Lessons I Learned from my Hero by Gwendolyn Druyor – Guest Blog and Giveaway


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Gwendolyn Druyor will be awarding $50 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Lessons I learned from my hero

Laylea’s lesson is to Live and Love RIGHT NOW.

I have to be honest, I’m really sad right now. I was angry yesterday. I created my hero, Laylea, because I am surrounded by dogs. . . I was surrounded by dogs. My extended pack included my boys, Lyman (Irish Jack Russel) and Newcastle (Staffordshire/keeshond mix) as well as Mia (a golden deceiver) and Dash (little white Yoda dog with an overbite). Cancer took Newcastle last year. This week we helped Mia’s mom let her go because her many medical issues had gotten too overwhelming for Mia. Then last night, Dash had to move on too because he’s just plain old and sore and couldn’t walk anymore.

So now, we’ve just got Lyman, the inspiration for Laylea.

At the opening of Shifter School, Laylea has just realized that small terriers like her don’t live much past fourteen years old and she has just turned fourteen. She’s preparing to die.

I’m grateful that I got to prepare to lose each of my pack members. I’m grateful that I got to be there for Newcastle and Mia. But what I should learn from Laylea is that you never know. You can’t live life waiting to die or scared that your loved ones are going to die. We are all going to pass on. What’s important is living and loving each other as fully as we possibly can while we are here together.

Laylea wants to leave the world a better place than she found it. She wants to set her crime-fighting Wyrdos Team and her family up for success. She wants to spread joy while she still can.

That’s what I’d like to do, too. If Lyman wants to sit in my lap and rest his chin on the keyboard while I write, I’ll let him. If my puppy-daddy wants me to stop writing and go for a hike, I’m going to. I stopped running after we had to let Newcastle go but I love running. So, this morning, I got up from my all-night nightmare of searching for Lyman, lost in some huge office complex (possibly the HQ from WereHuman – The Warrior’s Son) and I put on my running shoes.

I couldn’t push past a swift walk. But I got outside and I tried. And I think sometimes, that’s all we can do.

What do you love? Is there anything keeping you from doing that? What is it? Is there anything I can do to help you overcome that barrier?

Hug the people you love. Tell the coworker that you admire the heck out of her. Find that teacher who inspired you and tell him. Tweet at Allison Janey and tell her I said she’s the best. Start with nurturing your own joys and then spread that joy to the rest of the world!

We need it.

Some days, we really really need it.

She’s gonna get them all killed.

So they locked her away.

Laylea has been hiding her entire life. She’s never been to school. She’s never had a friend her own age. She’s never known anyone else like her.

All that is about to change.

In a world hidden from wyrdos and humans alike, shifters are still recovering from a vicious plot to destroy them all. They have two laws they live by now:

1) Hide
2) Protect the children at all costs.

Laylea has just broken rule number one. But she’s only fourteen. So they’re sending her to school. Where she’s going to learn . . .

Anyplace can be a prison.

The Lincoln Park Shifter School is not your grandma’s uber-secret, underground academy.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Normal fourteen-year-olds don’t wake up thinking about death. But Laylea wasn’t anything close to normal. She woke up composing a letter to her adopted parents telling them all the things she’d never get the chance to say in person. Sometimes she thought of writing a letter to her brother, Bailey. Some mornings she imagined leaving a letter for her birth mother too, in case they ever found her. Laylea had been composing the morning letters ever since she’d gone to a veterinarian’s office on a case last summer. Waiting in the lobby for the tech she was following, she’d read every pamphlet the clinic had. Including one that said the average lifespan for a twelve-pound terrier was thirteen to fifteen years.

She’d been fourteen for eight weeks now.

About the Author:Gwendolyn Druyor was born at the Quonset Point Naval Air Station Hospital, North Kingston, RI. The ID bracelet wrapped three times around her little wrist. She could swim before she could walk and read before she started school.

She has traveled the world telling stories. After a year in Amsterdam writing and performing sketch comedy at Boom Chicago, she toured North America with Shenandoah Shakespeare and with the incredible educational show Sex Signals. From Paris, FR to William’s Bay, WI, you’ll find her gypsy life reflected in her books. If you met her on the road, read her closely, you may find yourself in there.

For now, Gwendolyn lives in Hollywood with her Irish Jack Russell, Josh Lyman Zyrga, who is still pouting over the fact that she didn’t put him on the cover of WereHuman.

For more information on Gwendolyn and her projects sign up for her newsletter at her website.

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Buy the book at Amazon.

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Comments

  1. Lisa Brown says

    I enjoyed getting to know your book; congrats on the tour, I hope it is a fun one for you, and thanks for the chance to win 🙂

  2. James Robert says

    Congrats on the tour and I appreciate the excerpt and the great giveaway as well. Love the tours, I get to find books and share with my sisters the ones I know they would enjoy reading and they both love to read. Thank you!

  3. Thanks for hosting!

  4. kim hansen says

    Sounds like a good read.

  5. As sad as it was, I enjoyed reading your guest post today. OK, here’s another of my newbie to the genre questions: You said Laylea just learned small terriers don’t live much past 14 yrs. so she was preparing to die because she’s 14. So, how long do shifters really live? The lifespan of their animal alter being or the lifespan of a human?

    • Hi, Karen. Laylea feels like a dog first and human second, so she follows medical recommendations for dogs.
      Like vampires, the rules for shifters change for different fantasy universes. In my Wyrdos Universe, most shifters have human lifespans. (Though Caliban, the linden shifter, is already much older than she appears. I think when she’s a tree, her human aging slows to arboreal speeds.)
      Laylea and her biological family are different from most shifters. We’re going to learn a LOT more about them through the rest of the Shifter School and WereHuman books.

  6. Thanks so much for hosting Shifter School today, L&S! It’s great to be here.

  7. Oh wow. I’m sorry for the loss of your dogs. I know that’s a hard thing.

  8. Rita Wray says

    Sounds like a good book.

  9. Happy Friday, thanks for sharing the great post!

  10. Bernie Wallace says

    Congratulations on the book. Thanks for hosting the giveaway. I hope that I win.

  11. Linda Romer says

    Looking forward to reading Shifter School. Thank you

  12. Very touching post, I wish you well!

  13. Bernie Wallace says

    This looks like a fun read. Can’t wait to read it.

  14. Bernie Wallace says

    What books are you interested in reading in 2018? Thanks for hosting the giveaway.

  15. Wow, this looks like such an interesting read!

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