Relics

I took a break from the YA drama to finish this book. I picked it up on Paperback Swap not long ago and bought the two sequels on Amazon as well.

Relics is about the underground trade of mythological, supernatural artifacts: the body of a baby cyclops, a cast of footprints from an Atlantean woman, a dragon's tooth, a unicorn's horn, an angel with its wings torn off. 

Angela's boyfriend Vince is a relic hunter, completely unknown to her, and when he agrees to do a job for the wrong woman, he ends up missing. The book is mostly Angela's search to find him with other sections from his point of view, as well as some of the Kin. 

Vince was working with Fat Frederick Meloy, a genuine collector who has respect for his artifacts...and also a murderous gangster. But it's his involvement with Mary Rock that gets him in trouble when he realizes that the Kin still live. They're not just relics. And Rock's people are out to kill them. She uses their parts for medicines and even holds grotesque dinner parties where the rich and famous dine on the supernatural. 

Angela is caught in the middle of all this and eventually gets help from the Kin themselves. They're all forced to team up with Fat Frederick to take down Mary Rock and save the fairy she has captive. 

I enjoyed the world-building and fast pace of this. It would make a good series. (I think a movie would be too short to hold all the details.) The Kin are fascinating characters and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the next two books. There's a Nephilim named Mallian that wants the Kin to come out from hiding and resume their place of power and the very old, very powerful fairy they freed in this book just has to reappear. 

If you like horror, folklore, cryptids and love action movies, I think you'd enjoy this.