Poured Over: Isabel Cañas on Vampires of El Norte

By Jenna Seery / August 31, 2023 at 6:00 am

“I’ve been asked, why do you blend genres so much? And the simple answer is that it’s what I want to read.”

Horror meets romance meets historical fiction in Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas. This genre-bending novel will have something for any reader — whether they’re looking for spooky, spicy or something in between. Cañas joins us to talk about her research process, the connection between this book and her own family, the importance of genre fiction and more with guest host, Jenna Seery. We end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Madyson and Mary.      

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Jenna Seery and mixed by Harry Liang.        

Featured Books (Episode):
Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Lone Women by Victor LaValle
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno Garcia
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
Island Witch by Amanda Jayatissa
The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Featured Books (TBR Topoff):
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda
Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison

Full Episode Transcript
Jenna Seery
I’m Jenna Seery, a bookseller and associate producer of Poured Over and today I am so excited, because I have with me Isabel Cañas. Yes, author of The Hacienda, which I know you’ll remember from being a B&N Discover Pick. And today I’m here to talk about this incredible new book Vampires of el Norte. I love this. It has horror, it has romance. It has suspense. It has everything you’d want from historical fiction. This book is going to check so many boxes for so many people. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Isabel Cañas
Thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here. Like I love this podcast. So this is a bit of like a little box ticked career milestone for me. So please, excuse me, if I do.

We are so glad to have you because this book is something that I think is so special. There are so many moments while I was reading this that I was like, This is everything I need in this kind of fiction. In this kind of horror, it’s got these fantastical elements, but at the heart is this great love story between two characters that I think people are going to flip for. So I would love if we started with just you giving us a little description of the book.

Yeah, so this book takes place in 1846 in South Texas, which was at the time northern Mexico. And it’s about two childhood sweethearts who after being separated by a tragedy for nine years, are rather abruptly reunited right at the outbreak of the Mexican American War. And they have to work together and work through their issues that they have, and work through their past to save their home ranch from threats that are both human and supernatural. And the tragedy at the beginning is, you know, might or might not be be related to vampires.

And if that doesn’t lure people in, the vampires in the title, I don’t know what will because I was sold from the second I saw the cover.

Berkeley just knocked it out of the park. When that hit my inbox, my jaw hit the floor. It hit the floor.

It’s stunning. And so poignant, I think for like once I finished it and looked at finished the book and then looked at the cover again, I was like, it’s even more like, perfect once you finish and you get to that like culmination point. So I think something that’s so important about this book is that even if you think vampires aren’t your thing, even if you think maybe horror or this kind of speculative world aren’t your thing. This is such an easy, and like compelling way to get into a genre that I think anyone would be able to pick up. And I wonder if you have some thoughts about like that vibe of horror that you’ve put out here?

So when I came when it came to putting the horror elements into this book, I think the story between the two characters came to me first and foremost, very strongly. Usually, when I conceive of a book, there’s one element of it that just pushes right to the front, for The Hacienda. It was the concept of the haunted house, like I knew, I really I knew in my bones, I wanted it to be a specific kind of setting a specific kind of atmosphere with vampires that are not then Nestor just walked into my mind fully formed, just swaggered right in and that was that, he was actually going to be a smaller character in another book, but conversations with my with my editor led to a complete rehaul of the book idea and put him front and center with Nena at his side. So the characters came first. And I knew, because it’s kind of my jam at the moment. It’s kind of the writing that there was going to be a horror element in this historical fiction novel. And I write about this in my author’s note, but I thought I wanted to write about vampires. And I didn’t want to do like your average, well, there’s nothing average about vampires, but having grown up in the twilight era, and having I remember reading Dracula under the desk in AP US history when I was 17 years old, and just being utterly enthralled. Like, as a goth teenager, this was my bread and butter, but I knew I wanted to do something different. I wanted something a little more monstrous. And I knew I wanted the book set in South Texas, which is where my mom’s family has hailed from for at least five generations, the Cañas side of my family, had all these elements kind of swirling around. But it wasn’t until I was visiting my mom in the summer of 2021. And just kind of like pawing through her bookshelves, as I often do when I’m at her house, just like low key stealing things. I found this book. I think it was about architecture in South Texas, you know, not super related to the subject of my book, but it had a quote by the politician, the 19th century politician Cheno Cortina, who is called sometimes the Robin Hood of that area because his outlaw tactics, there’s a lot of history there that I won’t bog you down with. But what he did say, he described Yankee settlers who were coming to Texas and sometimes, rather violently taking land from Mexicans who had had ranches there for hundreds of years. He called them vampires. He said, These men in the form of vampires are taking your land. And that was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This document is from like the 1850s. That was way before Dracula was written. That was way before Carmilla was written, like, why are we talking about vampires? And for a while, I felt like I’ve come up with the idea for this book, and I worried Am I shoehorning in this speculative element is it doesn’t vibe with the setting? Is it organic to the setting? And when I read that, quote, I was like, Yep, it is. But I knew that I wanted my vampires to be monstrous. So I also leaned into Latin American folklore. Like I think some readers and listeners will be familiar with El Cucui, or El Cuco, is my grandma calls him the boogey man who walks in many forms through folklore in different countries and different areas of different countries even but it’s always very frightful. And I also, you know, wanted to like do a little nod to the Chupacabra. But yeah, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, with the speculative element, with the story that I’m trying to tell, I’ve been asked, like, why do you blend genres so much? And the simple answer is, is that it’s what I want to read. You know, I love my mom jokes that it’s the genre that I write is smoochies, romance and spookies. So I love the two together it just, I can’t write a story without a little romance and I can’t write a story without a little something spooky, a little something dark. So that’s why I mash it all together.

It’s that’s a perfect description, because this book, it never fully loses you in any one genre. There’s something for everyone and it doesn’t have the, you know, all the romance tropes, even though I think there is definitely like a friends to enemies to friends question mark to more questions, like a such a good interesting thing for people who are looking for that. And like you said, vampires it’s so it’s always interesting to see everyone’s take because culturally across the globe, and across time, there are so many representations of vampires. This one felt very fresh and so new, The descriptions of these creatures is…

Coming from a bookseller. Like I am flattered, man.

I love it. The descriptions of these vampires is going to haunt me for a little bit. I definitely was like, oh, that’s, that’s spooky. That’s a lot. You know, it’s not your Edward from Twilight.

It is a little more creepy crawly that lurks in the dark. You know, I sometimes think of when I think of the relationship between The Hacienda and Vampires of El Norte, what readers will find to like between the two, like what is the common denominator rather? I think The Hacienda plays with a fear of the dark when you’re trapped inside of a house. And Vampires of El Norte plays with a fear of the dark when you’re exposed out in the wilderness. Like when I was growing up, my dad took us camping a lot because not because he liked camping or was any good at it, frankly, because he’s one parenting article that said like camping is good for fostering relationships in your, in your family, blah, blah, blah. So camping we went very poorly. But I remember just you know, being out in the woods in the dark. This was in Southern California. I was very afraid of cougars. I was very afraid of bears. So of course my dad’s snoring like freaked me out the middle of the night, there was something very uncanny about feeling that far from civilization. I mean, I was 11 Were we far from civilization? No, it was South Orange County, like we were not far from anything. But it felt very quiet, very exposed, and there’s something very eerie and I think something that taps into our lizard brains, you know, something very primal about being in the dark, exposed and knowing you’re on your own kid, to quote Taylor Swift, you’re on your own out there. And there’s, there’s something bigger and meaner than you out there too.

And your setting in this story is so vivid for people like me who have never been to that part of the world. I’ve only ever seen it in, you know, in films and read about it in books. And yet, I knew exactly that feeling that feeling of exposure and being so out of your element in the sense of you know that you’re out here and it’s nighttime and something else is with you.

I think that’s like a really beautiful thing that horror can do is it takes something like good horror will take a feeling that is universal or nearly universal or shared among a very low large group of people put it in a very specific place. So you’re experiencing something new like this is a new setting. Maybe you’ve never read a book set in South Texas before. Maybe you’ve never read a book set out in 19th century Mexico before. But that feeling like you said, it’s being like exposed, you know, the hairs lifting on the back of your neck knowing something’s watching you in the dark, like, I think we can all relate to that. But the setting itself, I actually my mom grew up in San Benito, Texas, which is like a grain of sand on the map. In South Texas near, I guess Brownsville is the nearest big city, or Harlingen is the nearest town, I had a text chain with her and my aunt’s. And I was like, hey, guys, I want to have a thunderstorm. But the book is set in May, what would it feel like? And I would get like blocks of texts back from them. And they would tell me like, why don’t you have more mosquitoes? Are you going to have this kind of tree? Are you going to have this kind of Bush, are you going to have like, you know, the wild hogs running around? Are you going to have this kind of critter running around. So in terms of the setting, I owe so much to my mom and my aunt, because they provided so much of the color and their memories of living there. So that was really cool. And really special, I got to share with them when I was writing this.

That definitely adds that layer that I think you can’t mimic in writing that very lived in experience that so much of this I mean, even though it’s historical fiction, and none of us lived this exact thing, those pieces where you’re like, I know what this place is, like, you know, from someone who experiences it firsthand, it adds so much. And especially when you’re reading through and you’re like I had to google certain, you know, plants and things like that, because I’m from the north, I had no idea what some of these things were. But I’m the kind of person who I’ll google deep dive anything while I’m reading. So I always seemed to do a search. But there are so many moments where I was like, I know exactly what that feels like. And especially along with these characters who feel so vivid and so real. Nena for me is just such an incredible insight and window into this world. There were so many moments where I was like, I love her. And there’s so many moments, I was like, girl, you got to get it together and get a grip.

And she was frustrating to write. And as you said earlier, I think this book might will appeal to readers who like different things like it has elements that will appeal to readers of romance. And I think structurally at the end of the day, like I was binging romances when I was writing this book, and I think it really shone through in the structure. And so I think every good romance that I’ve ever read has a character where you think, dammit, what are you doing? What are you doing? Like, I know, we’re 80% in the novel, and there’s supposed to be a breakup or something terrible supposed to happen. But girl get it together. That ended up happening in the book, too. I remember like, you know, brainstorming what was going to happen in that part of the book and thinking, Oh, no, I’m gonna have to write this down. I gotta be so hard girl. What are you doing? Yeah, it was it was great fun. But my readers heart was like no.

And their voices are so distinct, like, sort of the back and forth between perspectives in chapters. And it’s not a straight back and forth. It’s not like every other chapter, which I kind of appreciated. Because it, it allows things to feel a little more organic than just, and now it’s this and now it’s that and now it’s this. But they’re so distinct. And I would be like reading a chapter from next door and I’d be like, I can’t wait to get to the next chapter because I need to know how she feels about what he just said.

Yeah, I think writing this book was really special because they came, the two characters came alive so vividly, like I said earlier and their voices came to me very distinctly to and Nestor as a kid of a certain class. He’s born, you know, as a peon on someone else’s ranch and comes to Nena’s family’s ranch as a worker and Nena as the daughter of the ranchero, the guy who owns the ranch, like they have different educational backgrounds, different social classes, different expectations, different experiences in life. And so that really had it came to life so quickly. It was one of those things where when I was writing the first draft of this book, it almost felt like writing fanfiction because they were just like yakking away in my head, just chattering and chattering and chattering and I was racing to keep up. It was something really magical where I felt like I was tapping into something, you know, I don’t get woowoo about my writing often. I’m very much a plotter. I’m very structured. I do a ton of research. I have a PhD in history. So I definitely bring that to the table. And I think most people who are PhDs are also deeply type A, like, I need to call my therapist about this, like that sounds structured. I am about writing. And this book, I think, really, if you’ll excuse the pun, took the reins and bolted off with me like it was. I think I’m lucky that the two books that I’ve had published both The Hacienda and Vampires of el Norte, both of them have had that spark of something that I can unexplained that I just have to race to catch.

And I think readers will feel the same thing as they’re going along. Because from that first page, like you said, there’s this big event that happens. And you have to just see what happens next. I mean, there’s no way to I can’t imagine being like, well, I guess I’ll just stop there. Like I said, I read this basically in the sitting because it’s very propulsive, the tension is so good. And you manage tension. Without, you know, for a horror book. It’s not violent. It’s not incredibly gory. I mean, there are definitely moments of unsettling imagery. But it you manage this tension really through words in a way that I think will lure in a lot of literary readers because this isn’t just your sort of shock, gore horror book, there’s it’s really about the tension.

Thank you. I think readers who read a lot of horror might think that this book isn’t as spooky as the their preferred horror reads, which I’m okay with because I as a reader, what I look for in horror is that tension is that suspense? And that feeling of it’s almost like this weightlessness that you feel when you’re reading that you’re so absorbed and flipping the pages as fast as you can I look for that escape. readers find that in different places, some readers find that in the tension that’s inherent in romance. Some readers find that and the escapism of the world building a fantasy I know, I certainly do as well, or in escapism of historical fiction. But thank you very much. I think what I seek to do in my writing is to make my books, books that you can’t put down and read or that is harder than you think. Especially when you’re writing historical fiction, where there’s a ton of detail that you could include, but I just want everyone to know, I showed an immense amount of restraint when it came to the historical detail that I could have put in this book, and I cut a lot of side characters. Yeah, as a Mexican American, you know, I have a lot of cousins. My mom has like 60- odd first cousins. And so like I have all these side characters, and my editor was like, Isabel, this book is looking a little long, and I was like, okay, okay, okay. I will cut, I will cut.

The amount of detail you have, though, is so great. I mean, like you said historical fiction requires an amount of world building in itself, because you really have to feel like you’re there. And I know from reading The Hacienda and from your PhD background, I it seems like research is something that is something you love. And that is a big piece of your work. So I’d love to hear about the research process for this book.

Yeah, actually, I think researching fiction, researching for one’s PhD is like a different ballgame altogether. And that is like that’s homework. Researching for books, for me has always felt like there’s a little bit of Kismet that just clicks into place. When you find the right document like for The Hacienda, there was one document in particular that just like, listed out everything I needed to know about the region that The Hacienda is set it like the weather, you know, flora and fauna. You know, what kind of crops that people grow. It was incredible for Vampires of El Norte, I had a much bigger task ahead of me, because what was I doing? I had characters who weave in and out of actual historical events, which I didn’t have in The Hacienda. And, you know, perhaps a bit innocently, I was like, no big deal. This is gonna be fun. You know, they’re gonna walk into this extremely famous, well documented battle and walk right out and you know, but a bing bada boom, we go to the next chapter, Famous last words. Oh, my God, I’m eating my words, right now, it was actually really tricky to try and balance the amount of work that I was doing on the back end. Because I think one thing that it’s very difficult to do as a writer of historical fiction, is to know when to stop researching and start writing because you can procrastinate for forever reading another article reading another articles because you’re like, wait, no, I don’t know exactly what kind of like, what kind of herbs grew in this particular region of Texas. But at this time, and like the next thing, you know, you’re knee deep in like 19th century horticultural research that is no way relevant to the character’s journey. So I’ve often said when people ask me like, how do you read historical fiction, it’s like pick a topic that you actually don’t know that much about. Pick a setting that you’re not an expert in, because you actually don’t need as much research as you think, you kind of can skim the top and find stuff that is most important to the story. And that becomes set dressing that informs the characters choices and informs their voices and informs their world. But readers aren’t looking for footnotes, they’re looking for, you know, things that go bump in the dark and that you will take care of them and like a really gripping character arc. So for this book I read a lot about South Texas. It was really interesting because for me, my family is from South Texas and has been for generations. The history of it is not something you learned about in school. And a lot of it has been silenced and rewritten from a particular perspective. And so I read a historical novel that was published posthumously because it was a bit radical at the time, I think it was published in 1950s, called Caballero by Jovita González, and she was a folklorist who, from South Texas, who collected a lot of, you know, folk stories from people living, who had been living on the ranches in South Texas who continued to live there. And the story is also set during the Mexican American War. And it’s about a young woman who falls in love with an American and what it felt like for the people living in South Texas, to suddenly have the border move around them and find themselves in citizens of a hostile invading nation that, frankly, was hostile to them personally, because of their background, and their language. I read a lot of stuff that was really eye opening and sometimes rather difficult. As a Mexican American, it was a lot of harsh truths about how Mexicans were treated in Texas after it became a part of the United States. It’s really difficult to read about in fact, and to know that, you know, researching The Hacienda, it’s set in a region of Mexico that my family is not from. So there was an element to distance. But with Vampires of El Norte, reading about the way land was seized from Mexicans, the way many Mexican landowners were murdered for their land, there was a long history of extra judicial killings that were carried out by the Texas Rangers in the early 20th century against Mexicans where I’ve literally had to put the books down and walk away, because these are my people. And suddenly, it became very personal. And so when it came to writing Vampires of El Norte there is a big element of that, too. I think I gave a bit of my heart to the book. And I think most writers, writers do that to every book. They’re Horcruxes. They carry a piece of our souls, there are different pieces of my soul that go into every book. And for this one, it’s my family. So it’s very special to me, even if it is a bit chaotic in terms of genre, it’s like what are you getting? Is this a romance is historical fiction is this horror? Yes. All of the above. And it’s also, you know, a bit of my own mythmaking about Texas, it’s a land of big myths. It’s a land of big history and big cowboy hats and big boots and dark history too.

I think that I don’t want to read a book that doesn’t have a little bit of the author’s heart and soul in it. You know, I think that that’s really….

They’re out there, though. Sometimes you pick them up, and you’re like…

I know. But those are the books that you know, we feel differently about. Because when you are reading something, and you can really feel that connection to the author, I think connection is such a big part of reading, especially for this kind of genre where I think a lot of people had to genre fiction because they are looking for connection and things whether that’s in romance, or in horror, what have you had, and I think it can come from things that are familiar to you and have a personal connection. But I think there’s also something where, when something is completely unfamiliar to you, and you may not know, but yet, you can still say but I know how that feels, even if that’s not familiar to me.

Exactly. And like knowing how that feels like as a reader. This is why I’m gonna get up on my soapbox a little bit here. Horror and romance are not so different. Because they are genres of aspects, they are all about making the reader feel something. And when it came to blending the two genres in this book, you know, structurally tactically on a line level, if we’re gonna get real nitty gritty about it, it’s like, you know, the exercise was not so different writing the romance scenes and writing the spooky scenes, because what was I trying to do is trying to make the reader feel something really strongly. And in movies, there’s sound effects, there’s lighting changes, there’s the spooky music, you know, that Dun dun dun. They’re jumpscares. And when it comes to writing, horror and romance, all we have is black words on a white page. And I, I bow down to romance and horror writers and the people who switch the two together because it’s really difficult actually to make to really hit the reader in the fields. So I make that my myth. Yeah, that is my job. That is what I’m here to do. No matter what genre I’m writing. I want to hit you in the feels and I’m not sorry.

And I think both genres too. They, whether it’s spooky or spicy, it comes out of periods of transition, and I think your characters in this book both, your characters and your setting as a whole are in states of transition. And so there’s so much swirling around both of these people and in the world they’re in that it allows for all of the nuance and all of the things that you look for in great tension building, but also gonna hit you straight in the feels fiction.

That’s so insightful. You’re so right, I’m gonna think about writing my next book differently. Now, it’s like people in transition. And that is, I need to write that down very soon, once we get off this call.

Well, so much of as I was identifying with Nena, sort of going through these things like she’s very different from me, her life is very different. And yet, she’s going through this sort of coming of age, which I think hits a lot in, in genre fiction as well. But it’s also for her a coming of agency. She’s really coming into her own, she’s understanding her own power, her own purpose, and being on that journey with her is quite the ride.

Yeah, a lot of her character is informed by being a woman in a very patriarchal space. And I think a lot of not just Latina readers will identify with this are readers who were raised in Catholic household like I was, where the father and even the mother’s belief about how your life should be lived as a very powerful force. That, to me felt very natural and very real. You know, I think I had some early reader comments from friends of mine who were like, listen, her dad, like a little over the top a little too much. I was like, No, I personally don’t think so actually— read and make your own decisions about that.

And I think high end experience, especially when you are, you know, she’s young when the book starts, but she’s too young to the entire book. And I think sometimes when you’re dealing with your parents, everything feels heightened.

Exactly, exactly, it’s like I’m in my 30s and I still in like that being in this state of transition, like I just had a baby, dealing with my parents and my in laws is like, we’re in a state of transition. And suddenly, things just feel a little heightened a little difference. And I think for now, not trying to find her agency and try to carve agency out of a world that doesn’t want to give it to her, you know, things are the stakes feel quite high to her. Are they high? No. Yes, actually. Yeah, actually, yeah, I retract that statement. Yes, the stakes are high. And they’re very personally for her personally, they’re very high. Because she’s somebody who’s very headstrong in terms of she knows what kind of life he doesn’t want. And she has an idea of what she does want. But it’s also very scary to reach out and take it because she’s going against what are very powerful forces in her life, that is the will of her parents’ societal expectations about the kind of person a woman of her status should marry. So I think that’s a familiar trope to readers of historical fiction, historical romance, but it’s in a fresh setting, and there’s a hot cowboy involved. So what’s not to love?

JSs

Exactly, watching her confront not only her own personal struggles with her love and her family, but these bigger struggles of her trying to imagine her future in a world that seems to be sort of slipping out from under her as she watches. The Americans, the Yankees swing through and sort of take control in a way that she doesn’t know how to grapple with that, and neither do the people around her. But all she knows is that she wants to stand up for what she has, and what she loves and what she believes in. And I think that even though culturally, this is a fresh setting in so many ways, I don’t, I can’t think of so many books that you know, are set in this time and in this place. But that struggle is so clear, and so accessible to readers, I think.

Yeah, and I think actually, now that I reflect on it, it’s like when you look at the world now, it’s hard to envision our own futures a bit, you know, with so many things falling into pieces around our ears. So maybe that will resonate with readers. But you know, it was a bit tricky trying to figure out where exactly in this conflict to place the story, because at the end of the day, historically, for many people, it did not have a happy ending. You know, it was a period that ended in a lot of tragedy, a lot of loss of agency, and a really profound transformation of identity and a really profound transformation in one’s place in the world. It was tricky, but I found a happy ending guys. I can confirm for the romance readers out there or those who are interested in a scary tale that ends on a lighter note. This one’s for you.

And I think it blends into this sort of newer wave of horror that we’re seeing that are telling stories of women and that are telling stories of people of color. And we’ve got so many incredible authors that are coming out with these works that are like, I’m telling my own story. And I’m telling my own cultural story, because the agency there of being able to reclaim stories is so important. And I think, in this genre of horror, there’s so much room for growth and opportunity for those stories.

I absolutely believe that. And I think in a way, we’re reclaiming the things that have scared us. And I have said this in the past, and I do believe that it is true, I think that when it comes to horror, everybody, every reader, I think gravitates towards a corner of horror that pushes their buttons the most, you know, in all the best ways for the reader that scares you the most. And it’s a very broad genre, which is wonderful. There’s space for everybody, and everybody’s voices can one day be heard. So as a woman, and as a Latina, I’ve often felt, you know, picking up a book that was written by a white man, for example, like, oh, I realize, hmm, the things that frighten you are not the same things that frighten me. And so I think in terms of like women, writers, and writers of color there, I want to read it. Because suddenly, it’s like, this is an experience that echoes mine. These are fears that echo mine, these are, you know, it pushes my buttons in ways that are closer to home and therefore scarier and more escapist. And I just, I want it all. I want it all. I will shout about it from the rooftops like there are a lot of books lately that have been coming out or will be coming out where I’m like, Damn, I can’t wait to read this. I can’t wait. I think we’re having a really incredible moment right now in horror, and I am so, so grateful to be a part of it.

Absolutely. Sometimes for a lot of readers, the biggest horror is a white man.

It is and when you read the old white men, they’re like, ooh, the other, how scary. Me, comma, the other comment, like, Hey, what’s up? Right? Where’s my book?

And I think again, I mean, we’ve talked so much about genre fiction, but it is one of the ways I’ve learned the most about the world and most about other people’s perspectives, or through these nontraditional literary fiction, genres and avenues. Because the lizard brain piece, like you mentioned earlier, is so prevalent, that I think it allows people to look for things that they wouldn’t normally look for in fiction. Yeah. And allows for them to connect with characters that, you know, we’ve all heard that. Well, they’re not like me, so I can’t understand the struggling.

“I can’t identify with the main character”. Well, sure, Jan,

But when someone’s chasing after you with an X, that’s something that I think everyone can connect with.

You know, I think one special thing that horror does is that it you know, it places a pair of shoes right in front of you that will fit, you step into them and you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, so to speak, like the opening is right there. What are you afraid of? I’m afraid of it, too. Let’s go on a ride.

Exactly. And I know that for people that also love this genre that I have communicated with about this book and about so many others, we’re all on the same page. And it’s I think it’s just so much about getting other people who say they don’t like horror, they don’t understand, to give it a try.

I hope this is a gateway drug for readers of romance or historical fiction to dip their toes in a little bit. Because it does, or maybe readers of horror, who you know, maybe want a little bit of kissing in their horror to move the other way. It’s kind of like this. You know, the South Texas in the Valley in particular is a very fluid borderland, my mom wrote a whole thesis about this, about how it just the border has moved back and forth over people over the centuries. And it’s very fluid, it’s historically it’s a very been a very fluid place like other parts of the world where borders have moved quite a lot. It’s one of those pockets where things are shifting. And I think this book is similar to that. Or it echoes that in that it sits on the borders of many different genres. And it kind of depending on what chapter you’re in, what kind of experience you were bringing to it as a reader, it may shift one way or another. So you can’t pin it down, but it will, it will take you on a journey.

I mean, again, who doesn’t want their books to take them on a journey. I mean, that’s the dream. I feel like that’s a good segue because of course I want to ask you about your favorite books.. What are the Isabel Cañas, recommendations, who are you as a reader?

Oh, right. So I think like, oh my god, I’ll start with like some horror that I’ve read lately. I absolutely loved Lone Womenby Victor LaValle. It rocked my world, like literally rocked my world. Like if you if anything about Vampires of el Norteappeals to you in that. It’s like, you know, a Western, it’s speculative got monsters. It’s set in a specific time period, kind of like old Westie, and it’s got a strong BIPOC woman like this book is for you. And also, like, no spoilers. I really loved the note it ended on it left me feeling whole, you know? Is it a bit scary? Hell yeah. Does it feel good? Hell yeah. Like there were points where I was flipping through the, there was a point where I literally dropped my Kindle because I guess it rocked my world. Let’s see what else I think. As a new mother, it has been really difficult for me to read things that are long. So I’ve been reading a lot of short fiction in terms of horror, short fiction. If people aren’t familiar with this world, I really recommend checking out online magazines that are just out there for free The Dark is incredible. Sylvia Moreno Garcia used to edit it and man oh man, is it good? And speaking of short fiction, I always shout, this is my Silvia Moreno Garcia deep cut Certain Dark Things is her collection of short stories. I love her prose. Period. Do I love it best in short fiction? Yes. There’s something about these little gems, but just it’s just my favorite. It’s just my favorite. I’ve also been reading Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace might be weird coming from me given the books I have published but they’re excellent. Books that I’m about to get started on include Island Witch by Amanda Jayatissa, which is a gothic set in Sri Lanka. It has witchdoctors, it has spookiness, I believe it’s also set in the 19th century. So there’s like this tension with colonial rule. And a young woman who’s trying to come into her own. I’m about to dive into it. She’s written thrillers in the past, like My Sweet Girl, and You’re Invited, which are amazing. Like, just, again, Kindle droppingly Good. Amanda Jayatissa’s Island Witch, which I don’t remember when it comes out, the other book I have pulled up on my TBR is The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro. I haven’t dipped into it yet, because I just had a baby and I know it deals with some postpartum feels, like just kind of dip in and see how I feel. But her other her oeuvre is incredible. For those who are interested in horror, written by Latinas, there’s some really good stuff. There’s some really good stuff and Goddess of Filth is a novella that she wrote about possession, that it lingers. It’s got some really haunting imagery. It hits a little harder than you expect. But it’s definitely got some lingering imagery. Yeah.

I love that. I think like, if you look at my TBR, or looking at any of my like, millions of lists, or just my bookshelves, I am constantly just adding every time I have these conversations, I’m just like, well, there’s three more books I have to add.

Stacking them up. And like what are things that I’ve been able to actually hold my attention in this like, new mother haze, romance, and horror. So Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood. Everyone in their mother wants to read it and everyone in their mother should. It’s fantastic. It is just a delight to her best yet. I will die on this hill. It’s hard reading in this period of my life. But those are things that are really just really seize my attention.

I know this is going to maybe seem like a daunting question as we’re talking about, like your book just coming out and obviously your baby being fresh to this world. But are you working on anything coming up next?

I am. I can’t share anything. This is the familiar song and dance routine, I’m sure for you interviewing authors. I’ve got two magical things in the works that I’m so excited about. I can say that. For readers who like I hate saying this, but like air quotes, my brands have like a little bit of haunting, some historical vibes, and certainly quite a lot of Mexican and Latin American history. There’s more coming your way. Will it have a little more fantasy? Maybe we’ll have a little more horror, maybe. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see and sign up for my newsletter because that is where everybody hears about things first.

Amazing. All I know is that whatever it is, I’ll be there. If your name is on it, I’ll be there. Readers are going to be so enthralled and in love with this book Vampires of el Norte. It’s out now I can’t wait for people to read it. Isabel, thank you so much for being with us.

It was my pleasure and to any reader who is thinking of picking up Vampires of el Norte who has picked it up thank you so much because I meant it when I said like there’s a piece of my soul, like the family piece of my soul is, is hidden away in the pages of this book and I hope it speaks to you.