In the Valley of the Sun

Nominated for the 2017 Bram Stoker Award and the 2017 This Is Horror Award

One night in 1980, a man becomes a monster.

Travis Stillwell spends his nights searching out women in honky-tonk bars on the back roads of Texas. What he does with them doesn't make him proud – it just quiets the demons for a little while. But when he crosses paths with one particular mysterious pale-skinned girl, he wakes up weak and bloodied, with no memory of the night before.

Finding refuge at a small motel, Travis develops feelings for the owner, Annabelle, but at night he fights a horrible transformation and his need to feed.

Half a state away, a grizzled Texas Ranger is hunting Travis for his past misdeeds, but what he finds will lead him to a revelation far more monstrous. A man of the law, he'll have to decide how far into the darkness he'll go for the sake of justice.

"By turns spare and solemn – but also vast and treacherous – as the Southwest." Jeffrey Stayton

"Davidson's rich prose plunges the reader into a hell all the more terrifying for its banality... grabs you by the throat and drags you down a twisted road." E.Z. Rinsky

"A beautiful nightmare. A book that haunts, teases, and compels. a must-read for any brave horror fan." Erik Storey

"Like some knives, a work of art—sharp, frightening, and elegant." Nicholas Mainieri

"A perfectly paced thriller that's chillingly fun to read, but Davidson's prose transcends genre like a fresh Cormac McCarthy." Dana Chamblee Carpenter

"A flint-hard, gorgeously-written nightmare." Laird Barron

"With lyrical prose and creeping dread, Davidson turns the screws." Kelly J. Ford

"A riveting blend of vampire horror, a serial killer's tale, and police procedural." Dana Cameron

"[A] beautifully written novel that combines literary horror with police procedural." Lisa Gray, Daily Record

"In this bold, confident debut, Davidson takes the vampire myth to 1980s West Texas, perfectly capturing the feel of the era and place... Davidson successfully makes the lines between genre and literary fiction bleed together in a complex novel of horror, human nature, and the American South." Publishers Weekly

"This is not your typical vampire novel, rather it is actually a lyrical modern western, with a large dose of suspense...The story drips with atmosphere, and the plot and the characters will play with readers' minds. Hand this hauntingly dark, yet oddly beautiful debut to fans of literary psychological suspense who don't mind a touch of the supernatural, and especially target fans of ...Cormac McCarthy. This is one that readers won't easily forget after turning the final page." Booklist

"An original synthesis of horror and Western with a dollop of police procedural. Intricately plotted, fast-paced, packing serpentine twists... Relentless momentum ... a powerful, audacious debut." Lone Star Literary Top 10 Novels of 2017

"Turns out there's a middle space between Tender Mercies and Preacher and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. It's called In the Valley of the Sun. And if I didn't know Andy Davidson had written it, I'd swear this was some long lost William Gay. I burned through this. It's got teeth on every page." Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels

"In the Valley of the Sun is a flint-hard, gorgeously written nightmare." Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All