#BookReview ‘Maria The Wanted’ by V.Castro

About the book…

Newly turned Mexican vampire, Maria, is not just out for blood, she wants answers.

From the twice Bram Stoker-nominated author of The Haunting of Alejandra and Immortal Pleasures, a gripping tale of empowerment, desire and belonging, perfect for readers of A Dowry of Blood and Certain Dark Things.

Maria is a wanted woman. She’s wanted by an Aztec trafficker, a cartel boss, the people she fights for, and now the Devil she can’t resist. Her journey begins as a would-be immigrant turned vampire in Juarez, Mexico until the injustices of the world turn her into something else.

Forced to leave her home and family, she embarks on a journey across Mexico seeking those answers. She learns a new language and how to survive as a vampire. To ease her restlessness she finds work with an ex-boxer and learns to fight, becoming an unlikely bad ass enforcer of justice for the community that has embraced her. Is she a saint or an old God from a forgotten past?

An encounter with a violent, ruthless vampire boss leads her to finally find her creator, and he is nothing like she imagined. Drawn into a world of ancient vampires, deadly conspiracies and a dangerously seductive devil, Maria must find a way to fight for herself and all humankind.

A fierce and seductive vampire thriller, pulsing with rage, fear and desire, that explores the dark back streets of Mexico and a vampire woman’s determination to find her place in the world.

Published in February by Titan Books, huge thanks to them and Black Crow PR for my gifted copy of the SUPERB ‘Maria The Wanted’

V.Castro is one of my must buy/must read authors, she has an unflinching voice crafted from her personal experience as a Mexican woman, and a feminist perspective that takes no prisoners in whatever she writes.

Here, she returns to the vampire mythos following her ‘Immortal Pleasures’ release in 2025, but this time, she takes you from the moment of transition for the journey of Maria’s lifetime.

Maria begins her story in 1995, a woman down, but not out, with dreams of saving enough money from her factory job to buy passage to North America . Fuelled by what she refers to as a mustard seed of hope, her unborn child, and a soundtrack of metal and rock music, she works constantly for her small family to have a better future.

Raised to do what she is told, and occupy a small space in the world by her mother who has been beaten down by the world, Maria has the drive to take handfuls of the world and not back down, which has her labelled as somewhat ‘difficult’, she has determination and drive, but her husband, really does not appreciate what he has in her and finds her ambition emasculating-that’s how it appeared to me.

Handed over with her fellow women workers to a band of renegade vampires, one night in the factory, she is given a choice not afforded to the other women, by a vampire who seems less invested in tearing bodies apart in a frenzy. Not really understanding what is offered to her, she takes this devil’s bargain but in turn, loses her living baby.

Left alone and without any guidance post change, she makes her way through Mexico learning as she goes, with only rented videos and her inate knowledge of vampires to try and keep her hunger at bay. She soon learns that she can indulge when she picks the right targets, and starts taking down the men who would see her as a victim, a spoil of the game of the sexes.

In so doing, she becomes a folk legend to the maligned, underclass of people who have little to no hope, those who are addicted, abused and forgotten. However, this brings her actions to the attentions of the type of vampires she was looking for to explain how, and why, she is Maria the Wanted.

I absolutely loved Maria’s journey, her desire for revenge tempered with her understanding that she needs to find out, how and why vampires exist and what her part is to play in the overall structure of the species.

Her humanity remains with her but it is a fierce fight to keep it alive in the face of her hunger, the way the religious iconography plays into her ascent as a figure of worship is beautifully put , and sweeps you up in her journey.

The time frame it crosses, from the mid 1990’s to the now is so clever, it makes it a modern vampire mythos which I really enjoyed, and the correlation between humans and vampires, who really is the monster when placed against a background of the political situation we are currently in, was not only topical but also darkly funny, It is really easy to work out who V is targeting for this , and well deservedly so!

She creates this tale that goes back centuries but also feels, paradoxically, very modern and also ends with a suggestion that maybe Maria will rise once more?

I was so invested in her journey, how she kept this tiny seed of faith that allowed her to excel as a vampire in a way that she may never had as a human, as a woman, and as a woman of colour.

A terrific, well paced and accessible tale which adds another very welcome strand to the field of vampire fiction!

About the author…