Author: M. Raiya

Betrayed and left for dead by his lover, North has retreated to a secluded island to nurture his coven of witches and their demon partners. His group uses the magic of starlight to bring as much peace to the world as they can. It’s enough. North has no desire to look for love again.

When an accident on a carpentry job reveals that he is a demon, Alan Holsen is sent to North for training. Alan possesses a rare healing ability―one he might be able to use to close the old wounds in North’s heart. While North teaches Alan magic, Alan teaches North to love again, and they both struggle with the leftover resonance of their haunted pasts.

Just when they dare to relax, North’s old enemy returns―and sets his sights on Alan. To save him, North must enlist the aid of neighboring covens, and he learns he isn’t as alone as he thought. But in the end, only North’s love for Alan and the power of the stars have any chance of saving them.

*First place winner in the 2017 Rainbow Awards gay paranormal romance category

Depth of Return is the second book in the Another Healing series. It was first published in 2016 by Dreamspinner Press, and I’m very excited to release this self-published, second edition. I’d wanted to write another book in the series, and I came up with the idea for the setting first. I love water and canoes and islands. I wanted to write about someone who lived on an island in the middle of a pond in Vermont, and so I started thinking about who that character would be, and why he’d chosen to live there, and what might make him unwillingly leave his little paradise. North pretty much took over the book at that point. I enjoyed following him around. I especially enjoyed meeting Jade, who surprised me as much as he did North. And of course, I think Alan is pretty cool, too.

I really love the covers for these second editions. When I was designing them, I wanted to get away from the concepts used on the original covers (even though I also liked those a lot). I came up with the idea of using images of healing hands for all the books in the series. (Hopefully there will be another one.) The images come from Shutterstock. The one I chose for Another Healing spoke to me because there is a scene in the book where James conjures a ball of light in his hand, and this seemed perfect. The image I chose for Depth of Return spoke to me the same way–North is all about stars and gathering his own magic and releasing it into the night.

My husband and I have made three covers for my M. Raiya novels now, and it’s been a lot of fun learning how Photoshop works. Probably going to stick with writing though, and not go into cover design professionally.

Owl is set on Lake Champlain, which is the 7th biggest lake in the United States. (We Vermonters are very proud of this.) It’s mostly long and narrow and very deep, stretching almost the full length of Vermont and serving as its border with New York State. It also reaches up into Canada, and eventually flows into the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic, making the lake flow south to North, which always seems backwards to me. Anyway, I’ve spent almost every summer of my life on the northern Vermont shoreline of this amazing lake, swimming, paddling, sailing, and photographing (as people who follow me on social media know–sorry if I inundate you with sunsets).

Anyway, Owl is sort of my tribute to the lake. Granted, Vin lives in a nice house right on the shoreline, and I live in an uninsulated camp on a cliff forty feet straight up from the water. But Vin, like me, loves to jump in his kayak and head out any time of day or night, and waves don’t bother him much. There are also barred owls, of which Gabriel is one, watching quietly from trees during the day and hooting at night.

I took the photo of the owl who stars on my cover one morning several years ago. I was walking up our steep path after a swim, and I glanced over my shoulder as I started climbing the porch stairs, and there it was, sitting exposed on a limb and watching me. We stared at each other for a few moments, and then I walked on up the stairs almost underneath it, slipped into the camp and grabbed my camera, and then went back outside. It just sat there and let me take all the photos I wanted, right from the porch. After a few minutes, I went back inside to leave it in peace, and it stayed there for another half hour or so. It was one of my best photography experiences ever.

When Dreamspinner Press bought Owl, I wanted to use one of those photos on the cover, but they said the mood was wrong–they wanted to go with a more sinister look. I had to give in, but to me, Gabriel was not a sinister character, except when he pretended to be, and I thought my owl photos really captured who he was, looking inquisitive and friendly, and very beautiful. So now that I’m self-publishing my DSP titles, I was free to make the cover I always wanted the book to have. The dude is from Shutterstock, but the owl is mine, and so is the background. Which is another story. I’ve probably taken thousands of photos of the lake, but one night while my husband and I were on vacation in New Brunswick, Canada, driving back from some adventure, we saw the full moon rising over the ocean. I jumped out of the car and grabbed the photo that just felt right to use on this book cover. My lake photos have trees or rocks or mountains in the background and looked too busy for the cover.

Another place that is important to me shows up in the book. It’s a rock formation at the water’s edge that looks like a turtle made of rock, and between its front legs is the mouth of a cave that one can swim or paddle a kayak into. I do both quite often, and it’s very cool. As far as I know, it was not used for smuggling alcohol during prohibition, but a cave very close by was, and so I took the liberty of messing with history very slightly. I have fond memories of snorkeling into the cave with my neighbors as a child, and I dedicated this book to them.

Here are a few of my owl photos (yes, I leaned how to use Photoshop to make these covers, and wow, is it complicated! Don’t make a book cover your first project, FYI. But notice my cropping skills? Can you tell I’m a little proud?) And isn’t that totally Gabriel?

Only love stands between two lonely, misunderstood boys and death.

To save a friend, Gabriel broke his clan’s most sacred rule—he shifted to his owl form in front of humans. Now banished, Gabriel lives in a hollow tree and subsists on rodents, unable to shift back and slowly losing what’s left of his humanity.

Vincent seems to have it all, but the secrets he’s hiding are killing him. Sometimes it feels like ending everything might be better, and he has no one to talk to but the owl from the hollow tree….

Only the closer the boy and owl become, the more dangerous it gets. Gabriel might think his clan has forgotten about him and what he did. But they haven’t. And they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure Gabriel doesn’t break the law again….

I’m so excited to be able to offer this self-published, slightly revised edition of Owl, and on Halloween! How appropriate for a book about moonlight and owls! And love! (Well, it’s always a good time for love, right?)

I know this is considered young adult, and no, it doesn’t have much sex, but it’s got plenty of tension and edgy scenes and danger and a happy ending. Like most of my stories, it’s paranormal. It’s got shifters (not dragon, sorry) but who doesn’t love owls?

So imagine being sixteen years old and getting locked in your shifted form by your clan leader (your grandfather, no less!) and being thrown out of your clan because you tried to save a friend from getting beaten up, and it’s really hard to survive as an owl in Vermont in the winter… Three years later, you think everyone’s forgotten you and maybe it’s better if you forget them too and really become an owl for the rest of your life… It’s getting easier to forget all the time… Then you see this really hot guy, the type you used to be really into, but you accidently drop a half-eaten squirrel on his head…

Honestly, have you ever read a book where the main characters meet like that? Anyway, it’s on Kindle Unlimited, so give it a try? Or get the eBook. The print edition isn’t out yet, but will be soon.

Oh, and my husband and I made this cover, and I actually took the photo of the owl. I’ll tell that story in another post.

Thanks!

And happy Halloween!

Another of my self-published books is a collection of three previously published novellas. My writing spectrum runs all the way from erotic to young adult and everything in between. These three stories are definitely on the erotic side, which is why I clumped them together in a book. That, and the fact they are all science fictionish.

“The Glass Man” is the very first m/m book I wrote, and it was actually my first professional sale of any of my writing. Up until then, I’d been writing literary fiction and publishing in college reviews, which was great but only paid in contributor copies. I wrote “The Glass Man” just for fun, and it sat around on my computer for a long time. Then I realized that m/m fiction was actually a thing, and I started looking around at the few places that were publishing it at the time. I ran across someone’s blog, I can’t remember whose it was, and they said they published exclusively with Torquere Press because of its professionalism. So just for the heck of it, I submitted “The Glass Man,” and to my everlasting gratitude, it was accepted. It earned money! It got reviews! I suddenly found myself hanging around on the internet with people who were talking about how to handle bad reviews and stressful comments from editors, not people who were stressing about yet another rejection. I felt like I’d really moved from writer to author, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. I happily flung myself into the publishing world, and I still work with the person who edited “The Glass Man” and held my hand as I took my first baby steps into that world.

“Ice” is a novella I wrote that is set Maine, a state where I’ve spent a lot of time over the years, exploring and camping. I don’t think Acadia National Park will ever be quite the same after this novella. It was also published by Torquere Press.

“Webs” is really out there in more ways than one. When people I know read it, they always look at me afterwards and say, “Holy shit,” and then are a bit speechless. I don’t exactly present as a “Webs” kind of person. So I’ll leave it at that. It was published by Changeling Press.

The lovely cover is by Arus Threepersons.

The Glass Man

Seductive and passionate, Zalen is the perfect sex slave. But his owners don’t know the past that Zalen is hiding, and no one sees the pain that he seeks to drown in the oblivion of sex. Then one night he is bought by a radiantly beautiful young lord with a penchant for roses who asks for the one service Zalen is afraid to provide—love.

By the time Zalen realizes that the touch he craves is the touch of a rose, it is going to take every bit of the lord’s love to set Zalen free again.

Ice

Summer vacation in Acadia and a hot, seductive stranger in a gay bar—perfect. But the offer of a glass of cubes turns Tace’s vacation into a nightmare. Before the evening ends, he’s locked in a chastity device and addicted to the rapture-inspiring vapors that dance out of the substance known as Ice. Against his will, Tace falls into a secret and dangerous world.

Thirty years later and physically unchanged, Tace is on the other side of the glass of Ice, but it’s not as easy finding recruits as he’d thought. But William seems to be the ideal candidate, and Tace’s vision of the perfect man. How can he force Ice onto someone who is holding his heart?

Webs

He wakes nameless, without memory, and in chains. He expects death. Instead, he falls in love—not once, but twice. The passion that binds three men will change not only their lives, but the whole galaxy. That is, if they escape the webs they’re caught in.

The second book in Notice Series, this one is a compilation of seven novellas and short stories about my shape-shifting dragons. It has new dragons and very old dragons, and baby dragons! Everything hinges on Varian and his human husband Josh making their way in a world where they must be forever on the outside and in danger, but find family and love anyway. These stories were almost all published by Torquere Press individually, and I really love having them all in one place and available.

My husband is working his magic to get the cover for the sequel to Another Healing, Depth of Return, ready to go, and it’s looking amazing. So excited to share it soon!

In the meantime, here’s a look at my other published series– Notice. It’s about dragons, and the premise is that they did exist, and that they weren’t all killed off by knights long ago. Some survived by learning to shift into human form, and they have survived hidden among us. The problem is that the descendants of the knights know about this, and they are still trying to kill off every dragon they can find. The honorable thing to do when a knight discovers the identity of a dragon is to give them “notice,” a warning that the secret is out and the game is on.

My main character, Varian Kendall, is the leader of a hidden dragon clan living in Vermont. He is also a high school history teacher. He is also falling in love with his human roommate, Josh, though he’s trying to deny it to himself. Varian has lived all his life trying to find a balance between his worlds, and things are already starting to fall apart before the unthinkable happens–one of his students gives him notice. In class.

Consider this your official notice …

Teaching a high school history class is hard enough, never mind the secrets Varian has to hide to keep his job. It’s not like the school board would look kindly on a fire-breathing gay man. And that’s no euphemism.

Varian is the light-anointed leader of a dragon shifter clan, one of a handful of dragon communities still thriving after centuries of persecution by the secret society of knights. When he’s challenged by formal notice from an unknown knight, he can no longer pretend that he’s got it all under control. There are life-or-death choices to be made—including whether to admit his sternly controlled feelings for the man to whom he’s never told the truth.

A healer on the run…
When James first discovers he can heal, he thinks he has a rare and miraculous gift. But when he learns the price, it feels more like a curse. He falls passionately and completely in love with every person he heals. But only until he heals again, when he becomes hotly infatuated with the next person. He doesn’t dare express feelings he knows are only transitory or hold out hope anyone will love him back under those conditions. He keeps moving, hiding his gift, doing what good he can, always in secret.
One night, he meets Ambient, the victim of a car accident, dying, his neck broken. James heals him despite knowing what is in store. He can’t resist Ambient, and to his amazement, Ambient returns his feelings. Thinking Ambient has broken the curse, James heals the next injured person he comes across. To his joy, and confusion, he does not fall in love anew. If anything, his feelings toward Ambient intensify. Awash with the certainty that somehow, he and Ambient are meant for each other, they set out to learn the truth about James’s strange power.

Parts of this story have been around for a long time.

I originally wrote the beginning of this book as a short story called “The Rosebud,” which was published in 2010 by Torquere Press. It was one of many short stories written by Torquere authors as a benefit to raise money for LGBTQ friendly charities. That year, the beneficiary was Doctors Without Borders, and the theme for the stories, appropriately, was healing. My story was about a young man who could literally heal with his hands, and it got some lovely reviews. Many readers wanted to see more of my characters, and I realized I wanted to learn more about them, too. So I carried on where the short story left off, and the novel Another Healing took shape. It was published in 2014 by Dreamspinner Press, and it was a finalist in the 2015 Rainbow Awards.

It turned out that the characters wouldn’t let go of me even after that, so now Another Healing is the first book in a series by the same name. The second book, Depth of Return, won first place in the gay paranormal romance category of the 2017 Rainbow Awards.

I’m really excited to be self-publishing Another Healing now. Depth of Return will follow shortly, and at some point, I promise, the long awaited third book in the series will appear. Now that I hold the rights to all my novels again, a flood gate has opened in my mind, and I’m seeing visions of healers meeting dragons! And owls… doing whatever owls want to do because they’re owls and they’re cool that way.

And I’m so excited about the cover. I loved the old cover very much, for sure, but I needed a new one for this self-published edition. I thought about working with a cover artist, but I kind of wanted to try doing it myself. I don’t really think of myself as an artist, but I have been a semi-professional photographer for years (I’ve been in a few magazines, including Vermont Life) and sold some prints and cards and that sort of stuff. I known about composition. And most importantly, my husband is very computer-savvy. We bought Photoshop and got to work. Another Healing is our second cover–the first was for a YA novel I published under a different name. I come up with the elements and put them in place, and he tweaks things like the bevel on the text and makes sure it has the right amount of pixels or whatever to make Amazon happy. For this book, I started looking at images of roads, and guys, but I wanted to convey magic and healing, and then I stumbled across images of healing hands, and I realized I’d found what I wanted. I think it really fits the book–there’s even a scene where James conjures light in his palm, and by doing so, makes an important point about himself. The other books in the series will have similar, but different, hands. Getting to work on Depth of Return now….

I now have the rights back for all my books that were previously published by Dreamspinner Press and am in the process of self-publishing them. Another Healing will be coming out very soon, and Depth of Return and Owl will follow shortly. At some point, my novella “Natural Instincts” will be released in a compilation with several others that have gone out of print. I will be very glad to have all this behind me and be able to focus on new writing at last. The books have been slightly revised and polished, and they all have new covers, created by me! I can’t wait to see what people think of them.

So lovely that my young adult novel Owl received an honorable mention in the Rainbow Awards last night. It was published in December of 2019, which seems forever ago now. But it’s a book that is very dear to my heart.

It’s always wonderful to take part in the contest, and I so appreciate all the work that Elisa Rolle and everyone does to make it happen. Congratulations to all the winners!

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all doing as well as possible as the pandemic rages on. Like many others, I’m having trouble focusing on writing and feel a bit overwhelmed at times. One of my knees is giving me trouble, I’ve got allergies like never before, and our sixty year old camp has been demanding attention (septic, yuck).

Since releasing The Glass Man and Other Stories in July, I’ve been taking a little break and just doing some fun reading, and enjoying being with my family. Lots of kayaking and birding. And eating. Oh, and my oldest daughter got married–just a lovely small ceremony with immediate family.

I’m hoping the second half of the summer is calmer and I can get focused again. I need to take a deep breath and look at where I am and what I want to do next. I’ve got several books underway at once, and they might want to tie in together, so I’m kind of feeling that out. Dragons and healers in the same book? Hmmm…

Here’s a link to The Glass Man and Other Stories in case you missed it last month–it contains The Glass Man, Ice, and Webs. They are all previously published novellas and are newly revised. All have an erotic, science fiction feel. https://www.amazon.com/Glass-Man-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B089XPBCMY/ref=tmm_kin_title_sr?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1596480494&sr=8-1

Stay safe everyone, and thanks for reading!