Leopard Skin Cover 1. The Lilydale Leopards Leopard Tails

I stumbled across this story when looking for another shifter story. It was the name! by the end of the 1st chapter I knew it wasn't but by then i was hooked.  I don't like to watch sports or read about them and I had never heard of Aussie Rules Football, the reader doesn't need to either to enjoy it. I loved this story, more than once!  Even though the  story has a very large cast of characters, Graeme was able to keep them all interesting and not lose any. Well done.  Graeme will keep you intrigued until all the way to the end of this book. 

A gripping story, deftly told, with memorable, well-drawn characters.  We meet the players and staff of a semi-professional Aussie rules football club.  (The Lilydale Leopards are a team in the Victorian Football League, just one step below the Australian Football League.)  The players are ready to play their hearts out, but can they pull together as a team?  What are their chances of making the playoffs?  The players and the coaches are all under pressure to perform, and the administration is struggling to keep the club financially viable.  To further add to the tension, a newly-hired gay employee meets and recognizes one of the players at a local gay club.  They hit it off, but the player is deeply in the closet, fearing for the consequences to his career and his dream of being drafted into the major league.  The outlook for romance seems grim.

The author deftly weaves the story, combining scenes from the players' personal lives, the coaches' concerns, the administrators' efforts behind the scenes, and the game-by-game play that is going to either make or break the Leopards.  Several players yearn to be drafted by the AFL, but do they have what it takes to compete in the major league?

The author deserves high praise for making the details of the AFL's draft rules and of club administration just as fascinating as the lives of the various characters.  The attraction between the two gay protagonists gives the author an opportunity to discuss the precarious situation of elite gay athletes, and the gay player's identity is deftly withheld until just the right moment in the plot.  With all the various details about the lives of the various players, the story could have devolved into a soap opera, but instead we are given a realistic novel that holds our interest until the final paragraph.  This story and its sequels are well worth reading and re-reading.