{"id":965,"date":"2018-12-31T14:58:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=965"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:58:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:58:54","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=965","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews<\/span> and Foreword Reviews, <\/span>writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine,<\/span> and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

WESTERN\/HORROR<\/p>\n

Andy Davidson<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Valley of the Sun: A Novel<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Skyhorse Publishing<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-5107-2110-4, (also available as an e-book), 384 pgs., $24.99<\/p>\n

June 6, 2017<\/p>\n

In the autumn of 1980, drifter Travis Stillwell washes up west of the Pecos<\/span> 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 \u201cskin \u2026 light as bone, her hair as red as a fortunate sky,\u201d 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 caf\u00e9 are owned by Annabelle Gaskin, \u201csolemn and pretty and not unlined by the life she had made here in the desert,\u201d 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\u2019ll 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\u2019s manse in Psycho.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Valley of the Sun,<\/span><\/a><\/span> Andy Davidson\u2019s<\/span> debut novel, is an original synthesis of horror and Western with a dollop of police procedural. Part From Dusk Till Dawn,<\/span> part Fargo,<\/span> part Something Wicked This Way Comes,<\/span> it bucks the trend of glamorous vampires. These aren\u2019t Anne Rice\u2019s<\/span> Old-World vamps, nor Charlaine Harris\u2019s<\/span> Bon Temps vamps; they are distinctly American, brutally Old-West undead. If Stephen King<\/span> and James Lee Burke<\/span> had a love child, it would be Andy Davidson.<\/p>\n

Intricately plotted, fast-paced, packing serpentine twists, In the Valley of the Sun<\/span> 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.<\/p>\n

Minimal detail subtly anchors the stark West Texas setting with its mesquite, arroyos, pumpjacks \u201cplunging and rearing like giant birds tearing at the land,\u201d and the red Pegasus taking flight from a defunct Mobil Oil station.<\/p>\n

Third-person narratives alternate between hunter and quarry; sometimes the two switch places. There\u2019s a cadence to Davidson\u2019s sentences, his arresting phrases. In New Orleans, Rue\u2019s enhanced senses \u201ctaste 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.\u201d In another passage, \u201cA sudden inexplicable sense of the universe in total, a God\u2019s-eye view of all the strands that formed the web,\u201d seizes the veteran Ranger. \u201cSome were straight and true, and others made patterns without purpose, as if the weaver were lost or drunk or simple.\u201d There\u2019s your Burke.<\/p>\n

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<\/span> is a powerful, audacious debut.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews and Foreword Reviews, writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine, and The Collagist. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}