Immortal Pleasures

Last year, I enjoyed V. Castro‘s novel The Haunting of Alejandra, partially inspired by La Llorona. When I saw that she had a new novel coming out, I was intrigued. Immortal Pleasures offers a new side to the story of the woman known as La Malinche, who interpreted for conquistador Hernán Cortés and has a complicated reputation to this day. Here, she goes by her Indigenous name Malinalli, and she’s a 500-year-old vampire aiming to right the wrongs of the past. But she’s being hunted by Cortés (also a vampire) while learning to finally find love along the way.

Special thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Review

Immortal Pleasures is a hard book to review; there’s a lot I liked about it, but it was also kind of jumbled and strange. It features various real historical figures, plus one from the Bible, fashioning them here as centuries-old vampires. We have Malinalli (famously known as La Malinche), Hernán Cortés, John Hawkins, and Judas, all battling with or against each other in modern-day Dublin and London. It’s a fascinating premise for a book, even if the execution is a bit different than I’d hoped.

Most of the book is told from Malinalli’s perspective, 500 years after she became a vampire in 16th century Mexico. In extended flashbacks, we get to see what her life was like as a human in the 1500s, forced to work alongside Hernán Cortés as a translator. After becoming a vampire, she didn’t want to inflict harm the way the Spanish invaders had; she simply wanted to retreat and undo the wrongs done to her homeland. But now, in the 2020s and working to reclaim stolen artifacts, she’s in Dublin to retrieve a pair of Aztec skulls from her lifetime. Malinalli is looking for love, with two consecutive love interests here, but she’s also being hunted by an evil man from her past: none other than Cortés, now a vampire himself.

The first part of the book is rather slow and feels distracted from the main plot. Malinalli finds a human boyfriend, Colin, while staying in Dublin, and it slows down her mission to get those Aztec skulls back. Much of the first 40% of Immortal Pleasures focuses on her ill-fated relationship with Colin. It’s very noir, with tons of gratuitous sex scenes that feel oddly uncomfortable. I read a lot of romance novels, many of them with steamy scenes, so I’m not opposed to on-page sex in general. But here (as in another recent book, The Emperor and the Endless Palace), the sex scenes feel voyeuristic and weirdly depicted. Honestly, a lot of the parts with Colin and their sexual encounters could have been eliminated or at least cut down a bit.

There are two real plots in the modern-day portions: First, Malinalli is finding herself all these centuries later and hoping to finally find love; and two, Cortés is hunting her down with a battle looming in the near future. Both plots will converge eventually, with a mysterious vampire named Alexander there to join forces with Malinalli.

I liked a lot of the history and reexamining of historical figures here. There is some great discussion around colonialism, reclaiming what’s been stolen from Indigenous cultures by invaders, continued racism, female sexuality, and more. However, so much of Immortal Pleasures starts to feel very random. Reimagining La Malinche and Hernán Cortés makes sense; throwing in John Hawkins is an interesting if unexpected choice; adding Judas (yes, that Judas, from the Bible) to the mix is kind of baffling? As the battle draws closer and the story reaches its climax and end, it kind of all falls apart. Like there was too much going on, too much being woven together, with ends that feel too sudden or convenient… I wasn’t sure how to feel by the end.

Final Thoughts

All in all, Immortal Pleasures offers up really interesting ideas and discussions, but the way it all comes together is at times perplexing, at times uncomfortably strange, and at times just too convoluted. I enjoyed it to a degree, and will continue to think about certain aspects of it, but I can’t say I’d want to reread it.

Get the Book

You can buy Immortal Pleasures here – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Immortal Pleasures by V. Castro
Audience	Adult
Genre	Horror; Fantasy
Setting	Ireland
Number of Pages	304
Format I Read	Ebook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	April 16, 2024
Publisher	Del Rey

Official Summary

An ancient Aztec vampire roams the modern world in search of vengeance and love in this seductive dark fantasy from the author of The Haunting of Alejandra.

“Hauntingly rendered and decadently written, Immortal Pleasures is a surprising and fantastical portrait of one of history’s most fascinating (and perhaps most misunderstood) figures.”—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

Hundreds of years ago, she was known as La Malinche: a Nahua woman who translated for the conquistador Cortés. In the centuries since, her name has gone down in infamy as a traitor. But no one ever found out what happened to La Malinche after Cortés destroyed her people.

In the ashes of the empire, she was reborn as Malinalli, an immortal vampire. And she has become an avenger of conquered peoples, traveling the world to reclaim their stolen artifacts and return them to their homelands.

But she has also been in search of something more, for this ancient vampire still has deeply human longings for pleasure and for love.

When she arrives in Dublin in search of a pair of Aztec skulls—artifacts intimately connected to her own dark history—she finds something else: two men who satisfy her cravings in very different ways.

For the first time she meets a mortal man—a horror novelist—who is not repelled by her strange condition but attracted by it. But there is also another man, an immortal like herself, who shares the darkness in her heart.

Now Malinalli is on the most perilous adventure of all: a journey into her own desires.