Three words: Vampires (duh). Longing. Colonizers.

Who is Isabel Cañas?

Hands down, Isabel Cañas knows how to write rich and complex characters. Having a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, this author uses her educational background and her own heritage to write engaging paranormal stories that take place in the 19th century against the tapestry of colonization, politics, and societal standards. The main characters in her stories are survivors of political and racial oppression, while fighting for survival against these ghosts and monsters that are likened to the real horrors these characters face in their everyday lives (that many of us with the same heritage can relate to).

Vampires of El Norte is no exception to this description. Its protagonists Nena and Néstor find themselves trying to protect their homeland from Anglo settlers from the North who are threatening to take their lands south of the Rio Bravo in Tejas (Texas), while also trying to survive attacks from strange beasts who roam the land. Cañas does not hold her tongue when describing how Anglos take and take and take with no remorse and it’s fucking beautiful to see this in a popular fiction book. Cañas speaks truth to horrors that happened IRL (and that continue to happen) that still haunt Mexicans to this day while layering in paranormal happenings that feel all too real.

What I Loved (Spoiler alert, it’s not the romance or the vampires)

I love a good historical fiction where the underdog wins. In this book, Néstor, a lowly vaquero builds wealth during his formative years so that he may have enough funds to buy his own land and be his own boss. He does not want to be indebted to any patron (land owner), especially considering how shitty patrones treated their peones (person who works said land).

From the late 16th century to the 19th century, Spain gave away land grants to Spanish settlers and Catholic priests all over Mexico and parts of the US that used to be Mexico (Texas, New Mexico, California, etc) in order to cultivate the land for the crown. Some of these land grants turned into Ranchos, or Haciendas, and others were turned into Missions, all using Indigenous labor to tend to the land, crops, and animals (that includes European colonizers). These landowners did absolutely nothing to earn these lands other than be born Spanish, which made them entitled and privileged over the Indigenous people who have been living on said lands for millennia. Spanish colonizers and their descendants were able to build and accumulate wealth while paying their workforce little to nothing in order to keep their profits high.

At the time when our male protagonist, Néstor, comes of age in the mid 1840s, he’s been all over Tejas and Northern Mexico, tending to ranches, breaking in mustangs, and doing odd jobs for rich widows that treat him extremely well financially and sexually. He’s no stranger to life on the road and he’s definitely not naive to the politics of being a Brown vaquero who labors everyday for someone else’s financial gain. Néstor knows what it’s like to constantly be looked down upon because he’s a vaquero, but because he knows his worth, he doesn’t let himself get treated like a servant, and he inspires the men around him to also be strong and independent from entitled patrones who have never worked hard a day in their privileged life. Eventually, Néstor buys his own plot of land employs vaqueros to work alongside him on his land, not as peones, but as independent vaqueros.

I just love it when Indigenous characters get what they are owed. In this case, Néstor worked hard for what he got. He put in the work day in and day out. He was not entitled or privileged. He earned the right to buy his land and marry the woman of his dreams. It was a simple dream and he fulfilled it.

My Favorite Parts

There’s something so hot about running from paranormal monsters with your childhood crush who you kind of hate, but still love. Like, yes, you’re scared, but you’re also putting on a brave face so you don’t look weak in front of this person you’re trying to impress. It’s giving Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Originals, but in 19th-century Mexico. So, so hot.

And while we’re on the topic of vampires, the ones in this book are actually not that hot. They are literal monsters with claws, fugly faces, and giant fangs. They are not like Angel or Niklaus Mikaelson. I really liked that they were given ghoulish features which is a stark contrast to how our current society romanticizes these bloodsuckers.

And plot twist, the vampires were actually not that bad. The irony that Cañas humanizes the vampires who are not human-like at all is not lost on me. Nena finding compassion for these beasts and allowing them to live so long as they don’t hunt on her land is actually pretty fucking beautiful and directly opposite to how the Anglos trapped and tortured them before setting them loose to feed on Mexican ranches in order to steal their lands.

My most favorite part of the whole book was the realness between Nena and Néstor. She’s a rancher’s daughter and he’s a peone’s son. They’re not supposed to marry. They’re supposed to stay separate and marry someone in their own class, but what Nena and Néstor have is beyond all that BS. It’s real. It’s authentic. It’s friendship, and trust, and love. They are never naive about how their relationship might come across in society and they don’t hold their tongue when it comes to how they truly feel. They hurt each other, poke at each other, and trigger each others’ insecurities, and if that ain’t how lasting long-term relationships are forged, then I don’t know a damn thing.

In Conclusion, Read The Damn Book

Because this, my friend, is a 5-star read and I say that with my full chest. This book doesn’t TELL, it SHOWS. It makes you feel, gasp, and stay up later than your bedtime because it’s just that damn good.

📚 Read If You Loved

★ The movie Sinners directed by Ryan Coogler
★ The book Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

★ The TV Show Outlander based on the book series by Diana Gabaldon