#MidWeekTease, Where Struan is waiting for a sign...

Hello everyone.

Welcome to this week's #MIdWeekTease

Here's mine.

(The picture is from Pinterest)

Take one ex-shifter...Glare at him for a while. Add...

One unknown enemy,
One human,
and a lot of helpers...

What do you get?

You get Struan's Story.

Struan Scott has been brought up to be told he should head the Shalean Sept of leopard shifters, Not Brios Parde.

When the Rogue Shaleans who poisoned his mind are vanquished, Struan has to choose...


Continue with evil or change his life around.

It's not an easy choice. Believe what your are told your destiny should be, or take a chance, change and discover what your destiny is going to be.

This is what he does, how he does it, and whether he succeeds in his choice.

Does he?

You'll have to wait and see but...

your #MidWeekTease

(Struan has moved to Devon and is trying to get on with his life)

Struan scrubbed his paddle board and stared at the rain streaming down the window of his shed aka summer house. Flaming June was now raining July, and it was miserable. Esther had been gone for two weeks, and he missed her. They’d spoken on the phone, texted and face timed, but it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t sleeping well, his slumber broken by dreams of what had been and what could be...or not. Leopards, the Armin stone, his betrayal of all he should hold dear and that final denouement.

Sometimes he swore he could hear the Grey Side, mocking him for not standing by what lies they had fed him. That he ignored. The dreams of Shalea, of what it meant, of how he’d tried to destroy it and how he changed his life around were not so easy to ignore.

He painted his kitchen, took his turn locking up the tunnel, and went for ever longer runs.

Every day he could swear he saw a leopard. Under the bridge, in the tunnel, even swimming up the river. The hallucinations were so clear, so lifelike, that Struan thought if he was able to touch one, he’d feel warm fur and a heartbeat.

And every day, the conviction that something momentous was about to happen got stronger.

What he had no idea, where, or when, ditto, but it put him on edge. He hadn’t been so unsure of himself, of who he was, and what might be able to happen since those dreadful days when he’d been banished, and found himself unable to shift, project or be part of what had been his life since birth.

When he found he’d painted the same door panel for the third time, Struan decided enough was enough. He washed the paintbrush, tidied everything away and went out in the rain. To scrub his paddle board and give himself a strong talking to. He couldn’t carry on like this. He either had to wallow or wake up and do something about whatever was going on.

Wallowing was not in his make up. So...Struan put his now shining paddle board on the shelf and stood up and stretched. Time to be proactive.

As if it was a sign, the rain stopped and a rainbow arched over the estuary mouth. The sight took his breath away. It was clearer than he’d ever seen before, a full arc of glorious colors. Beneath it, the water sparkled, and the ferry chugged across, the river, its flags fluttering gently in the now soft breeze, and sending Struan a message.

‘We need you.’

The first books of The Shalean Moon by my YA-hatted persona J. Lilley, are available from Opal Moon Press on Amazon

You can catch all the other #MidWeekTease posts here

happy reading,

love, Raven and Jo xx

#MidWeekTease Where Struan wonders...what next?

Hi all, #MidWeekTease time,

this week from a WIP that is more NA than anything else.

Struan's story is the working title for the last (as far as I know) Shalean Moon story. He was the baddy in all 7 YA Books (all of which will be out  by Christmas) His story brings us up to date and we can discover...has he redeemed himself or not?

Banished from Shalea, unable to shift into a leopard or project and receive thoughts, Struan Scott has to have a long hard look at himself. To continue with the evil Grey Side and Rogues, who are trying to destroy Shalea, or go away, grow up and change into a decent hardworking person, who is truly repentant.
What would he chose?

and your tease...

Every bone in his body ached. Sadly not in the way he’d once known.

Struan Scott ran down and back up the ninety-seven steps three times in the tunnel that led to the little beach near his home. Sweat dripped into his eyes, even with the toweling sweatband across his forehead and his long dark hair in a ponytail—or should that be a leopard's tail? He hoped to hell the exercise would make him so tired he'd sleep that night without dreams or nightmares. Not that it was very likely. Six years on, and he'd still not managed a full nights sleep. So what if he'd stepped out of line a little? Okay a lot. But now he was six years older for Shalea's sake. Older, wiser, and not so much of an asshole he hoped. But did Shalea forgive? Did they heck.

Mind you, why should they? I was out of order, not them. How can they know I’m not the person I was then? That I now understand evil and want nothing to do with it? The only answer he could give himself, was that they couldn’t know, and he had no way of letting them.

Struan rolled his shoulders, swung his arms and took a swig of water before stepping out once more. Why was his mind so deeply entrenched in the past today? Strange dreams apart, every day was similar to the last. He'd screwed up, and he was paying for it. One step, one minute at a time. And there seemed that there was no end to it.

He knew he'd been in the wrong. Trying to pervert the way Shalean succession worked wasn't good, and he couldn't say he hadn't known what he was doing, or even blame the people he had listened to. Jealously was an ugly, horrible thing, and he'd had it big time.

With the hindsight of his twenty-three years instead of sixteen, he could see what an ass he'd been. A self important, up his own ass, ass. But when you'd been drip fed the idea that you should rule the Shalean Sept of Leopard Shifters ever since you were old enough to listen, you tended to believe it. Even when everyone else disagreed, he still clung to what he'd been told.

Oh so wrong. Now he could accept that, but it had been a hard lesson. For his sins, Struan had been banished from Shalea, and stripped of his ability to shift. His crime was heinous. He'd plotted how to bring down the Sept and how to ruin the leaders and leaders to be. By chance and, he thought ruefully, the fact they had justice on their side he was thwarted at every turn. Defeated and banished he decided to regroup, and he'd gone to university in England—not in Scotland as he originally anticipated. It was probably the best move he could have made.

Catch all the other #MidWeekTease posts here

Happy reading,

love Raven x

#SexySnippets with a non sexy snippet ;)

Hi all and welcome to this week's

 #SexySnippets— 

which is brought to you by all the authors who participate, and the hard work of Doris o'Connor who sets it all up.

Seven sentences from a book or WIP.

Sometimes hot and sometimes not, Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but hopefully all the time good—not bad.

This week I'm sharing something different. Cheating a bit I guess, but please bear with me. It's not sexy in the conventional sense, because it's from my next YA book which is out very soon. But it is a teasing snippets and hey,  Leira and Donny have their problems in the love or not together or not HEA or not scenario, just like older people do.

(Leira and Donny belong to a The Shalean Sept of Leopard shifters and live in the Trossachs in Scotland. In Shalea when you reach puberty you grow into your powers and often realise who your mate will be. Donny knows Leira will be his, but she is not sure. Sparks fly.

Shaleans project their thoughts to each other. It's Leira's birthday and she's sitting near the river thinking about her future when Donny arrives.

I came to wish you a happy sixteenth birthday, Leira— and to claim you as my own.

Bite me, no chance, I’ll never belong to anyone other than me. Why couldn’t he get that into his thick head?

His growl of amusement rolled around the clearing and she wanted to wipe that stupid grin off his jowls. Whoever said leopards couldn’t smile was dead wrong—they could, and boy Donny did.

Bite you, Leira? Oh, I intend to, and soon. and then, we will belong to each other—that’s my promise and my oath.

Catch all the other #SexySnippets here

Happy Reading,

love Raven (or here Jo)