Tava has lived with her adopted father in Five Springs Village since her birth; he had been a scribe, drawing up contracts for the Alders who run the village. Those contracts were usually ones that involved the Shifterai; shifter men who arrived in warbands looking for work and were often used for eradicating an area of bandits. The Shifterai were people that Tava feared because of the stories told to her by her mother of her own abduction by such people.

Now her father is dead. He was killed by bandits and unknowingly avenged by the Shifterai. Tava, who had been stalking the bandits, returns home only to find that she will soon have no home. The Alders of the village plan to take away everything that was her father's and deny that he ever claimed her as his.

Kodan, Shifterai leader of the warband arrives and in negotiating to remove the bandit threat from the village manages to save Tava's property. His stipulation is that she is part of the deal and must go with the warband to the SHIFTING PLAINS. After witnessing a tiger stalking the bandits and knowing it was her, Kodan believes she belongs with the Shifterai.

With the horrors of her mother's stories does she dare go with them? She finds she must after a few of the younger village men attack the only home she has ever known. She goes with a back plan of escape and slowly learns that these people are far from being the evil men that she had grown up hearing about. In fact once they hear of her mother's plight they plan to search for this clan to make sure they no longer exist.

SHIFTING PLAINS is an amazingly fresh paranormal. The shifter world which Kodan brings Tava has touches of a Native American feel to it, mixing with magic and amazing shifters who are not limited to one form but earn status with many. The characters are fresh and vivid, with Ms. Johnson creating just enough conflict to spice up the oncoming romance without overdoing it. I cannot wait to read more of this storyline.

Book Summary

Centuries before the time of the Sons of Destiny, a female shapeshifter became the leader of the people of the Shifting Plains...

Tava Ell Var never really knew her mother, but she did know her tragic fate at the hands of a band of cruel shapeshifters-a history set down by Tava's father as a warning about life on the Shifting Plains. But after her father is murdered, Tava encounters a Shifterai warband fighting to rid the Plains of the terrorizing bandits

Shifterai leader Kodan Sin Siin is sympathetic to Tava's suffering, but he's determined to bring the wary young woman to the Plains. Because he knows her secret: She, like he and his men, is a shapeshifter. Once she joins them, he knows that she will see for herself the true fate that awaits her on the Plains, and most of all, lose her fear of his people. And, in time, he knows she will find her place is in their fight-and by his side.