Happy Birthday RELIC!

We Thirteeners are so excited today because it's the release of Renee Collins' book, RELIC! This book is so fantastic we can't wait for everyone else to be able to read it, too. Read this summary and you'll see why.

After a raging fire consumes her town and kills her parents, Maggie Davis is on her own to protect her younger sister and survive the best she can in the Colorado town of Burning Mesa. In Maggie’s world, the bones of long-extinct magical creatures such as dragons and sirens are mined and traded for their residual magical elements, and harnessing these relics’ powers allows the user to wield fire, turn invisible, or heal even the worst of injuries.

Working in a local saloon, Maggie befriends the spirited showgirl Adelaide and falls for the roguish cowboy Landon. But when she proves to have a particular skill at harnessing the relics’ powers, Maggie is whisked away to the glamorous hacienda of Álvar Castilla, the wealthy young relic baron who runs Burning Mesa. Though his intentions aren’t always clear, Álvar trains Maggie in the world of relic magic. But when the mysterious fires reappear in their neighboring towns, Maggie must discover who is channeling relic magic for evil before it’s too late.

Relic is a thrilling adventure set in a wholly unique world, and a spell-binding story of love, trust, and the power of good.

Guys...THIS BOOK! Maggie is amazing and strong in the face of so much adversity. And the setting is fresh, visual and alive. Old west, cowboys, mesas and magic? YES PLEASE! 

Here are some visuals that remind me of the feel of RELIC to get everyone in the mood. 

Cowboys...yum, k?

Old West Saloons!

Cowboys IN Saloons!

Wealthy relic barons...

And HORSES!

And, we really can't emphasize this enough...

hot cowboys!

Who ride horses!

And are oh so clean...yeah...yum.

All of this, AND MAGIC. So yeah...you need to get this book now! You can buy it at any of these links.

Relic on Indiebound / Barnes & Noble / Amazon

And just one more cowboy image to leave you with...

You are welcome.

Huge congratulations to Renee and Relic! We're so happy for you!

Renee Collins Takes the Dare!

World building is one of the most difficult, but also most rewarding aspects of writing fantasy. Relic is set in Old West Colorado, but there's a strong fantasy twist that changes everything. Needless to say, I had a lot of world building to do. So when Megan Shepherd dared us to write a piece of flash fiction set in the world of our novel, I had plenty of material to work with.

Without further ado, I present:

 "Last Confessions of an Outlaw"

Our first mistake was to plan the raid on a night with a full moon. For one thing, it was bright as a blasted spring morning out there on the desert. Not to mention it brought the ghost coyotes out of their caves. Their mournful howls echoed against the red rock cliffs, setting the whole group on edge.
    
But Sid just smiled, his chimera relic eye glinting in the moonlight like orange gold.
    
Some said he’d lost his real eye in a fight. Others said he’d taken it out himself to have the perfect place to carry his relic. Hats or amulets, or even relic-fitted weapons could be lost and stolen. But if a man wanted to take Sid Moreno’s chimera piece, they’d have to come face to face with him to do it.
    
When the sound of a gunshot, our signal, pierced the night, everyone froze.
    
“Torches,” Sid snapped.
    
We each held up sticks with kerosine dipped cloth tied around the tops. With that semi-crazed grin of his, Sid inhaled and blew a foot-long blast of flames out of his mouth, igniting the torches. He tossed one to each of us.
    
“Saddle up, boys,” he said. “We got us a werewolf relic to steal.”
    
It was a darn fool thing to do, if you ask me: putting an extremely rare, expensive, not to mention illegal relic like werewolf on a piddly little stagecoach. Even one taking a secret desert path in the middle of the night. These folks, whoever they were, clearly didn’t know who they were dealing with. Sid could find a fairy bone in a haystack.
    
A cloud of dust rose on the dark horizon ahead. The coach. We rode hard for it, spreading out in a wide arc. The wind beat against my face as we drew near, and a rush of excitement filled my gut. It always did on a raid. I’m a wicked man. I’ve known that since I was twelve.
    
Gunshots blasted through the air. Driver had spotted us. The four steeds that lead the coach whinnied with anxiety, jerking their heads against their reigns. Sid laughed and blew another big breath of fire, just to spook the horses even more.
    
We’d robbed more coaches than I could remember. The process was routine by now. That night, however, as we went up to surround the coach, I caught sight of a passenger in the window. A little girl with big brown eyes and a round nose and dark curls that fell about her face.
    
“Petey!” Sid’s voice was harsh. “What are you waitin’ for? Go!”
    
I was supposed to shoot. Blast a ball of fire from my dragon-bone pistol right into the hull of the carriage. Kill any passengers. Bring down the driver. Then ride off before the rangers rode in—inevitably five minutes behind us. We’d done it a thousand times. The flickering magic from the relic weapon in my hand tingled down my arm in anticipation. I should shoot.
    
And yet . . . That little face. So afraid. So innocent.
    
“Now!” Sid cried. Angry flames lashed from his mouth as he shouted.
    
Anabelle. I finally placed the face. That little passenger was the spitting image of my sister’s daughter, Anabelle. A real sweet girl. She used to climb up on my lap and ask me to tell her stories about ancient mermaids and dragons.
    
A flash of light drew me out of my thoughts. Sid’s fire breath. He was aiming for the horses. The thick leather of their reigns caught aflame in an instant. The animals screeched, flailing out of control. In the shimmering firelight, I could see the little girl screaming behind the window.
    
Something inside of me broke. Something hard and dark and cruel—deep inside of me—shattered into pieces. And before I knew what I was doing, I had my pistol aimed at Sid.
    
My finger squeezed the trigger. Light and heat flashed around me. Screams. Horses whinnying into the darkness.
    
By the time the coach crashed to the sand, most of the others had already scattered into the night. They knew the rangers were on our tail. Five minutes behind us.
    
In five minutes I could be off into the safeness of the desert. My eyes fell to the burning, broken mass of the carriage. The passengers inside screamed, trapped by the flames and wreckage. A hand reached out with desperation.
    
Five minutes.
  
In a daze, I jumped from my horse and ran to the coach. Let the rangers catch me. I wouldn’t watch that little girl die.

*  *  *

They tell me she came through real well, once the burns had healed. Her Ma, too. The thought pleases me. It’s just the thing I needed to hear on my last day on Earth.

    
A fella comes to terms with a lot of things when he’s set to hang. I never been a good man, but I hope this letter finds its way to my sister. To Anabelle. I hope she knows that I’ll go to my death thinking of her. Of her little brown eyes looking up at me as I tell her stories of mermaids and dragons. I reckon I’ll die with a smile on my face.

 *  *  *

Renee is a YA writer and professional ponderer. She loves historical settings, fantasy, and semi-tragic romance. RELIC is her first novel, coming September 2013 from Entangled Teen!

   

Renee Collins Takes the Dare!

Since my lovely cover went live only a few days ago, I knew I wanted my dare this week to have something to do with that. Only trouble was, there were no unused dares that would work relating to a cover. So I went to the Friday the Thirteener ladies to shamelessly ask for one.

Natalie dared me to mock my cover instead of praise it. But how could I? LOOK AT IT!

Definitely not mock-worthy. Though I did come up with a hybrid of that dare. I wondered, what if I staged a re-enactment of that cover? It's a little know fact that the red-rock cliffs near my home helped to inspire the setting for RELIC. So for one day, I decided to be Maggie. These are the results. . .



First, here's a picture to set the scene. These are the cliffs near my house. I can see them from my bedroom window.

GORGEOUS, right? I agree. That's why I wanted to put them in my novel. (I took this picture. Feel free to marvel in the comments section.)

So, with my hubby and kids, we set out on a trail near our house. Note the difference in color. I took the picture above on a different day. For our excursion this time, the lighting was much less flattering. Alas.

 I led the our little party. An intrepid explorer with a vision and dream.

 After hiking a ways, taking in the unseasonably lovely March evening air, we arrived at the perfect, RELIC-eqsue spot. I can see Maggie here. I can see Landon and Ella and Yahn. I can see . . .(Okay, no more teasers.)

 As I said before, the lighting was less than ideal. Look at this sunset! NOT gorgeous, fiery red like my cover.

But, regardless, I was there, and so a picture I must take. Here are the results. What my cover would like in real life. (If Maggie wore jeans.)
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I think I prefer my cover artist's vision. And her artwork around the title, because dude, I clearly have no skills.

 *  *  *

Renee is a YA writer and professional ponderer. She loves historical settings, fantasy, and semi-tragic romance. RELIC is her first novel, coming September 2013 from Entangled Teen!

Our Final Thirteener: Renee Collins!

 Credit: Darcy Case Photography

You have no idea how excited I am to introduce our FINAL Thirteener today! It is none other than one of my dearest friends—Renee Collins! This marks a very strange milestone for our little group. I can't believe we've filled all our spots, when a year ago this time we hadn't even launched our blog. It has been such a pleasure to be part of Friday The Thirteeners.

So let me tell you a little more about Ren. They really shouldn't have asked me to do this, because I LOVE humiliating my friends. First and foremost, if you need to get on her good side, all you need to do is bring her a cold Dr. Pepper. If it's on tap, even better. Second, Renee is the master of the Philosophical Journey. These basically consist of pondering upon a subject until you find some kind of meaning in all the madness. It's funner than it sounds (okay, not really).

As young as she may look, Renee is a mother to three adorable kids, and she lives with her husband in Colorado among the gorgeous red rock cliffs that partially inspired her debut novel, RELIC.

Oh, RELIC. You guys, I have so many feelings about this book. But first, the basics from the announcement:

Debut author Renee Collins' RELIC, pitched as True Grit meets The Prestige, set in a world in which the remains of long-extinct magical creatures are mined and traded on the black market in the red rock desert of the Colorado Territory for their residual magic powers, where a young girl must learn how to harness the power of relics and forge a risky alliance with a local land baron in order to survive.

This blurb only scratches the surface of how awesome this book is. Historical fantasy is becoming increasingly hot these days, with books like SHADOW AND BONE (Leigh Bardugo) and STORMDANCER (Jay Kristoff) and our own Ellen Oh's PROPHECY going outside the traditional British/European roots. Not to mention so many authors pulling from early American inspiration, such as Libba Bray's THE DIVINERS. Renee's RELIC is a perfect addition to this awesome YA genre, with its touch of magic and vibrant Old West world. Put this one on your list—it's such a fun, refreshing novel!

Okay, I think that's enough gushing. It's SO much easier to brag for my friends than for myself! So give Renee a warm welcome! We are so happy to have her, and please, leave her horrible truths/dares—she's up for her first on October 26th.