In the Valley of the Sun

WESTERN/HORROR
Andy Davidson
In the Valley of the Sun: A Novel
Skyhorse Publishing
Hardcover, 978-1-5107-2110-4, (also available as an e-book), 384 pgs., $24.99
June 6, 2017

In the autumn of 1980, drifter Travis Stillwell washes up west of the Pecos in the fictional town of Cielo Rojo, Texas. After a surreal night at a local watering hole where he meets Rue, a young woman with “skin … light as bone, her hair as red as a fortunate sky,” Stillwell wakes covered in blood inside the camper on his rattletrap pickup, parked in the otherwise deserted lot of the Sundowner Inn, with no memory of the previous night. The old motel and its café are owned by Annabelle Gaskin, “solemn and pretty and not unlined by the life she had made here in show more the desert,” a young widow and mother of a ten-year-old son. She hires Stillwell to clean up the motel in barter for his stay. You’ll want to point and holler as danger walks among them unrecognized, while the Gaskin farmhouse sits atop a hill overlooking the Sundowner Inn like Norman’s manse in Psycho.

In the Valley of the Sun, Andy Davidson’s debut novel, is an original synthesis of horror and Western with a dollop of police procedural. Part From Dusk Till Dawn, part Fargo, part Something Wicked This Way Comes, it bucks the trend of glamorous vampires. These aren’t Anne Rice’s Old-World vamps, nor Charlaine Harris’s Bon Temps vamps; they are distinctly American, brutally Old-West undead. If Stephen King and James Lee Burke had a love child, it would be Andy Davidson.

Intricately plotted, fast-paced, packing serpentine twists, In the Valley of the Sun progresses inexorably from curious to creepy to oh-my-good-lord-somebody-DO-something. Davidson gifts his characters nuanced backstories, informing their motivations and choices. Two Texas Rangers provide comedic relief as the veteran schools his junior partner. Subplots add dimension without clutter. Ironically, we meet Annabelle on the day of her baptism, another way to be renewed by blood.

Minimal detail subtly anchors the stark West Texas setting with its mesquite, arroyos, pumpjacks “plunging and rearing like giant birds tearing at the land,” and the red Pegasus taking flight from a defunct Mobil Oil station.

Third-person narratives alternate between hunter and quarry; sometimes the two switch places. There’s a cadence to Davidson’s sentences, his arresting phrases. In New Orleans, Rue’s enhanced senses “taste the dirt between the sidewalk pavers, the green grass growing up through the cracks, the salt in the air, the bogs and muddy slick lizard stink of alligators miles away.” In another passage, “A sudden inexplicable sense of the universe in total, a God’s-eye view of all the strands that formed the web,” seizes the veteran Ranger. “Some were straight and true, and others made patterns without purpose, as if the weaver were lost or drunk or simple.” There’s your Burke.

Relentless momentum bounding toward the climactic scenes had me unconsciously holding my breath, consciously trying to stop my eyes from straying furtively to the next page. The payoff is satisfying and unexpectedly graceful. In the Valley of the Sun is a powerful, audacious debut.

Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life. show less

4.5/5 stars!

Rarely do I find myself struggling to find the words I want to say about a book, but today I am. Know why? Because IN THE VALLEY OF THE SUN was so beautifully written, powerful, surprising and engaging.. Oh! Apparently, I CAN find the words if I try hard enough!

In this dark tale set during 1980, there's everything a horror lover could want. You've got a villain with so many layers to him, reading about him is like peeling an onion. There is no bad guy with a black hat here...well, actually, he does wear a black hat, but you know what I mean. He's complicated. All of the other characters have depth to them as well and even though some of them do bad things, you are privy to the reasons they are doing them and you can show more understand. You can identify. You can relate.

There is a level of trust expected of the reader with this book. There are allusions made to events that you must trust will be made clear later, (and they were.) Even though those events were brought to light, they only complicated, (there's that word again!) my feelings for the characters and I love when that happens.

I don't want to give away too much of the story as I feel that it should be related to you as the author intended. Since the book never said the word, I'm not going to say it either. What is actually going on is deftly handled, sometimes gory and disgusting, sometimes poignant and heartbreaking.

I find myself thinking about the book days after I finished it and that's always a sign that I've read something special. If you like characters with layers, if you like dark fiction beautifully told, (think Cormac McCarthy or Peter Straub), if you like a little more blood and gore than McCarthy or Straub usually provide, and you like to curl up with a book that surrounds and engulfs you, read this book now!

Highly recommended!

Right now the Kindle copy is only $1.99! Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/2WRIEHk

Find this review and others like it at www.HorrorAfterDark.com!

*I received a paperback ARC from the publisher in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.* show less

A disclaimer - I don't read horror, and only picked this up because I met the author at an event. That being said, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed In the Valley of the Sun. The author has a nearly poetic style of writing. His descriptions of the west Texas landscape were beautifully done. The story has what I imagine is obligatory gore in horror, but what kept me reading were the characters. I cared what was happening, or about to happen, or what I feared would happen, to them. The build-up to the nail-biting ending created genuine tension. I hope to see more novels from this talented author.

A well written, often graphic, vampire-ish story. These aren't your typical vampires and the cross of a serial killer and vampire was an interesting twist but it wasn't fully realized. However, I was left feeling quite sad after finishing. Everyone important loses something of value. For most, it's their lives. I still think the book would have been a compelling read with a couple of redemptive elements. I know that good doesn't always triumph over evil, but a little good surviving would have been nice (besides the characters that live).

Hmmm. Salem's Lot, No Country For Old Men and some kind of reversed Starkweather and Fugate. Little horror, little noir, blast from the past, a serial killer hooking up with a monster that's quite happy to slaughter the world for kicks. Good book!

This is a tough one for me to review/rate. I mean, it was a different take on vampires, which was cool, but yet the story on a whole just didn't wow me. It was also super slow at some parts, and there was way too much dreaming going on with all the characters. A couple of the characters I couldn't have cared less about, but the main character, Travis, had some decent character development. He had many layers. There was also a lot of time jumping from past to present (sometimes out of the blue), which I can understand why readers complained about that and how it got a little confusing at times. And I don't know how I feel about the ending... Hmm... I don't know, just sticking with 3 stars for now.

Shocking and captivating in its best moments, this book overall failed to hold my interest. Beyond the novelty of blending of Horror and sun-drenched Western, there wasn't much else to recommend it. I kept feeling this story should be better than it was, but it never really got to that point.