Excerpt: Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman, an Alternative History Novel

This book came out last year in hardcover and now it's releasing in paper back. I enjoyed it so much that I asked the author, Laura Anne, if I could do an excerpt. isn't that a gorgeous cover? You can check out my review here then go down and read the excerpt. Book two, "The Cold Eye", comes out in January and I'll be reviewing it in December.

Laura Anne Gilman is the author of the popular Cosa Nostradamus urban fantasy series of novels and novellas, and the Nebula award-nominated The Vineart War trilogy. Her newest project is the Devil’s West series from Saga / Simon & Schuster, beginning with 2015’s Locus-bestseller SILVER ON THE ROAD, and continuing with THE COLD EYE.
She has also dipped her pen into the mystery field as well, writing as L.A. Kornetsky (Collared, Fixed, Doghouse, and Clawed).

A member of the writers’ digital co-op Book View Cafe, she continues to write and sell short fiction in a variety of genres, most recently appearing in the anthologies Genius Loci and Temporally Out of Order.

You can contact her directly at LAG@Lauraannegilman.net

For more about Ms. Gilman, read an interview here.

Find Laura Anne Online:

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Every deal has two sides, the devil had said. I’ve told you what I want. Name your price.

Gabriel tightened his fingers on the reins, remembering. He hadn’t gone into the saloon to make a deal, neither contract nor Bargain. He’d had his chance the night before and passed on it, declined to face the devil across the felt.

I didn’t make the offer to you. Your accepting it on her behalf don’t change that.

The devil had seemed amused by Gabriel’s sass: his smile was thin, but it reached his eyes, a comfortable amusement that had nothing cruel about it. Gabriel’d heard the stories when he was back East, over the River, the warnings of brimstone and betrayal, but he’d never been able to believe them. What he’d been raised on was more truth: the devil ran an honest house. But for him to be asking the price rather than telling it . . . that ran contrary to everything anyone knew, and it made a man suspicious.

To be offered his price for a thing he’d been willing to do for free . . . It made a man more than suspicious.

Steady snorted, as though the gelding knew what he was think- ing. He kneed the horse forward as though to tell it to shut up and focus on the trail, but it was a wide-open road, cleared of rocks and smooth of holes, exactly the way you’d expect the road to perdition to look.

The girl rode behind and to his left, Uvnee falling into place like she’d been riding with Steady her entire life instead of coming fresh out of the stable. Still, he’d picked the mare out of the ones offered, and he had a decent sense of horseflesh.

I’m sure we can come to an equitable agreement. . . .

Gabriel tugged his hat down farther over his eyes, the morning sun up high enough now to be annoying but not high enough to start warming the air. His gaze flickered to the girl, noting the way she held her reins, the way she shifted, trying to find the most comfort- able position, adjusting to the mare’s movements. She’d need a hat, he decided. Probably used to spending all day indoors, out of the sun, and had no idea how bad it could get come midday. When they stopped, he’d rig something, but the first town they hit, she needed a decent hat.

Studying her now, he looked past the strong bones and smooth skin that had first drawn his attention, trying to see what about the girl was worth so much to the devil. Her gaze was on the road, but he got the feeling from the tension in her jaw that she wasn’t seeing it. Girl was terrified and trying hard not to let it show.

Good. Being scared right then meant she was smart. Being scared could keep her alive until she learned better. And not showing fear would keep her alive after.

And him ignoring the fact that she was terrified right then was all the comfort he could give her.

***************

A heroic fantasy by an award-winning author about a young woman who is trained in the art of the sinister hand of magic, but at what price?

Isobelle, upon her sixteenth birthday, makes the choice to work for the devil in his territory west of the Mississippi. But this is not the devil you know. This is a being who deals fairly with immense—but not unlimited—power, who offers opportunities to people who want to make a deal, and they always get what they deserve. But his land is a wild west that needs a human touch, and that’s where Izzy comes in. Inadvertently trained by him to see the clues in and manipulations of human desire, Izzy is raised to be his left hand and travel circuit through the territory. As we all know, where there is magic there is chaos…and death.

Series: The Devil's West #1
Publisher: Saga Press
Release Date: paperback release October 11th, 2016
Formats: Hard cover, paperback, ebook
Buying Links:  Amazon* | Book Depository* | OmniLit* | iTunes | Barnes & Noble
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