Book Candelarias de la Virgen

Teodoro Balmaseda - 4th edition
(Winner of the 1st prize of LaFec Euskadi for Narrative)

Candelarias de la Virgen is a semi-abandoned village in the south of La Rioja, in the Camero Viejo area. A family has commissioned the comprehensive renovation of an old mansion to Isidoro, alias Durruti, an experienced bricklayer. In the middle of the work, a failure in the material unanchors part of the scaffolding, causing it to fall into the void. The blow is tremendous, and the sound of the head hitting the floor of live flake and the vertebrae dislodging cuts the air.
He is lying on his back, unconscious, while his partner tries to call 911 when suddenly, he wakes up. He opens his eyes and is perfectly fine, he doesn't have a scratch.
A couple of days later his partner suffers another accident, the handle of a hammer breaks, causing the head to hit the opposite hand with all its forces. He faints instantly, but a few moments later, he wakes up and is in perfect condition. Not a single bruise.
The cat of one of the few neighbors finds a mouse in its wandering through the village. He attacks fiercely, with all the capacity of his claws, but at once his victim gets up and resumes his escape.
In the course of the renovation, the old kitchen reveals the existence of a false basement, a kind of cellar that communicates with a narrow tunnel to an anonymous destination in the middle of the mountain. This discovery will make the protagonists investigate the history of the area, which in the thirties and forties of the twentieth century hides a tremendous secret, a chain of lies and revenge that will lead them to a disheartening truth.
TREATMENT
Using supernatural elements, but without reaching the fantasy novel or spirituality, the axis of the novel is an echo through time in a specific location, with a political and social background that is reliable from the historical point of view. Through mutual support and the comfort of friendships or relationships, the characters trace a story of overcoming, sometimes of the very limits of understanding, to draw a story so great that only the spectators will understand it.