by Isabel Cañas
First published 2024
Nena grows up on a Mexican ranch in the 1840s, where blood-draining creatures terrorize the borderlands at night. Nine years ago, one of these monsters attacked her, and everyone believed she died, including her childhood love Néstor. He has wandered from ranch to ranch as a vaquero ever since, haunted by nightmares and unable to forget her. When the United States invades Mexico in 1846, fate brings them together again on the road to battle. Nena works as a curandera, desperate to prove her healing skills to her father before he forces her into marriage. Néstor rides with the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and cowboys. Their shocking reunion unleashes Nena's fury at his apparent abandonment, but greater dangers emerge from the darkness. The same blood-sucking terrors that once separated them now threaten both their lives. Nena and Néstor must confront their painful history and unite against the supernatural evil, or neither will live to see morning break over the war-torn frontier.
Genres: romance, american-fiction, historical-fiction, adventure, horror, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, reunited-lovers
Setting: El Norte, Mexico
Period: 1840s, 1846
400 pages · Paperback · Berkley
Content warnings: violence