Cover of These Vengeful Wishes by Vanessa Montalban. The face of a young woman, half obscured by a horned horse skull

About the Book

Title: These Vengeful Wishes
Published: 2025

Cover Story: Stop Me If You Heard This One
Drinking Buddy: Teen Kegger
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (alcohol use, violence)
Talky Talk:
Bonus Factors: Creepy Town, Mom’s Dating
Bromance Status:

Cover Story: Stop Me if You Heard This One

City Slicker: Why doesn’t that cow have horns?

Farmer: Well, sometimes we saw them off when they’re young, some breeds don’t have horns, but this cow doesn’t have horns because it’s a horse.

La Cegua is a woman with a horse’s skull for a face. And horses don’t have horns!

The Deal: When Ceci’s stepfather is arrested for running a ponsi scheme, she figures it’s only a matter of time before her mother takes up with another rich white guy. Instead, they end up moving back to her mother’s hometown of Santa Aguas, Florida. It’s a small town, without much going on, and Ceci’s angry that she has to spend the end of high school–less than a semester–in this backwater.

But strange things are going on. A handsome forty-something guy takes a liking to Ceci’s mom, and it’s clear they have a past. But a weird teen girl named Adel seems to know her mother as well…but from where? And what is La Cegua? She’s a Latin American entity, imported by the town’s Nicaraguan population (including Ceci’s family). According to legend, she has the body of a woman, the face of a horse or a horse skull, and kidnaps cheating men. The normally jaded townsfolk seem to live in fear of her. Why?


Drinking Buddy: Teen Kegger

Two pints of beer cheersing

Ceci has moved around so much, she’s never had a birthday party, never had a best friend, never had a father figure. And yet, for some reason she finds she fits in well in Santa Aguas. Di and Myra, a lesbian couple, suck Ceci into their friend group. And Jamie, the cute boy who does odd jobs, agrees to mow the lawn for Ceci’s family. For the money. Not for an excuse to hang out with her. Has Ceci finally found a place where she belongs?

Except, you know, for that weird generational curse.


MPAA Rating: PG-13 (alcohol, violence)

Ceci and Jamie almost kiss so many times that when they finally do lock lips, it was kind of unexpected. It was nice and innocent: the loner girl and the guy who’s willing to wait until she makes the first move.

But this is a horror story and we get a lot of dark visions of a skull-faced woman, and a young lady trapped in an abusive relationship. Just what went on in this town…in Ceci’s own house, a century ago? Or when her mother was in high school?


Talky Talk: Cool Kid

Ceci (who corrects the pronunciation of her name by saying ‘it’s like cesspool’) is a wonderful kid who doesn’t realize it. Instead, she’s been throttled by having to constantly move, being dominated by shallow kids, and being ignored by her social-climbing mother. But maybe she can blossom is Santa Aguas, provided the curse thing doesn’t destroy her.


Bonus Factor: Creepy Town

So Santa Aguas is a little Florida town, with a heavy Latinx/Nicaraguan presence. It maintains that ‘everybody knows your name, we’re all family here’ vibe without forgetting the ancient, pre-Colombian rites and monsters that their ancestors knew and feared with good reason.

And what’s with the mansion that Ceci and her mother move into? How can they afford such a place? And why has it been kept so well-maintained and clean? Almost as if it were waiting for the family.


Bonus Factor: Mom’s Dating

Ceci grew up with a string of men hovering around her mother. Men who ignored her and treated Mom like a fashion accessory, the exotic Latina woman. In fact it was Cesi who reported her stepfather’s criminal actions to the feds. Ceci doesn’t even know who her real father is. All she knows is that her mother got pregnant as a teenager and that her father’s only communication is random blank postcards from around the world.

Now that her mother is back in her hometown, things seem to change. For instance, there’s Gabe, who clearly used to know Mom back in the day and is still crushing on her. In fact, could Gabe be…no, the years don’t add up. In fact, Mom would have been about thirteen when Gabe was in high school. Gross. But why does Mom appear in the high school year book with Gabe and Roman, the mysterious scoundrel who vanished years before Ceci was born? Either Mom’s so vain that she’s lying about her age, or something very weird is going on.

Bromance Status: Class Reunion

I doubt I’ll reread this, but I look forward to the next thing this author puts out. See you at the 150 year reunion!

Literary Matchmaking

Holly Horror

Holly Horror, by Michelle Jabes, has pretty much the same plot.

The Unfinished

As does Cheryl Isaacs’s The Unfinished.

She Is a Haunting

And Trang Thanh Tran’s She is a Haunting.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, but no money or Dunkin’ coffee.

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Brian wrote his first YA novel when he was down and out in Mexico. He now lives in Missouri with his wonderful wife and daughter. He divides his time between writing and working as a school librarian. Brian still misses the preachy YA books of the eighties.