Drawn to you vs The Stars of the Pack (11 differences)

Even though I did publish A Quiet Fire last October, I kind of feel like it's been a long while. I have spent the past year and change writing so many stories that it’s turned into a big publication dessert. Sorry! It’s the muses, not me. Or possibly also me, changing, evolving, discovering new facets.

But there is one story that will be familiar to you and that’s Raymond Halley’s. I still remember writing the first story in 2015 during a time when I was unemployed and decided to give my passion space and time for the first time in years.

It was just supposed to be porn <.< Silly me, right? But in any case, there was a lot of porn in Omega for the Pack, and not a lot of healing. That came in later books, especially in Beloved of the Pack and Betas Aside, but I guess a part of me wondered, what if Ray had got proper support on time? What if he got to understand what he wanted before he was told that as an omega he should want something else?

Spoilers for the whole of The Stars of the Pack below, plus some minor details about Drawn to You.

And thus, Drawn to you was born, because drawing was always Ray’s safe space where he could retreat from the madness of his birth family and his newly formed pack both, it also became a central feature of him exploring his budding sexuality. I’ll tell you more later, but for now, here’s 11 things that are different than in The Stars of the Pack series.

1.      Ray is born in 1996 as opposed to 1990 in this timeline (number of reasons, do ask if you care)

2.      Ray spends a lot of time pouring his sexual longings onto paper… (The art is coming along gorgeously ;)

3.      Which is how Josh finds out Ray likes guys when they are seventeen! Obviously that changes the stakes and timelines quite a bit, but even without all the drama/trauma of Ray presenting omega and them getting mated, their friendship is intense enough that it isn’t simply a matter of knowing.

4.      Ray’s mum Martha gets a chance to be brave. In the original story, Ray feels completely abandoned when his mum lets his uncle choose Ray’s alphas and make him form a pack. She is not in a good place, no one is in their family, still heartbroken, still barely clinging to functionality. We are never shown how they cope with Ray’s absence, which in Drawn to You we come to see would have been a huge blow for them (Let alone Marisa leaving as well a year and a half later), but I was happy to get to show that Martha does love Ray and that she is no wimp. She kept her family together after losing her mate, with her youngest child highly traumatised and the others not doing so hot either. And when Ray needs her and he allows her to see it, she’s his fiercest cheerleader.

5.      Iesu isn’t just Ray’s football rival, he actually makes a move. Given how ballsy he was asking Sergi out in Simpler Than Most, it felt very true to our favourite Gemini. He is also half a year younger than Ray in this instead of half a year older (Ray being a November baby).

6.      Ray has friends other than Josh, and Josh has friends other than Ray (don’t worry, they are still insanely codependent).

7.      Alec and Gabriel still have their backstory, with Alec presenting at twenty-four and cutting Gabriel off, and Gabriel still using the excuse of Ray’s new pack to reach out again (Alec’s doctor skills are still needed). But without the ‘mate my cousin trick’, Gabriel’s motives are a little more obvious to Alec.

8.      Sergi never kicks a ball to Ray’s head because they haven’t crossed paths before (he still shows up, though!).

9.      The Romanian wolves immigrated later in this timeline. Five years before the main events of the story when Iesu was eleven and Irina, 28, only joined them two years ago, which is why her English is still fairly weak as the story begins.

10.   Ray has family beyond his mother and siblings, particularly a kickarse grandma because intergenerational wisdom is a thing.

11.   The Gosden Pack has a wise shaman to advice conflicted youngsters (yay psychological support and intergenerational wisdom!). Not so 'yay' me doing my best with a character with 'they/them' pronouns.

Drawn to Me (prologue)

Drawn to me (chapters & art)