
Julián is a scholarship kid in a world of ski trips, private drivers, and last names that open doors. His parents have bet everything on Excelsior Academy, certain that if he keeps his head down and excels, he’ll escape poverty and make their sacrifice worth it. Instead, he becomes a convenient target: a vicious math teacher obsessed with breaking “weak” students, priests more interested in image than souls, and rich classmates who treat him as both mascot and threat. Under that pressure, Julián begins to **dissociate**. When reality becomes unbearable, his mind slips sideways into nightmarish visions of the Grim Cojuelo, a horned figure from Dominican folklore that stalks the school’s halls, churches, and dreams with a scythe and a mirror full of other people’s sins.
 
Around him, other students are fighting their own battles. Lucía, a razor-sharp debate star, can dismantle any argument but can’t quite untangle her feelings for the boys circling her: Alex, her brilliant, morally outraged debate partner, and Enrique, the charming golden boy whose courtly manners hide something colder underneath. Fernando, a popular athlete with a soft center, is falling for Julián in a place where the wrong kiss could destroy both of them. Behind classroom doors and church altars, girls like Melissa endure “perfect” boyfriends who leave bruises where sweaters and makeup can cover them.
 
When a Christmas show erupts into a brutal act of dating violence in the school parking lot, the moment is caught on shaky phone cameras and explodes across social media. Overnight, Excelsior’s glossy façade cracks. Parents demand answers, the administration scrambles to control the narrative, and students learn in real time how easily the truth can be edited, weaponized, or buried. In whispered conversations, secret group chats, and late-night plotting sessions, Lucía, Alex, Fernando and the others begin to question whether playing by the school’s rules has ever protected anyone but the powerful.
 
As the year spirals, Julián’s dissociative episodes fuse with the legend of the Grim Cojuelo until he can no longer tell where his trauma ends and the monster begins. The Cojuelo doesn’t hunt at random; it hunts the people who have built careers, reputations, and fortunes on other people’s pain.

Blending dark humor, queer romance, and slow-burn dread, Mortal Vengeance: A Grim Tale explores class rage, religious hypocrisy, gendered violence, and how institutions teach kids to either disappear… or become something frightening enough that no one can ignore them. When the Grim Cojuelo finally steps out of legend and into the headlines, the question isn’t who the killer is—it’s how many people helped create him.