A Strange Affinity
Rebecca Rook
Publication date: March 26th 2024
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
A Strange Affinity is a hypnotizing cross between the television show Deadwood and Tamora Pierce's renowned Tortall Universe. This young adult fantasy novel, set in an alternate nineteenth century American Wild West, will appeal to fans of Vengeance Road and Retribution Rails by Erin Bowman, Revenge and the Wild by Michelle Modesto, and Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey.
In the Wild West, magic is real.
When two strangers arrive in her small town, Gloriana Rue learns that she has the magical ability, or Affinity, to manipulate metal. She also learns that her mother was a renowned magical scholar but had abandoned the world of Affinities. Glory is desperate to know why her mother hid her past, and so agrees to attend an academy for magicians in the hopes of finding answers.
Glory is soon immersed in magic and mystery when she stumbles upon a disturbing discovery: A killer is hunting magicians throughout the American West – and he's getting closer. Only by seeking out her mother's secrets can she stop him and save her newfound family.
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EXCERPT:
Glory adored her new magician's studio.
The space was outfitted as a smith's shop, furnished with a long workbench, a wall hung with gently worn but serviceable tools, and a small, portable blacksmith's forge. She was awkward with many of the tools at first but grew better and more proficient by the day. Glory worked long into the evenings, well past the end of her classes. She came to love the feeling of being surrounded by scraps of different metals: gold, silver, copper, and iron. It felt like being surrounded by friends, or family. It was hard for Glory to describe but she felt that each metal had a different personality.
Glory thrived under Jacinda's tutelage. She went on to master a series of ever-challenging tasks she had set before her: Molding new shapes, melding metals together, and extracting the elements. Soon each new task seemed easier than the last.
In a recent conversation, Jacinda had warned Glory these new skills were among the easiest for a magician. True transformation of physical properties was much harder, and in some cases, impossible without several years of further study.
"Lead to gold?" Glory had asked, skepticism and humor in her voice. She remembered reading such silly tales among her father's library.
Jacinda had chuckled. "Not quite. You're bound by the chemical properties of the source material. But with study and practice, who knows what's possible? The magical properties of metal are vastly understudied and largely composed of myths and legends about alchemy. And because there are so few metal magicians, we still don't know what they — you — are capable of."
Author Bio:
Rebecca Rook designs tabletop games, manages a little free library dedicated to sequential art and comics, and lives in the Pacific Northwest with two wonderful dogs. She writes young adult fiction in the fantasy, thriller, and horror genres.
A 2021-2022 Hugo House Fellow in
Seattle, WA, she also attended the 2021 Tin House YA Fiction Workshop in
Portland, OR. Rebecca was selected as one of the 100 invited writers to participate in the Write Team Mentorship Program's curated Pitch-a-Thon event before being chosen as a Mentee for the 2021 Program. Prior to this, she completed the wonderful Yearlong Workshop for Young Adult and Middle Grade Fiction at Hugo House.
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