Release date: July 31, 2015
Subgenre: Weird Western
About Into the Gap:
The secret of Lainie's forbidden magical
gifts has been exposed, and Silas wants to take her far away from the Wildings
to a place where she can be safe. To earn money for the journey, Silas signs
them up to work on the big annual cattle drive to the Gap.
Lainie dreams of making the Wildings into a
place where she and Silas and other mages can live in peace. The cattle drive
is the perfect opportunity for her and Silas to show the Plain settlers of the
Wildings that not all mages are wicked, heartless monsters.
While Silas has reason to believe that the
danger to Lainie is worse than he thought, Lainie can't agree that leaving the
Wildings is the answer. As they travel with the herd, Lainie and Silas must
avoid being captured or killed by mage hunters and discovered by the
mage-hating Plains, while protecting the herd from renegade mages looking for
money and trouble. And they have to find a way to resolve the disagreement
between them - do they seek refuge in a faraway land or stand and face the
dangers of being outlaw mages in the Wildings? - before it tears them apart.
Excerpt:
Silas and Lainie put their belongings in
the back of the biggest covered wagon, which was mostly filled with crates and
barrels and sacks of food and cooking equipment. Lainie took advantage of the
moment of privacy to whisper to Silas, “You don’t suppose some rogue mages
might try to rustle some cattle, do you?”
Silas was silent a moment as he arranged
his belongings in the wagon bed. “Could be. It’d take at least two or three men
working together, though, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah. Rustling isn’t a one-man job, not if
you want to make off with enough cattle to make it worth the trouble.”
“It’s rare to see two rogues working together,
never mind three, and they’re more likely to be at each other’s throats than
accomplishing anything.”
“Stealing a good bunch of cattle might make
it worth trying to get along. They could sell some and split the money, keep
the rest for breeding stock, and start their own ranches. I heard there’s
always buyers at the market who don’t look at the brandings as closely as they
ought to.”
“You might be on to something,” Silas said
thoughtfully. “Even if they don’t want to go to the trouble of getting into the
ranching business – most renegades I’ve met are too lazy for that – if they
stirred up enough trouble on the drive, that might open up other opportunities
for them. Like selling ‘protection’ from more trouble.”
Lainie didn’t like the sound of that. “That
would give them a lot of control over the drive.”
“Exactly,” Silas said.
“So you think we ought to keep a watch out
for renegades during the drive?”
He nodded. “We should anyway, but even more
so if your guess is right. But if it comes down to fighting any mages, darlin’,
I want you to stay out of it.”
“It’s cattle they’d be after, not us.”
“Renegades have been known to inform on
other renegades, or even kill them and turn in their rings, in exchange for a
pardon and even part of the bounty.”
“Still, you’re the one with a price on your
head,” she pointed out. “I’m not going to let you fight them by yourself.”
“We don’t know that there isn’t a bounty on
you. If the Council knows what you can do, there’s sure to be a bounty on you
that puts mine to shame.”
“We don’t know that they know.”
“We don’t know that they don’t.”
She let out an exasperated breath, blowing
loose hairs from around her face. They had had this discussion before, and it
never went anywhere. “We’re a team, Vendine. We’re partners. We work together.
I’m not helpless, you know.” After all, she had saved him from Fazar and
Oferdon. Had he forgotten that?
He was silent another moment as he shifted
his things around, his brow furrowed, his mouth and jaw set in stubborn lines.
“It isn’t just hunters and rogues I’m worried about,” he said. “I don’t want
the folks on the drive to find out about you.”
“If you think I’m going to just stand by
and watch you put yourself in danger without helping you, you’d best think
again.”
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About Kyra Halland:
Kyra Halland lives in southern Arizona. Complicated, honorable heroes; heroines who are strong, smart, and all woman; magic, romance, and adventure; and excursions into the dark corners of life and human nature mixed with a dash of offbeat humor - all of these make up her worlds. She has a very patient husband, two less-patient cats, and two young adult sons. Besides writing, she enjoys scrapbooking and anime, and she wants to be a crazy cat lady when she grows up.
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