AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER! Vampires, vaqueros, and star-crossed lovers face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda . As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead. Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago. Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind. When the United States invades Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh. And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn. "In late summer a young editor's fancy turns to Halloween. OK, I passed "young" a while back, and I'm only interested in Halloween in so far as it's a good excuse to write about horror novels, which have been enjoying another golden age the last few years. One of the most anticipated horror novels of fall—just released—is Vampires of El Norte. And it's great—a lyrical, beautifully written mix of horror, the supernatural, and even romance, as Nena and her longlost childhood sweetheart are unexpectedly reunited in 1840s Mexico just in time to face an entity that is more dangerous than the 'blood-hungry beasts and river ghosts that the abuelos on the rancho spun to keep children close to home after sunset.' " —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor, Amazon Book Review Isabel Cañas is a Mexican American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, and New York City, among other places, she has settled in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage. 1 Nena Octubre 1837 It was often said that a strange kind of magic ran in the waters of Rancho Los Ojuelos, the kind that made the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca go mad, the kind that made mustangs swift and the land rich. Nena knew, even as a child, that magic was a turn of phrase. A way that adults talked about bounty and blessings: with reverence, and perhaps a bit of fear, for when you had much, you never knew how much of it could be lost. She and Néstor were thirteen that year. She knew that magic, in as many words, was not real. But as summer's heat stretched thin and reached into fall, there was something she sensed whenever she set her palms to the soil of the herb garden behind la casa mayor or turned her face to the twilight-bruised sky. A strangeness. A ripple of unease. An understanding, though timid at first, that perhaps there was some truth to the stories of blood-hungry beasts and river ghosts that the abuelas on the rancho spun to keep children close to home after sunset. A sense that there was a reason to watch one's back when shadows grew long. Perhaps magic was the wrong word altogether. For what Nena and Néstor found that night was monstrous. For the second time that week, Nena slipped out from under her blankets, stone floor cool beneath her bare feet. She had waited for hours, sleepless, her mind racing as she counted the heavy breaths of her younger sister and cousins. At last it was time. The moon hung full outside the bedroom’s single window, heavy as a bag of coins. By its light, she snatched an already dirty dress and slipped it over her head. It had a muddied hem; the plans she and Néstor had would make it dirtier still. He would already be waiting for her by the anacahuita trees, a shovel in hand. Ready to dig. Ready to test the last of the fireside stories that they still believed. Of all of Néstor's abuela's stories, the tale of the Spanish count's buried silver paled in comparison to that of El Cuco, cloaked and carrying a child's severed head in the crook of his arm. When the children of the rancho settled around Abuela's feet in a crescent of devout supplicants, they begged for La Llorona's wails or the long talons of La Lechuza, not the tale of a well-heeled Spaniard perishing of exhaustion in the chaparral. Nena no longer feared boogeymen or ghosts snatching at her plaits when rain lashed the rancho and lightning fractured the broad, black sky. In the last year, Tejas had been ripped out of México, leaving a gaping wound in its wake. She had learn