Certain Dark Things by
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
A whip smart, fast paced, urban fantasy that takes vampire lore to an entirely new level, CERTAIN DARK THINGS by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia is the debut offering from @torbooks new horror imprint, Nightfire, and it is a perfect book to launch with. Reading almost as much as an alternate history as it does urban fantasy/horror, vampires are discovered in the 1960s to actually exist. As the world struggles with this new knowledge, vampires and humans attempt to coexist, but of course this doesn’t work out. CDT takes place in a near-future Mexico City, one of the few vampire-free zones in the world. Told from multiple points of view, CDT follows young, naïve Atl, a vampire of Aztec decent, who is on the run after her family is murdered by a rival vampire cartel. She befriends street kid Domingo, who can help her navigate the unfamiliar streets of Mexico City as she tries to negotiate them passage out of North America before either the Mexico City police, the human mafia, or the rival vampire family finds her and kills her.
The way Moreno-Garcia creates such complex lore around each of the different types of vampires is fantastic. You won’t find sparkling vampires here, nor vampires that can change into mist. Instead, these are vampires grounded in the real world, with various subspecies and a history and lore to go with each. While being dark and gritty and bloody, it’s still refreshing to see a writer be able to do something original like this with vampires. Moreno-Garcia’s writing is slick and stylish; I’m sorry I haven’t read any of her other books yet. I’ll need to remedy that sooner than later.
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