Immortal Pleasures

January 8, 2024
A great premise falls flat in the execution in this meandering vampire confessional from Castro (The Haunting of Alejandra). For centuries, Malinalli, a Nahua vampire from the 16th century, has been desperately seeking two skulls that once belonged to Chantico, who was “like a mother to when first became a vampire.” Malinalli travels to England in pursuit of the skulls, but what she’s really seeking is a soulmate. Horror writer Colin catches her eye, but their graphic and often cringeworthy sexual connection (“My ass is like a monstrous squid pulling its prey deeper into its mouth”) gets interrupted when Hernán Cortés, a vampire, tracks down Malinalli, who was his former slave and translator, aiming to use her body to create a magical line of beauty products. Malinalli must team up with Judas Iscariot, also a vampire, if she wants to repatriate the skulls, kill Cortés, and save Collin. The narrative suffers from a serious case of “tell don’t show” and reads almost like a summary of plot points and backstory. Overlong and over-frequent flashbacks throw off the pacing and defuse the tension even further. Though readers may be drawn in by the Anne Rice-ian quality to Malinalli’s claustrophobically close first-person narration, they’ll have a hard time seeing this one through to the end. Agent: Beth Marshea, Ladderbird.

February 5, 2024

Two-time Bram Stoker Award--nominated Castro (The Haunting of Alejandra) reimagines real-life La Malinche, a Nahua woman who translated for Spanish conquistador Cort�s, as an immortal vampire, avenging her people and returning their stolen artifacts while longing for pleasure and love. Prepub Alert.

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March 1, 2024
Malinalli is a Nahua vampire from the sixteenth century currently working as a buyer and seller of antiquities, repatriating valuables to the cultures from which they were stolen. No stranger to seeking pleasure, she's recently found herself craving companionship. She goes to Europe planning to buy rare, Aztec artifacts from a dealer in London but takes a detour to Ireland to sightsee. When she meets Colin, a human horror novelist, they have an instant and powerful connection, though she's also irresistibly drawn to Alexander, a vampire with a familiar backstory. At the same time, she's in danger, pursued by a menacing vampire who kills other vampires for profit, using their bodies in antiaging skin care for humans. Though readers will have to overlook occasionally stilted prose, this steamy tale of angsty romance, the enduring trauma of colonialism, and the pursuit of righteous vengeance may appeal to those looking for new twists on vampire lore. Recommend to fans of Certain Dark Things, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2016), Nightshade, by Keri Lake (2021), or Vampires of El Norte, by Isabel Ca�as (2023).

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April 1, 2024
History comes to undead life in this bloody tale of vampiric vengeance. When she was mortal, Malinalli spent her days bending to the whims of others in order to survive. A Nahua girl traded away after the birth of her stepfather's heir, she translated the conquistadors' demands to the Indigenous communities they destroyed. She bore their leader an heir: Martin, the first mestizo, a child born of rape and colonial conquest. For what she did in the name of survival, history dubbed her "the traitorous La Malinche." In the 20th century, Malinalli, now an immortal vampire, travels the world on her own terms. Though she still bristles at how easily the modern-day world bandies about the names "Tabasco" and "Cholula"--one the place she first met the Spaniards, the other the site of a bloody massacre carried out by Spanish forces--Castro's heroine takes some comfort in the knowledge that she persisted where others faded away. "Sometimes the real fight is surviving to tell the tale," she reminds us, "so others can hear it." Her story may be relegated to the margins of history, but she is the only person left alive who saw Mesoamerica forced to bend the knee to its oppressors...or so she thinks. Just as Malinalli starts to believe she might have found a place to put down roots, her past comes into a screeching collision with the present. A bloodthirsty conqueror she knew all those centuries ago survived as well, and he wants revenge. In the hands of a lesser writer, the tale of Malinalli--who was a real-life figure--could have come off as a flat recitation of what little historians know about her. Horror veteran Castro has done a remarkable job here, not only of resurrecting La Malinche, but of turning her into a fully realized, three-dimensional character. Readers meet a woman who scraped by on raw ambition and steely cunning, yet bears the scars of a lifetime of repeated victimization and trauma. Although the author brings a host of other historical actors into play, Castro never wavers in her dedication to, and focus on, Malinalli and her story. An engrossing tale of monstrous life--human and otherwise.

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