Thank you to Berkley Books for sending me a copy of Vampires of El Norte in exchange for an honest review.
As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena is familiar with the threat of monsters. Every day, soldiers from the United States take more and more land for their own, displacing and destroying the people in their way. But something more sinister than the Anglo settlers lurks in the night, something that attacked Nena nine years ago. After the attack, her best friend Néstor fled, thinking her dead. Nena survived, however, believing Néstor abandoned her, and became a healer to help her father’s people.
When the United States attacks Mexico in 1846, they unexpectedly reunite. Both join the resistance effort, Nena as a curandera, a healer for the troops, and Néstor, a member of the ragtag army. As the two come together to protect their home, they must confront their past and face a terrifying nightmare threatening everyone’s survival.
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Vampires of El Norte is the second book by Isabel Cañas, author of The Hacienda. It’s a great sophomore effort that suffers from mismarketing. The publisher advertised the book as vampires versus cowboys in a historical/horror Wild West novel. This implies a lot more action than we actually get. However, if you go into Vampires of El Norte knowing that it’s more of a historical romance with scary elements, I think it’s a more enjoyable book.
It’s evident from the start that Nena and Néstor will end up in love. They’re childhood best friends separated by trauma for nine long years. They end up thrown together in a time of turmoil and have only each other to rely upon. This inevitability doesn’t hurt the love story, however. Instead, it makes it more of a character-driven story than anything else. This is the story of two broken people finding themselves and finding each other.
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Cañas’ choice to set Vampires of El Norte during the Mexican-American war in the 1840s gave her a lot of room to do interesting things with the setting. The isolation and distance between communities add a great deal to the novel’s tension. The same can be said of the looming threat of encroaching US forces.
While researching for her book, Cañas came across a proclamation by Juan Nepomuceno Cortino, a governor, military leader and outlaw in Mexico, referring to the Americans as vampires in 1859. This was decades before novels like Dracula or Carmilla were published in Europe, popularizing vampire stories. She found that the “Anglo setters who stole the land, cattle and sometimes even the lives of Mexicans living in what is now South Texas” were the perfect parallel to a fictional monster like the vampire.
Vampires of El Norte is an atmospheric, tense historical novel full of romance, the supernatural and some very human threats. Check this one out if you want to be immersed in the past and enjoy a little bit of horror.
Vampires of El Norte is out on August 15, 2023, and is available for preorder from your local independent bookstore or Bookshop.org.
TW: blood, colonization, classism, emotional abuse, gore, guns/gun violence, injury, murder, sexism, violence, war
This article was originally published on 8/2/23.
https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/new-book-releases-august-1/
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