Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫/5

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas burst onto the popular book scene last summer with an eye-catching cover and the tantalizing promise of a vampire thriller-romance (thrillmance? can that be the new romantasy?). It’s Cañas’s second novel (following her bestselling 2022 debut The Hacienda), and I was able to squeeze it in as my very last read of 2023. It managed to be a charming and gripping tale I bet many romance fans would enjoy — but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

Summary:

Nena and Nestor were inseparable as children — until one night when the two 13 year-olds snuck out to search for buried silver, and Nena was attacked by some sort of savage, spider-limbed creature. Certain that Nena was dead, Nestor fled in fear, staying far away from Nena’s family’s land for over a decade. When he finally returns, ready to fight the looming threat of Anglo invaders, he’s shocked to see Nena alive, warm and…hostile. Seeing Nestor for the first time in ten years, Nena can’t help but be furious. After all, he’d promised never to leave her, and had promptly done just that. But now, with battle looming, they’ll have to deal with what it means to be in each other’s lives again as they work together to survive. It’s not just the horror of war that threatens their future — there is something else, something that sticks to the shadows and nurses a wicked thirst for blood.

***

The shining beacon within Vampires of El Norte is the romance plot, which is very sweet. Nena is the center of Nestor’s life — until he believes her dead. And Nestor is the one person Nena knows she can trust — until he runs away. The tension of their unexpected reunion and gradual reconciliation draws the reader constantly forward. I kept turning the pages because I had to know, do these two ever really talk about their feelings? Cañas has a gift for suspense and natural-sounding dialogue, so every scene between Nena and Nestor feels like you’re a fly on the wall listening in, and you can’t stop vibrating your little cellophane wings in anticipation of the impending juicy confrontation.

My personal tastes, however, skew more toward the horror side of things. The romantic aspect of Vampires of El Norte may be well-paced and compelling (if a little predictable), but I was disappointed by how little the vampires mattered to the plot. They only appear a handful of times, and could easily be replaced with something like werewolves, zombies or rabid raccoons with very little change to the story. The only reason vampires make a little more textual sense is because they’re an apt metaphor for the land-hungry American invaders, who represent the ultimate evil in the story.

Even this question of “who are the real vampires?” doesn’t matter much in the end. Ninety percent of this book is simply Nena and Nestor pining after each other, then pulling back just before they can talk about their feelings because their traumatic history and nineteenth-century Catholic propriety just keep getting in the way. The rest — the time period, the war, and the vampires — are just backdrop elements.

I don’t think that makes Vampires of El Norte a bad book. There’s so much it does incredibly well. Cañas masterfully paints a portrait of a place in time (1840s Mexico) and splashes it with a love story that even the most stone-hearted reader can’t help rooting for. Sex is never more than implied, but boy is it implied. The scene in particular where Nestor teaches Nena how to shoot a pistol is deliciously tense and unbelievably steamy for a scene where everyone remains fully clothed. So yeah, you could say that it left an impression on me. That impression just could have been a little more vampire-y.

The romance within of Vampires of El Norte is well-crafted and compelling enough to draw most readers through to the end. For vampire fans, though, there isn’t much of substance to latch onto. In the end, this wasn’t really my sort of book, but I think I would reach for it again if I’m in the mood for a nice love story. I certainly recommend it for anyone who loves a good romance with just a dash of supernatural-thriller for color.