Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
BIPOC Audiobooks
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale!
Shop the sale
Send as gift
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Shop the sale
In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Donāt miss outāpurchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowValley of Shadows
A Novel
Narrator
Gary Tiedemann
This audiobook uses AI narration.
Weāre taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more
Length
10 hours 41 minutes
Language
English
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 lost his wife, his family, even his country in the late 1870s when the Rio Grande shifted course, stranding the Mexican town of Olvido on the Texas side of the border. Heād made his brooding peace with retiring his gun and badge, hiding out on his ranch, and communing with horses and ghosts. But when a gruesome string of murders and kidnappings ravages the town, pushing its volatile mix of Anglo, Mexican, and Apache settlers to the brink of self-destruction, he feels reluctantly compelled to confront both life, and the much more likely possibility of death, yet again.
As Solitario struggles to overcome not only the evil forces that threaten the town but also his own inner demons, he finds an unlikely source of inspiration and support in Onawa, a gifted and enchanting Apache-Mexican seer who champions his cause, daring him to open his heart and question his destiny.
As we follow Solitario and Onawa into the desert, we join them in facing haunting questions about the human condition that are as relevant today as they were back then: Can we rewrite our own history and shape our own future? What does it mean to belong to a place, or for a place to belong to a people? And, as lonely and defeated as we might feel, are we ever truly alone?
Through luminous prose and soul-searching reflections, Rudy Ruiz transports readers to a distant time and a remote place where the immortal forces of good and evil dance amidst the shadows of magic and mountains.
A New York Times Book Review Paperback Row Selection
Rudy Ruiz is an award-winning author. His novel, The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez, received two Gold Medals at the 2021 International Latino Book Awards. It was also a finalist for the Western Writers of America Silver Spur Award for Best Contemporary Novel. His short-story collection Seven for the Revolution captured four International Latino Book Awards, including the Mariposa Prize for Best First Book. In 2017, he garnered the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction. A bilingual native of the US-Mexico border, he earned his bachelorās and masterās degrees at Harvard and now resides in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife and children. Visit his website at RudyRuiz.com.
Gary Tiedemann is a Florida and New York-based narrator, but learned how to act in Chicago's improv, sketch-comedy, and theater scene. He came to audiobook narration after voicing countless commercials and videos over a twenty-year voice-over career. Gary has also appeared in hundreds of improv and sketch performances at Chicago's Annoyance Theatre, iO, The Second City, and in dozens of theater roles as a cofounder of The New Colony Theatre. When Gary is not in a booth, he is probably outside wondering if there is time to go camping.
Featured in these playlists...
Reviews
āRuiz writes with the ache of the lonely and the audacity of the hopeful. His prose is unforgiving and his characters unrelenting. Valley of Shadows contains a sharpness of vision that is exceedingly rare; and through this tale of redemption and rediscovery, Ruiz certifies his voiceāas well as his philosophy of togethernessāas a ferociously necessary addition to American letters.ā
āRuizās engaging tale, peppered generously with Spanish words and smoldering with racial tension and classism, is immersive and atmospheric and features an interesting cast of characters with rich backstories. Ruiz deftly combines elements of romance, historical mystery, horror, and magical realism to deliver a richly satisfying adventure.ā
āRuiz offers an engrossing blend of historical fiction, ghost story, and mysteryā¦He employs elements of magic realism to haunting effect, and the depictions of human cruelty and injustice are unflinchingā¦This has its rewards.ā
āRudy Ruizās imagination is second to none! I knew Iād be up all night as soon as I picked up his latest book. Valley of Shadows does not disappoint. The characters jump off the page, vying to tell their storiesāthe curse, the love, the loss, the friendships, the historical context, the mysteryācompelling us to see through the veil to know their end. Alas, it is over way too soon!ā
āRudy Ruizās Valley of Shadows haunts with its trenchant historical accuracy woven dazzlingly with magical real elements that make this borderland Western horror leap off the page. Indeed, this powerful story wriggled into my heart and gut, like a snake seeking shelter in the scorched desert earth. Unsettling and uplifting, both. Filled with ghosts both literal and metaphorical in a desolate place overflowing with unforgettable characters whose stories are woven by a masterful storyteller, Ruizās Valley of Shadows is searing, incisive, and, at times, utterly terrifying.ā
āThe most gratifying thing about Rudy Ruizās latest novel, Valley of Shadows, is the story itself, and Ruiz keeps the reader turning pages until the very end. Ruiz skillfully blends genres, adding elements of Westerns, crime stories, magical realism, and horror to create a world in which anything is possibleā¦A satisfying and unpredictable read.ā
Expand reviews