I saw this book recommended on the front page of my library’s website. I enjoyed reading this because it felt nostalgic for me. I’m not Mexican/Tejano/Texan/Texican myself, but I am Hispanic and from the Southwest. This book just sings with Hispanic culture.
This book was advertised as horror (the word ‘vampires’ is in the title), however it’s really a romance. There are very few actual vampires in this book; meanwhile, every chapter revolves around a ‘will they/won’t they’ for the two protagonists. Caveat Emptor: I’m not a fan of romances in general. Overall, I felt it was a good romance, with some fuzziness around the edges.
This review will seem very negative, however overall I strongly enjoyed reading this book. This review will seem negative because when you stick something clean under a microscope, it will be covered in dirt.
One final note before we begin: this book uses a lot of Spanish loan words. For example, instead of saying ‘cowboys,’ the book will say ‘vaqueros.’ Instead of saying ‘healer’ it will say ‘curanderos/curanderas.’ I enjoyed it; it made the book feel immersive.
Spoilers Below. I’m writing this review in good faith, as one author reviewing another’s book, trying to balance positives with negatives.
WHAT IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE? WHAT GENRES? WHAT MAJOR TROPES?
- YA/New Adult Romance (Protagonists in their early twenties)
- Fast burn romance, but kept apart by circumstances
- Alternate History
- 16+ years old
- Good prose
- Mexican/Hispanic/Spanish culture
- The Mesoamerican/US Southwest Great Plains
- Farm life on a Spanish Hacienda
MY EMOTIONAL RESPONSE/ FUN FACTOR
I’ll start out with the negative: I went in hoping for horror, and wound up getting a romance. I’m not a romance reader, so I was disappointed. It’s horror-lite at best. Second, the historical accuracy for this Alternate History is mostly accurate but with a few mistakes for small details.
Okay, with that over, I am strongly happy with my time spent reading this. There characters were enjoyable and well described. The prose was delectable, with a robust sentimentality which oozed off the page. The book was short-ish at only 370pages, which I valued.
WARNING! QUIT READING NOW UNTIL YOU FINISH READING THE BOOK!
BIASES STATED
To put this review/study in proper context, you must know my starting point.
I don’t like romance books as a general rule.
CONCEPT AND EXECUTION
This book’s concept is: the doomed romance between a cowboy and a high-society lady in the early days of Mexico’s independence, contrasted against the Mexican/American War and vampires.
This book’s execution is excellent in some ways, and needs discussion in others.
I’ll start with the good. The prose and worldbuilding/setting felt instantly lush and honest and true. I loved reading this book for it’s own sake; it is a splendid work of words on a page. The Mexico described in this book was believable, and felt vital and alive. The vampires were really feral and animalistic. The book had a strong ‘gothic’ vibe, with an oppressive sense of monsters being omnipresent yet just out of view.
The romance is a ‘personal taste’ sort of thing. If you are a romance reader, you’ll probably love it. If you’re not a romance reader (like me), it’s fine but nothing to write home about. I would personally recommend this book to people who like reading book with strong romance themes/sub-themes.
CHARACTERS, CHARACTERIZATION AND DIALOG
This book has two point of view characters: Nena (Magdalena) and Néstor. Of the two, I liked Néstor more. His perspective had more texture/grit/harshness to it. Nena felt a bit generic.
Nena rebels from her family. She follows the standard fantasy trope of ‘I don’t want to get married because XYZ reason.’ I see this motivation/backstory so often that all the protagonists who have this backstory blend together. It’s so common, that when I see a character arc where the protagonist actually goes through with an arranged marriage, I’m pleasantly shocked. Side tangent over, moving on…
Nena, net total, is fine. She’s a normal protagonist.
Néstor was a more textured character. I really enjoyed him at first. After a rough childhood, he sets out on the road and becomes a wandering vaquero, laboring for whichever rancho will take him up for a season or two. He sometimes drives cattle all the way up from Mexico into Texas. Néstor lives a rough life; when we first meet him, he’s a drinking, womanizing cowboy. But then he falls back into Nena’s orbit. As a child, Néstor loved her. When he realizes that Nena is still alive, he once again falls head-over-heels for her.
In short, I felt their romance happened too fast. The rough-edged womanizer instantly vanished, replaced with puppy love.
I wish that after he returned, they slowly regrew into their love as adults. I wanted her to fall in love with his rough, hardworking, lone vaquero charm. In turn, I wanted him to fall in love with her newfound hardened village healer personality. I wanted them to love one another for who they had become in the years since parting and NOT do a redo of their childhood love.
The other characters were middling. Nena’s father was the most well-described, with his short temper frequently remarked upon. His mother was harsh, but more fair than her father; same with Felix. Abuela was kind; Beto a teller of tall tales. All in all, they felt a bit flat.
PACING AND STRUCTURE
I found myself struggling to get through the first 50% of this book. I’m a more plot-focused reader, and the ‘vampires and Texans’ plot really were put on the back foot for most of the book in favor of the love story, where Nena/Néstor were constantly clashing and coming back together. That’s fine; not all books are written with me in mind. For people who want to read a romance, this does a good job.
This book had two battles; one at about the 50% mark, and one at the end. Both were strong. The story crescendoed pleasingly into a final battle with both the Texans and vampires invading the protagonist’s rancho. The battles were both emotionally evocative and compelling. I wish the author added another battle to the first 30% of the book, it really would have spiced up the pacing. But overall, the pacing was good.
PLOT, STAKES AND TENSION
This book was a romance. Going on parallel with the romance was an invasion plotline of Texans entering Mexico.
Okay, the romance plotline.
I felt the protagonists had good chemistry. They felt earnestly pulled towards one another, and the author never cheated. I wish they had more friction in their relationship, but overall, it was a good romance. I don’t generally read romances, but this was good enough that I bought what the author was selling.
The book had a plot hole. Minor spoilers from the first quarter of the book.
There is a nine year time jump near the beginning of the book, during which time Néstor left Nena behind. Néstor ran away because he thought Nena died. For that entire nine year time jump, Néstor exchanged many letters with Nena’s brother Félix.
Upon his return, Nena is very hurt that Néstor never reached out to her over those nine years. If this was so important to her, why didn’t she send him a letter in that nine year period? Don’t get me wrong, it’s entirely understandable that Nena is emotionally distraught after being (in her mind) dumped. But being furious he didn’t send her a letter is just hypocritical, because she could have sent a letter.
This plothole of ‘why didn’t Nena write a letter?’ typifies this book: the miscommunication trope. This is a romance, where one one of the main barriers between the two lovers is the fact that they don’t sit down and have a good heart-to-heart.
The miscommunication trope expands outwards from there. The real main antagonists in this book aren’t the Anglos or vampires, but Nena’s parents, because her parents are the main obstacle to the romance. At one point, Néstor saves Nena’s life from a vampire; not three chapters later, her parents thank him by assaulting him and banishing him from the rancho. Many of the characters feel frustratingly unreasonable because there are so many miscommunications going on.
I understand what the author is trying to attempt with all these unreasonable characters, but it felt forced. Why is every character conflict due to unreasonable characters? I was left annoyed, thinking, “Are you seriously worried about honor right now, when there are vampires and an invading army out there?!”
I often harp on the importance of a reader ‘meeting an author halfway.’ This is the same thing as saying it’s important for a reader to give the author the benefit of the doubt and willingly suspend their disbelief even when that disbelief is broken.
Romance readers will probably not even notice these plot holes because they’ll enter this book from the beginning rooting for Nena and Néstor to get together; they read for the HEA (Happily Ever After). They’re willing to ‘meet the author halfway’ when the author leaves things unsaid. That’s a healthy attitude to approach a book with.
I’m not this book’s target audience, and thus my experience is mildly different. Where a Romance reader easily meets the author halfway, I struggle suspending my disbelief fully because this genre is simply not my thing. There’s no shame in this; I’m sure many Romance readers would spot plotholes in the books I read which I don’t notice. It just goes to show that target audience really changes a reading experience.
AUTHORIAL VOICE, SETTING, WORLDBUILDING AND ORIGINALITY
The rear cover of this book has multiple author blurbs saying this book is a good commentary about colonialism. The vampires in this book were both literal vampires, and also the vampirism of colonialism of the Anglos coming from Texas invading northern Mexico.
The problem was that this book had very few vampires and very little horror. The strength of this metaphor of ‘colonialism is horrifying’ was harmed by the fact that the lens of focus for the narrative was on the romance and not the horror. I don’t think the Anglos got more than 2 lines of dialogue in the entire book, and one of them was swearing. It’s hard to interrogate an idea without dialogue.
It doesn’t end there. The book focused on the colonialism of Anglos trying to take land from Mexico. However, this book never truly looked inwards. In what way is Los Ojuelos and Las Villas del Norte a product of the Spanish Empire’s colonial project?
This book pointed out that ‘a century ago the Spanish Crown handed out Hacienda land grants.’ Néstor’s main goal is getting such a land grant for himself so he can start his own Rancho. This book is aware that this Spanish Empire colonialism occurred. But this book never interrogated Spanish colonialism, in the same way it used the metaphor of vampirism to describe the Anglo invasion. Los Ojuelos must have such a land grant, meaning a king in Europe got paid by Nena’s ancestors. Nena’s ancestors did colonialism right there. The colonialism of Nena’s ancestors went unaddressed.
I wouldn’t read too much into this complaint by me if I were you. I’m bored of this sub-genre of post-colonial fantasy. I recently read a lot of it in my attempt to stay up to date with what’s winning fantasy awards, and I’m burned out. It’s not this book’s fault; it’s my fault for being frustrated with this genre generally.
But it’s not all bad!
I liked how this book presented the class divide between rich and poor. IRL, the wealthy landowners would debt-trap laborers to staff the Haciendas/ranchos.
The book did a very good job of repeatedly acknowledging the fact that Haciendas use debt to entrap laborers. At the book’s climax, Nena confronts the fact that her father is such a landowner, and using that idea confronts and turns her back on her father in favor of Néstor. This is VERY good of the author. It honestly makes me forgive everything else, because it was so well done.
I wanted the book to really look to contextualize the divide between ranchos and vaqueros through the lens of racism and colorism. Are the vaqueros darker skinned on average? Is Nena lighter skinned than Néstor, because she’s the daughter of a wealthy aristocratic family? It would be both cute and historically accurate to have an interracial romance going on between Nena and Néstor, and helped amp-up the starcrossed nature of their relationship. But I’m not going to complain too much, because what was here worked well.
The prose is filled with a lush sentimentality. At moments I thought the pacing got slow and I was tempted to quit the book, but the prose was so good it kept me reading. I could keep raving about the prose, but less is sometimes more.
However it’s not perfect. The book felt overwritten at moments. This book is written in close 3rd person, sticking close to the internal train of thought for whichever protagonist was featured at the time. The narrative occasionally got sidetracked when the protagonist thought of something, or had a flashback.
I got annoyed more than once when a conversation was interrupted mid-stream by the narration going on a side-tangent for several paragraphs, or even multiple pages. Once the tangent was over, the conversation would resume. I’d have to go back several pages to remember what the initial conversation was about. While the prose itself was elegant, the structure lacked refinement. When these mid-conversation disruptions happened, it slowed the pacing.
I feel like I’m complaining too much. I loved reading this book.
I’m no historian, but I don’t think this book was entirely historically accurate. In this book, the flintlock pistols had safeties. This book takes place in the 1840’s; the pistol safety was invented in the 1880’s, and not for flintlocks.
While it’s not good to have a historical inaccuracy, I don’t think this hurts the book. I don’t think the average romance reader cares about guns. If this was a more action reader book, I think this would be a problem, but here it’s not. It’s clear the author did some research about guns, but this slipped through the cracks.
I noticed a four or five other anachronisms, but they are so minor as to not matter.
The vampires were cool. They were animalistic, vaguely human beasts. I don’t think it’s ever explained where they come from. They resemble bats more than humans, with large pointed ears, a strangely petaled nose, and completely lacking eyes. They communicate through chirping at one another.
It’s clear that the author is talented at writing horror prose. We witness the ‘birth’ of a vampire in this book; vampires are not corrupted humans, but created by body horror a la ‘Alien.’ I wish this book had more horror, because the author is good at it.
Overall, this book aspires to a restrained gothic aesthetic. The vampires mostly take place off-screen. Nena, as a mystical curandera, is able to sense their presence when they are nearby. As a result, the vampires become a psychological pressure on the events of the book, constantly driving the characters forward. When ever the heroes find a drained body (which is frequently), it’s terrifying because the heroes know the vampires are hunting them.
I could keep going, but I’m trying to chill out in my reviews. Overall, the message is good, it just needed a little tinkering around the edges.
LESSONS LEARNED
As an author, I want to improve my own writing/editing skills. To that end, I like to learn lessons from every story I read. Here’s what I learned from this story:
- I need to keep an open mind. I heartily enjoyed this book, despite it being outside of my usual wheelhouse.
Here’s a link to all the lessons I’ve previously learned.
SUMMARY
Sometimes judge a book by it’s cover. I enjoyed the cover of this book, and it paid off!
Did you like this critique/review? Here are some more: The Rest of My In Depth Reviews
On a personal note, I’m open to editing books. I don’t like putting myself out here like this, but I’ve been told I should. Check my blog for details if interested.
John Mendez- Book Reviews and More 