Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

 

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

The rundown: In 1840s Mexico, Nena’s home is threatened by Anglo settlers. But Yanquis are not the only thing to fear at the ranch. Nena knows this because 9 years ago, something attacked her while on a nighttime romp with her best friend Néstor. Believing Nesta died from her injuries, Néstor’s been on the run from his grief ever since, roaming from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. When the Anglos ignite war against Mexico, the two are brought back together, and the shock of their reunion is overshadowed by the monsters that stalk them in the dark. 

The review: I am a vampire girlie through and through, and Cañas must have decided to write this book to appeal specifically to me because she wields those vampires as social horror, all tied up in a strong second chance/childhood friends-to-lovers romance plot. For most of the book, the vampires linger at the periphery, stalking their unwitting prey, but, like Nena, we can feel the threat, unknown but terrifying, getting closer and closer. Cañas creates a creepy, oppressive atmosphere in a fairly minimal but still richly depicted historical setting. 

For full disclosure, I picked this book up because of the vampire-as-social-horror theme, and I was under the assumption that the romance was a subplot. It is not; Nena and Néstor’s romance is equally important as the vampire plot. As a reader who prefers to go into a story knowing what I’m getting into, I can safely say that these incorrect expectations influenced my experience with the first third-ish of the book, and I point this out so that other readers can make a more informed decision about this book knowing that it is a capital-R romance and not so much a capital-H horror. But the romance is nicely written, even if I wanted to shake Nena for her stubbornness now and then. Nena, who is the ranchero’s daughter, and Néstor, a vaquero, are pulled apart not just by the aftereffects of what happened 9 years ago but also by their class difference, which provides us with some interesting insight into 1840s Mexican society. 

One of the most interesting parts of the book for me, a born and raised Texan, is the implicit consideration of boundaries, borders, and identity. Many of the book’s events occur in what is now south Texas at a time when Texas had declared its “independence” from Mexico and just before it is annexed into the US. The characters, however, are Mexican, see themselves as Mexican. While it’s not really explored on page, I so enjoyed the question that lies at the heart of this book: Not when did these Mexican families come to the US, but when did the US come to them?

Goes well with: Pick up Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things or Mexican Gothic next.