Isabel Cañas wrote an excellent historical fiction thriller (Vampires of El Norte) set on the border of Texas and Mexico in the 1840s. This was a time when the Americans were pushing south in the beginning stages of the Mexican-American War, which started in 1846. Mexico lost, in its estimation, 55% of its territory in the Treaty of Hidalgo, which ended the war three years later.
At the center of the novel is Los Ojuelos Ranch, owned by an upper-class Mexican family. The daughter, Magdelena (Nena) is the main character. She is a tough, independent woman who is trying to save her ranch from “Los Rinches” a derogatory term the Mexicans called the Texas Rangers at the time. Cañas did her research and the book really puts the reader in the dry, mesquite deserts of the time and place. It was inevitable that the much larger, more organized, and richer Americans were going to win the war. It is a good reminder of why much of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas is Hispanic today. It used to be Mexico! The novel puts into perspective the loss of property and lives suffered by the Mexicans in the fighting. It reminds me of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, but since it happened almost 200 years ago, it is forgotten.
The book is a thriller because the Americans have trained, blood-sucking, beasts of burdens, referred to as “Vampires”. They either kill their victims through mauling, sucking their blood, or poisoning them with “susto” (fear in Spanish). The book does not explain how the American army found or was able to use the vampires to attack the Mexicans. Nena and her love interest Nestor, a peon vaquero (cowboy) are heroic in fighting against the vampires and the Americans. Besides the Americans and Vampires, Nena needs to fight against her conservative family that wants to marry her off to a neighboring ranch to help protect their ranch, while she wants to marry the love of her life, Nestor.
Items that I highlighted in the book:
- “never surprise anyone from sleep, for Abuela said doing so risked the wandering, dreaming soul being separated from the waking body.”
- poultice – a soft, moist, mass, applied to the skin to treat a wound, inflammation, or infection (Nadia’s Aunt Silvia treated a bruise I had one time from falling off my bicycle.)
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