one night in 1980, a man becomes a monster.

Travis Stillwell is a killer of women, haunting the honky-tonks of west Texas. One lonely night, he crosses paths with a mysterious, pale-skinned girl, and the next morning he wakes weak and bloodied in his cabover camper—no sign of a girl, no memory of the night before. Flat broke, he takes up with a young widow and her boy, who run a dying motel at the edge of the desert. By day, Travis works odd jobs around the motel, finding a strange sort of family in the boy, Sandy, and his independent mother, Annabelle. But with every sundown, in the dark cave of his cabover, Travis fights a terrible transformation, as a creature even more monstrous than the killer he was awakens inside him, a creature plagued by an unspeakable and ancient hunger.

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. When these lives converge on a dusty autumn night, an old evil will find new life—and new blood.

Featured in Sadie Hartmann’s 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered (2023)

2017 RUNNER-UP, THIS IS HORROR NOVEL OF THE YEAR

2018 SILVER FALCHION AWARD FINALIST

2018 NOMINEE, EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL FIRST BOOK AWARD

Praise for In the Valley of the Sun

“…a supernatural, rural noir, reeking of Texas and blood, that grabs you by the throat and never lets go…”

This is Horror

“…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.”

— Stephen Graham Jones
Bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

“…one that readers won’t easily forget…”

— Booklist
Starred Review

“…a complex novel of horror, human nature, and the American South…”

— Publishers Weekly
Starred Review

“…fresh and truly exciting…”

Dark Moon Digest

“…There’s enough meat on the bones of this story to satisfy any fan of any genre.”

Sadie Hartmann
aka Mother Horror