Certain Dark Things

Silvia Moreno-Garcia seems to have made a career out of taking classic tropes and making them Mexican. This example is Mexican vampires. She has created an intriguing world of different vampire bloodlines with different powers with their conflict with both themselves and the human world. In this world the native Mexican (Aztec) vampires have largely been outcompeted by the imports from Europe (an interesting allegory to the cultural impact of european history), and we follow one of local vampires (Atl) on the run from a rival european gang, and a street sweeper (Domingo) who falls for her.

The worldbuilding is clever enough - I do like the allusions to the many myths of blood drinkers across the different cultures that exist in real life. The Mexican setting, as often seems the case with SMG, is somewhat incidental - it could in reality be set almost anywhere without impacting the story. This is one of her earlier works which has only just been rereleased and the prose is definitely weaker than in her more recent works. It is an interesting take on a genre which often feels done to death. This at least had some intriguingly original aspects!