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“Discrimination is evil, but evil does not discriminate.” 1883, West Texas. In the vast desert, a gleaming river snakes beneath the blinding sun. When the Rio Grande shifts course, the Mexican city of Olvido is stranded on the northern side of the new border between the United States and Mexico. When a series of mysterious and horrific crimes grips the divided border town, a reclusive former Mexican lawman is lured out of retirement to restore order and save the lives of a growing number of abducted children. In the face of skeptics and hostile Anglo settlers, the war-weary charro, Solitario Cisneros, struggles to overcome not only the evil forces that threaten his town, but also his own inner demons. He is burdened by the turbulent darkness of a mystical curse that has guided his lonely destiny, until Onawa, a gifted and beautiful Apache-Mexican seer, joins his mission and dares him to change the course of both their lives. A visionary neo-Western blend of magical realism, mystery, and horror, Valley of Shadows explores the dark past of injustice, isolation, and suffering along the US-Mexico border. Through luminous prose and introspective meditations, Ruiz sweeps readers away on a journey to another time and a remote place where the universally compelling forces of good and evil dance amidst the shadows of magic and mountains. You will ponder the most basic questions regarding the human condition: Is our destiny written for us? Can we rewrite our own history and future? As lonely as we might feel, are we ever truly alone? And, can love conquer all?
FIVE EPIC STARS!
Oh I have been gifted one of the most wonderful books I’ve ever read!
And I have read HUNDREDS! And I don’t read westerns, but this was SO MUCH MORE THAN A WESTERN! So much more than anything!.
Rudy Ruiz just became one of my all-time fav authors. I cannot wait to read more of his work! This was everything I could have ever asked for in a book, as if I had given Rudy a wish list and he had made all those wishes come true! The perfect book! So cinematic!
If you enjoy historical mysteries/horror/ paranormal stories with plenty of marvelous characters, that are atmospheric, and nostalgic but also mysterious, suspenseful, ghostly, dark, and brutal like “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, “The House of the Spirits” , “Like Water for Chocolate” , “The Hacienda” , “Certain Dark Things” , “Things We Lost in the Fire” , “Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery”, “the Year of the Witching”, “The Wind”, “Ravenous”, “Apostle” , and “The VVitch: A New-England Folktale”
THEN YOU WOULD PROBABLY LOVE THIS BOOK AS MUCH AS I DID!
The writing is just superb! Lyrical, poetic, just beautiful! The descriptions, breathtaking!
It took me forever to get through the audiobook because I kept rewind it to experience the settings again just to get lost in the beautiful imagery, immerse in the sensory experience daydreaming and have to rewind once again!
I could actually see the beautiful sunsets, feel the heat of the desert, inhale the dry dust lifted by the horses and smell the manure!
Then there was storytelling. Oh my god, so engrossing!
I also had to rewind many times to experience again every scene, every dialogue delivered in both perfect Mexican accented Spanish and Texas accented English, every romantic and haunted moment, every historical fact of the life in the border in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and cultural aspect so perfectly represented!
Then, last but not least, all the magic, the fantasy, the myths, the legends and the folklore of both cultures!
BUT, OF COURSE, THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TALES WHERE HUMANS ARE THE WORST MONSTERS!
This is a multigenerational epic saga as vast as the desolate landscapes where is set, a classic in the making!
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