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…
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…
From Victoria's list on realist that use magic to say hard things.
If you love Valley of Shadows...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
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