This is another one from my local public library and it was suggested by a friend. Set in the 1840s, Nena, a daughter of a rancher, must fight to help save her family’s ranch from both encroaching Anglos but also from other more sinister threats. Something is hunting the vaqueros, other ranch workers, and the cattle. Something that leaves them either with a terrible sickness that looks like death or leaves them dry husks.

Néstor is Nena’s childhood best friend. Following an encounter with the mysterious monsters one night, he believes Nena is dead and he flees the ranch, ashamed that he could not save her.

When the United States invades Mexico, Nena’s father and the other ranchers come together to send young men to fight as auxiliary support for Mexico. Nena, who has been learning to be a curandero, volunteers to go with the men to help with the wounded. Her father agrees under one condition, that she agree to get married to a man of his choosing once they return.

Néstor returns at the request of his uncle to join the auxiliary cavalry. Nena and Néstor are reunited after a near decade apart and at the worst possible time. Can they survive the war? Can they survive the monsters? Can they forgive the past? And what about Nena’s promise to her father?

I loved the cowboys and monsters of this. The vampires were the scary kind and not the sexy kind. Nena and Néstor were both likable characters and there interactions were fun. The novel was reasonably fast-paced and it painted a picture of 1840s from a perspective I haven’t got to read, that of the Mexicans coming into contact with white Americans as Texas became a republic and then a state. Nateras and Gonzales did an excellent job switching off narrating chapters from either Néstor’s or Nena’s perspective. I would definitely recommend this one!