This novel is not yet published.

Category: Western-style Fantasy

Tagline: High fairy nobility compelled Rafael West to champion the railroad. His father’s blood ensorcelled him to destroy it. Which would break first, half-elf gunfighter or Big Iron?

Synopsis: Rafael West is a simple man hated by almost everyone on the continent. In fact, he’s hated on several continents, but not because he’s a bad guy – though really he is a bad guy. He’s a gunslinger, but that isn’t why. He’s a druid, but that’s not why either. Rafe was born a half elf, and for that everybody wants him dead.

There are exceptions of course. His longtime friend and gunsmith Alexander doesn’t wants him dead, no she has darker desires for him – marriage. Alexander’s cousin Benedict doesn’t want him dead, but he’s a banker and we all know what he wants. The pixie spell-linger Wels doesn’t want his liberator Rafe dead. Most horrible, a high fairy noble named Telethia doesn’t want him dead, though she compels him into service as emissary between the dwarven railroad laying iron rails across the fey countryside and the elves that really, really want Rafe dead. No, Telethia has plans centuries in the making that include Rafe.

In fact, almost everyone has plans employing Rafe. Archibald Slate, dwarf businessman and the power behind the railroad, employs Rafe as sworn protector of the rail workers, gunslinger and envoy against the native elven tribes. The elven tribe of Rafe’s birth saddle him with a compulsion to destroy the railroad.

All Rafael West wants is to be accepted, to find a place to put aside his guns and live in peace – it doesn’t matter how many people he has to shoot to get it. Forced to protect the railroad workers at the same time as he is compelled to destroy Archibald’s railroad, Rafe struggles to survive on a high wire with everyone intent to pull him apart. Which will survive in the end, gunslinger or Big Iron?

Excerpt