When the last outbreak of human vampirism occurred in the narrow oasis of New Mexico's lower Rio Grande Valley, the oral tradition that had been passed on for centuries had yet again been sadly reconfirmed. Every two decades or so, one or more bloodthirsty ghouls appears and preys upon the vulnerable members of this small but tightly knit community.
As a young curandera, or healer, Lorena Pastore was only twenty-five years old when the last outbreak occurred, and she remembers the shocking horror that spread throughout her beloved community at the time. She erroneously predicted that she would be well into her middle years of life for the next outbreak, but sadly, that is not the case.
After a foolish man commits an egregious violation during a spiritual cleansing ritual, the seven years of peace is shattered. The malignant disease of human vampirism is re-incarnated, and Lorena is forced to flee across the Mexican border with a five-year-old in peril. Nathan's father is becoming a lethal vampire, and the boy is now hunted-as is Lorena as she takes the child into her care and fights the outbreak destined to destroy her home and people.
About the Author: A native of New York City, Thomas Cavaretta moved to El Paso, Texas, with his family when he was only two years old. The coauthor of this work of fiction learned to love the desert, and he became an avid outdoor sportsman before graduating with a BBS in marketing from the University of Texas in Austin. After completing his undergraduate work, Thomas returned to the Southwest desert and graduated with an MBA from the University of Texas at El Paso. Currently married with two sons and now living in Phoenix, Arizona, this coauthor has worked in the complex technological field of hematology and oncology biotherapeutics for more than a quarter of a century at the time that this two-novel set was crafted.
Long enchanted by Hispanic lore and the legends of the early Mesoamericans, Thomas Cavaretta found the traditional customs of folk medicine that are still widely practiced among the curandera healers of the American Southwest to be most intriguing. After all, could the contents of the common chicken eggs that are employed in the ritualistic huevo limpia ceremonies portrayed in this novel actually prove to be dangerous to human subjects, as is widely believed? In addition, why does the myth of a night-dwelling creature such as the vampiro appear to be pervasive across time, cultures, and ethnic groups? Thomas Cavaretta was compelled to question these phenomena through this work of fiction.
As the fund of knowledge expands in the field of biology, along with the confluent appreciation that the appearance of new and previously unrecognized infectious disease entities might be over the next horizon, the human vampirism that is portrayed in this work of fiction may indeed one day turn out to be a plausible horizontally transmitted malady to be confronted within the context of humanity's perpetual struggle against encroaching evil in a fallen world. Thomas Cavaretta certainly hopes the readers of this treatise will find this postulate to be as frightening as it is thought-provoking.
