Maria works in a factory, desperate to earn extra money to pay for transportation out of Mexico and into the United States. When a group of vampires locks her and a handful of colleagues in the factory and systematically kills them off, one vampire takes pity on Maria and changes her into one of them. Maria immediately loses the baby she’s carrying and realizes that she can never go back home to her husband Diego or her family again. Taking off, she learns to cope with her new afterlife by working as a cleaner in a gym and attempting to hide her nature as long as possible. Unlike the fictional vampires of most European tellings, Maria can be in the sun and has no issue with crosses or religious items.
Maria can never turn a blind eye to those hurt or in danger. She begins to take on a life as a sort of avenging vampire angel in the small town she lives in, going after abusers and human traffickers. Her reputation grows, and many begin to associate her with protective creatures of legend. When she confronts one particular trafficker, she discovers that vampires are far more involved in criminal enterprises than she believed. One even refers to her as Maria, the Wanted. Maria takes off in an attempt to find the vampire who turned her and burn everything created by those vampires who have held her people down.
I really wanted to love Maria, the Wanted. After all, the book features Latin American folklore, a genuinely sympathetic character, and vampires. What’s not to love? While the story is entertaining, and Maria sporting brass knuckles that say “Jesus” on them is a fun detail, I found myself struggling with the book as a whole. The text constantly doubles back to explain details and add in bits of Maria’s history, but it often feels heavy handed or unnecessary for the scene or the plot as a whole. For fans of V. Castro’s other book, Queen of Filth, this book is going to be familiar territory. A fairly innocent woman is put in a supernaturally difficult situation and finds herself while dealing with a world built on misogyny.
Maria the Wanted is available February 16, 2026 from Titan Books.
