Risking Honesty
The Ethra Born series started with Gathering Darkness and continued with Strengthening Spirit, followed by Risking Honesty and Drowning Deceit.
Risking Honesty is available in paperback and ebook from Amazon.
Harrison is a messenger, a spy, his life a tangled web of lies. Seeking the truth he so desperately desires risks revealing secrets long buried.
A spy and a healer,
One innocent and honest,
The other a scoundrel,
Denying his heritage.
Together, they must unravel
Tangled lies and deep secrets.
They must decide
If it is worth Risking Honesty...
A decade has passed since the events of Strengthening Spirit. Hope lives with Lowenna and Theo at Westfalls where they grow medicinal herbs for the healer priestesses. There, Hope meets Harrison.
Harrison is a man with many secrets. Even Harrison is not his birth name. He's not even really a man, as he can shift into the form of a hawk. He's accused of being a traitor, which he's not. Although he also wasn't the King's Watch officer that he was pretending to be.
Hope heals him, knowing that he is a shifter, a criminal, and then she too, is branded a traitor.
Together, they must uncover the true treachery which has infiltrated the King's Watch and spread out to the Pinnate Isles. The very Isles from which Harrison was exiled. But if he is to save Hope, his parents and his homeland, he will have to seek the truth in the most unlikely places. He must risk honesty to find the answers he needs.
Hope must decide if she will stand by his side or wonder if she ever really knew him at all.
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Hope settled the hawk into a corner of the pantry. He stood on the perch, supported by rolled towels and blankets where it was quiet and warm in the dim corner. She and Lowenna had bound the bird’s damaged wing, simply wrapping a bandage around both wings and his body to keep it immobile. They had decided not to use the numbweed or bone knit in the end. He was so chilled and weak that they had not wanted to stress him further. They could splint and poultice the wing when he was stronger. She had, though, wrapped him in a dry towel and drip fed him willow bark tea with a little added honey and salt. She had wrapped another towel around her shoulders and the heat from the stove had partially dried her trousers and shirt. Strands of her damp hair curled around her face.
Hope finished arranging a supporting blanket and sat back on her heels, critically watching the hawk’s shallow breathing. He started shifting restlessly and bent his head down to peck at the bandage restraining his wings, his eyes remaining closed. Hope reached out a hand and touched her fingers to the soft feathers at his shoulder, aiming to calm him.
His eyes flashed open, revealing the most stunning copper irises. Hope was mesmerised. The pure black pupil was dilated and the ring of copper around it seemed to swirl with glittering shards. She willed tranquil, peaceful energy out through her fingertips.
The hawk struck without warning, biting her forefinger. Hope suppressed a cry and snatched back her hand. There was a ragged cut across her finger and she applied pressure to stop it bleeding. She glared at the hawk. He glared back at her and there was something human in the way that he looked at her – certainly un-hawk-like. Usually, Hope’s unique gift could calm even the angriest person or most agitated animal but the hawk was not calmed.
