Written by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Published by Tor Nightfire, September 2021 (reprint, originally published 2016)
336 pages
Completed August 3, 2024
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?
Not quite my usual cup of tea but I ended up enjoying this book a lot. I read it because I enjoyed another of the author’s books (“Mexican Gothic” also reviewed on this site). The characters were interesting and I enjoyed reading the various points of views in the book and thought they worked well. We see not just Atl and Domingo’s perspective but also members of the rival vampire clan and the police officer that was looking for them. The book ends about like you’d expect from this sort of story with everyone converging all at once. I also felt like the resolution of Atl and Domingo’s relationship made sense given who Atl is.
See the StoryGraph page for “Certain Dark Things” for more reviews and content warnings.