“[Chelsey’s] feedback and guidance challenged me to be a better writer, and the final result was a first novel I’m hugely proud of. She’ll always be the standard to which I hold professional editors.”
In the Valley of the Sun
by Andy Davidson
A 2017 Bram Stoker Award Finalist - Superior Achievement in a First Novel
A 2017 This is Horror Award Finalist - Novel of the Year
For readers of Joe Hill, Cormac McCarthy, and classic Anne Rice, a chilling tale of suspense and horror set deep in the Texas desert.
Travis Stillwell has been wandering the back roads of Texas for too long now, spending his nights searching out women in honky-tonk bars. What he does with them doesn’t make him proud—it just quiets the demons for a little while. But when his path crosses that of a pale-skinned girl in red boots, his night takes a terrifying turn. Come the morning, he wakes wounded and alone in his cab-over camper, with no sign of the girl and no memory of the night before.
When Annabelle Gaskin, a young widow, spies the pickup and camper parked behind her motel, she offers the disheveled cowboy a few odd jobs to pay his board. By day, Travis works to restore the rundown motel, insinuating himself into the lives of Annabelle and her ten-year-old son. By night, in the cave of his cab-over, he fights a horrible transformation. Before long, Annabelle and her boy begin to realize that this strange, quiet man they’ve taken in is not at all what he seems.
Deftly written and utterly compelling, this is an atmospheric literary fiction debut perfect for fans of horror, psychological suspense, and Western fiction.