Valley of Shadows

By Rudy Ruiz,

Book cover of Valley of Shadows

Book description

Winner of the Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Book of Fiction

A visionary neo-Western blend of magical realism, mystery, and horror, Valley of Shadows sheds light on the dark past of injustice, isolation, and suffering along the US-Mexico border.

Solitario Cisneros thought his life was over long ago. He…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Valley of Shadows as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

At first glance, Valley of Shadows is a straight-genre horror novel, with a gruesome whodunnit at its center.

We’re given a noble but flawed Mexican American hero, Solitario, searching for a band of ritualistic murderers, who, by the novel’s midpoint, have already slaughtered a dozen men, women, and children.

This leaves Solitario, like the reader, desperate to keep them from killing again, but clueless about who they are and how they select their victims. This mystery remains unsolved until a shocking perpetrator and motive emerge on the novel’s final pages.

An essential thread in Ruiz’s riveting story is its otherworldly…

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The Open Road By M.M. Holaday,

Head West in 1865 with two life-long friends looking for adventure and who want to see the wilderness before it disappears. One is a wanderer; the other seeks a home he lost. The people they meet on their journey reflect the diverse events of this time period–settlers, adventure seekers, scientific…

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