Valley Of The Sun

A finalist for the 2017 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Deftly written and utterly addictive, this Western literary horror debut will find a home with fans of authors like Joe Hill, Cormac McCarthy, and Anne Rice. One night in 1980, a man becomes a monster. Haunted by his past, Travis Stillwell spends his nights searching out women in West Texas honky-tonks. What he does with them doesn’t make him proud, just quiets the demons for a little while. But after Travis crosses paths one night with a mysterious pale-skinned girl, he wakes weak and bloodied in his cabover camper the next morning—with no sign of a girl, no memory of the night before. Annabelle Gaskin spies the camper parked behind her motel and offers the cowboy a few odd jobs to pay his board. Travis takes her up on the offer, if only to buy time, to lay low and heal. By day, he mends the old motel, insinuating himself into the lives of Annabelle and her ten-year-old son. By night, in the cave of his camper, he fights an unspeakable hunger. Before long, Annabelle and her boy come to realize that this strange cowboy is not what he seems. 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.

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Cattlemen ride alone across the open range under the deadly aim of roving desperadoes. . . . Gamblers stake their fortunes and their lives on a deck of cards. . . . Strong-willed señoritas seek independence through an enticing combination of beauty, audacity, and spirit. . . . Lawmen and outlaws walk the same dusty streets and speak a common language: Colt, Winchester, Smith & Wesson. Gritty, tough, and unflinchingly authentic, here is the West as it really was: a land where for every friend there is an enemy, for every handshake a fist, for every dispute a resolution—usually in an explosive showdown of blood and bullets. In these remarkable tales, Louis L’Amour—like the very heroes he depicts—blazes a trail across the American frontier and takes us on an unforgettable journey into the heart of our western heritage.

John Lee Johnson in the Valley of the Sun is part of a series pitting John Lee Johnson, the powerfully strong and talented gunman against his nemesis, former Brigadier-General Frank McGrew, a very wealthy steel and railroad magnate. Their enmity goes back to the Civil War (just recently ended.) McGrew has hired private assassins; has sent waves of gunman. He even lured the big Texan into a pit fight with the meanest man alive. When Johnson defeated the toughest man in Chihuahua in a wild and exciting slugfest, McGrew conceived the plan to entice Johnson to return to Chihuahua, Mexico to brace the fastest gunman known on the planet for $100,000 in Mexican gold. The location is the Valley of the Sun...a desolate place of death. Beneath a cruel, inexorable sun constantly shining on nauseating yellow sand---surrounded by stark mountains that form a horseshoe shape valley lay the ruins of both a Christian mission and a sacrificial Aztec altar from centuries past. The hauntingly beautiful Marilla Urmacher, once an enemy to John Lee Johnson, but now a faithful ally comes to his rescue. She sends California's best gunfighter to run interference for the man she secretly loves, John Lee Johnson. The struggles on the journey and the list of strange characters that John Lee Johnson encounters make this an excellent read. It is a classic story of good versus bad. The reader may wonder if good will really win in the end. This western is different. It is not just a melodrama. It pits the money and influence of a wealthy man against the strongest and most singular man in Texas. Their struggles against each other influences so many other singular individuals that are caught up in this eventual death struggle.

"A Wall Street Journal columnist for "Weekend Confidential" explores the hubris and ambition of Silicon Valley innovators who are changing the world, tracing the stories of three upstarts who left promising college educations in favor of developing billion-dollar ideas"--NoveList.

Madeline Dare trades New York's gritty streets for the tree-lined avenues of Boulder, Colorado when her husband Dean lands a promising job. Madeline, now a full-time homemaker and mother to beautiful toddler twin girls, has achieved everything she thought she always wanted, but with her husband constantly on the road, she's fighting a losing battle against the Betty Friedan riptide of suburban/maternal exhaustion, angst, and sheer loneliness. A new freelance newspaper gig helps her get her mojo back, but Boulder isn't nearly as tranquil as it seems: there's a serial arsonist at large in the city. As Madeline closes in on the culprit, the fires turn deadly-and the stakes tragically personal. She'll need every ounce of strength and courage she has to keep the flames from reaching her own doorstep, threatening all she holds most dear.