The Holver Alley Crew Blog Tour: Excerpt + Giveaway

THE HOLVER ALLEY CREW (Streets of Maradaine #1)
Author: Marshall Ryan Maresca
Genre: Fantasy
Release Date: March 7, 2017

DAW MASS MARKET | $7.99
ISBN: 9780756412609

Description:
 
The exciting debut to Marshall Ryan Maresca's Streets of Maradaine fantasy series The Rynax brothers had gone legit after Asti Rynax's service in Druth Intelligence had shattered his nerves, and marriage and fatherhood convinced Verci Rynax to leave his life of thievery. They settled back in their old neighborhood in West Maradaine and bought themselves a shop, eager for a simple, honest life. 

Then the Holver Alley Fire incinerated their plans. With no home, no shop, and no honest income—and saddled with a looming debt—they fall back on their old skills and old friends. 

With a crew of other fire victims, Asti and Verci plan a simple carriage heist, but the job spirals out of control as they learn that the fire was no accident. Lives in Holver Alley were destroyed out of a sadistic scheme to buy the land. 

Smoldering for revenge, burdened with Asti's crumbling sanity, the brothers and their crew of amateurs and washouts swear to take down those responsible for the fire, no matter the cost.

Chapter One:

Asti Rynax couldn’t sleep. The bedroll wasn’t the problem. He’d slept plenty of nights in jail cells, road ditches, even trapped inside a wooden crate. The problem was sleeping on a hot wooden floor in the single-room flop, his younger brother, brother’s wife, and crying baby just ten feet away behind a thin cloth. He craved his own flop, his own space, without families, babies, or smoke.

Smoke.

Asti sat up, smelling the air.

Definitely smoke. And not from the oil lamps. Asti sprang to his feet. “Verci. Wake up.” 

“What, what is it?”

“Smoke.”

Verci was out of the bed, crossing over to Asti in a flash, despite being naked. Asti’s eyes went to the slight paunch his brother was getting. Married life was taking its toll on his normally lean body. “You’re right.”

“It’s just the Greenfields’ kitchen,” Raych mumbled from the bed.

“No, it’s too strong,” Asti said. He glanced back at Verci. “Put something on.”

Verci waved him off, taking another smell. “Much too strong.”

Asti touched the door. It was warm. Cautiously he cracked it open. The hallway glowed with crackling flames. He dashed back over to the kitchen and grabbed the bed- roll and blanket.

“Blasted saints,” Verci muttered. “Raych, wake up.” “What—”

“Get up. Get the baby.” Each word was like an arrow. Verci grabbed his pants off the back of a chair and pulled them on.

Asti held the blanket over his face. In the hallway the flames were licking up the walls and ceiling, wooden support beams already cracking. Asti swung the bedroll at the fire, beating it down. Useless. The smoke was getting thicker, the fire hotter, despite his efforts.

Marshall Ryan Maresca grew up in upstate New York and studied film and video production at Penn State. He now lives Austin with his wife and son. His work appeared in Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction and Rick Klaw’s anthology Rayguns Over Texas. He also has had several short plays produced and has worked as a stage actor, a theatrical director and an amateur chef. His novels The Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages each begin their own fantasy series, both set in the port city of Maradaine. For more information, visit Marshall’s website at www.mrmaresca.com.

 (1) Print copy of The Holver Alley Crew - Open to US/CAN only!

a Rafflecopter giveaway