Emily Morrison

Synopsis

Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires. Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, is just trying to survive its heavily policed streets when a jaded vampire on the run swoops into his life. Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, is smart, beautiful, and dangerous. Domingo is mesmerized.

Atl needs to quickly escape the city, far from the rival narco-vampire clan relentlessly pursuing her. Her plan doesn’t include Domingo, but little by little, Atl finds herself warming up to the scrappy young man and his undeniable charm. As the trail of corpses stretches behind her, local cops and crime bosses both start closing in.

Vampires, humans, cops, and criminals collide in the dark streets of Mexico City. Do Atl and Domingo even stand a chance of making it out alive? Or will the city devour them all?

Review

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that lovers of vampire fiction, must be in want of more vampire fiction. By now, we all know a variation of the vampire from the blood-sucking monster to the sparkling forbidden romance, but one thing remains true no matter what kind of vamp gets you amped and that is we can’t get enough of them.

Certain Dark Things is an homage to noir fiction. For those who aren’t familiar, the literary genre takes its name from the film style and tends to feature dark and gritty depictions of crime, corruption, and violence, and in this case vampires. Silvia Moreno-Garcia has once again taken one of my special interests and done something exciting and new with it in her story. The vampires in Certain Dark Things are unique and heavily inspired by a range of different cultures and climates, taking on new physical traits that I haven’t seen before. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The futuristic Mexico City is a walled safe-haven for humans, or at least it’s supposed to be. Here vampires aren’t welcome and neither are their family fueds and rivalries—cue hot vampire girl on the run needing a safe place to lay low from a rival vamp family entering said oasis and bringing all the family drama. I thoroughly love how Moreno-Garcia infuses her culture and country into her stories. I love it. As much as the gothic Victorian vampires are a staple favourite, I’m always looking for more unique takes and how the different cities and climates would produce different methods, evolutions, and skills in not only the vampires but the people around them as well. The effectiveness of Mexico City shutting out outsiders and any hint of vampires was so interesting to me and I found the way the people inside had to adapt just as intrigueing as the way vampires had adapted physically.

The story follows multiple characters in a neo noir Mexico City in a world that knows vampires exist, which is honestly such a cool premise. But I found the story itself had a slow start for about half of the book, which had a fair bit of exposition that was somewhat frustrating. I think the issue was the world Moreno-Garcia has created is so much bigger than the story and so rather than having the time and pages to flesh it out in way that feels organic, it’s told to us by the characters. It’s frustrating because I loved the ideas, I just would have preferred to see it than be told. I understand from her notes to the reader that she first wrote a short story for this world featuring Domingo in 2011 and then went on to write Certain Dark Things which was published in 2016, so I’m not sure what has been added or removed or altered in anyway for this English translation that wa spublished in 2021. I know many authors don’t get the opportunity to make revisions on a title already published, depending on their contracts and publisher, so the dialogue exposition may even be something she is aware of but can’t change, or she simply didn’t want to go through and write such a long and detailed world, which is completely fine too.

Okay, back to the vamps themselves. The most interesting and unique aspect of this entire story is the vampires. However, one of the things we are told but don’t see much of is their different sub-species. Atl and her family are Tlāhuihpochtli, a type of bird-shifter vampires inspired by Nahua folklore and are considered the indigenous vampire species of Mexico. Hunting Atl, is a vampire belonging to the Necros, a Central European subspecies of vampire that most closely resemble the classic gothic vampire we’re used to, but can dislocate their limbs and can even eat human food. Like Dracula, the Necros bite their victims with multiple fanged teeth and can gain control over human minds. The absolute rage and frenzy-like nature of these vampires reminds me so much of sharks when there’s a drop of blood in the ocean that I couldn’t stop thinking about how scary a shark-like vampire would be. Another subspecies in the story is the Revenant, perhaps the most frightening of the lot and my personal favourite, which live in solitude, can absorb the life from humans and vampires alike, and have extremely long life spans. The characters make passing references to other types of vampires, including the Chinese Jiangshi, the West African Asanbosan and the German Nachzehrer. I found myself wanting to see these different types of vampires all living and interacting in the same world where humans are very aware of them and treating them like any other minority group. I really wish we got to see more of the others but that’s okay. I’ll keep hoping Moreno-Garcia follows in Anne Rice’s shoes and writes a book for each vampire group she’s mentioned. After all she has an 8 page vampire encyclopedia in the back of the book with details on the various sub-species and even vampire religion.

About half way into the book things get really exciting and the pace moves much faster as Atl can no longer rely on hiding among the humans in their city. The story gets pretty gory in some parts with some exceptionally badass vampire moments. As much as meeting a real vampire would be terrifying, I just don’t find many depictions frightening anymore as they’re more often than not used as metaphors for different social issues, or are just too sexy to care if they accidently kill me while literally draining the life from my veins. So I thoroughly enjoyed the way Moreno-Garcia made vampires scary again, rather than angsty love interests and objects for political discourse.

I think if your looking for a different kind of vampire story this is a perfect place to start! If you need me, I’ll be sitting here patiently waiting for my Chinese Jiangshi storyline and prequel that shows the initial years of humans learning vampires exist… Look a girl can dream, okay.

Review – 3.5/5 stars

Author – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Published – 2021 (original 2016)
Pages – 239
Publisher – Jo Fletcher Books
ISBN – 9781529415629