The Country Under Heaven
Forthcoming May 2025
Louis L’Amour meets H.P. Lovecraft in this thrilling western epic about a former Civil War soldier following enigmatic visions that started coming to him after he survived one of the war’s bloodiest battles . . .
Set in the 1880s, the story follows Ovid Vesper, a former Union soldier who has been having enigmatic visions after an explosion at the Battle of Antietam. As he travels across the country following those visions, he finds himself in stranger and increasingly more dangerous encounters with other worlds hidden in the spaces of his own.
Ovid brings his steady calm and compassion as he helps the people of a broken country, rapidly changing but still reeling and wounded from its Civil War two decades earlier. He assists with matters of all sorts, from odd jobs around the house, to guiding children back to their own universe, to hunting down unnatural creatures that stalk the night–all the while seeking his own personal resolution and peace from his visions and the war that changed his life.
This epic journey across the American West with Ovid and a surprising cast of characters blends elements of the classic Western with historical fantasy in a way like no other.
Reviews
"A haunting, violent, touching, episodic fever dream of a novel that spans from the Civil War to the post-war Wild West. I’ve never read anything quite like it."C.J. Box, #1 NYT Bestselling Author of Three-Inch Teeth
"The Country Under Heaven is a brilliant exploration of the Old West and even older supernatural horrors. Elegant, thrilling, and deeply satisfying! Highly recommended!"Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of the Joe Ledger thrillers and editor of The Good, The Bad, and the Uncanny
"The best of the [weird] west. Durbin invokes eldritch terrors to examine the peculiar, lawless hellscape that was the American West following the civil war. Delicately written, beautifully told, and bristling with dark turns of the unexplainable, The Country Under Heaven is a phenomenal read."Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger
"Evoking the majesty and grandeur of the Old West, Durbin spins a stirring yarn about the aftershocks of battle and the struggle to overcome what haunts us."The Speculative Shelf