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Brave New Game
S.K. Michalowski’s Brave New Game follows Charlie Gold, a thirteen-year-old whose height attracts attention he’d happily avoid. He’s gifted at math, devoted to basketball, and trying to find his footing after losing his parents. His late father’s reputation as a local basketball legend adds another layer of pressure: people see the family name before they see the kid. Living with his older sister, Cecilia, in a drafty farmhouse near Lake Erie, Charlie worries about everything from fitting into a classroom desk to keeping the electricity on. It’s an engaging setup for coming-of-age sports fiction, giving the novel a clear sense of what’s at stake each time Charlie steps onto a court or makes a decision away from one.
The basketball scenes have a satisfying physical immediacy. Shoes squeak, players scramble for rebounds, and a few seconds on the clock can stretch into a whole page of tension. Michalowski also gives this basketball novel a distinctive angle through Charlie’s fascination with statistics. He looks at players, lineups, and possibilities through numbers, and that way of thinking shapes both his confidence and his blind spots. College recruiting, player transfers, and the money surrounding athletics become part of the story’s everyday conversation. Those details give the fictional St. Hildegarde’s program a working life beyond game night. The town’s attachment to its Hedgehogs feels especially convincing, with basketball supplying a shared language for people whose lives and bank balances look very different.
The relationships are what kept me invested. Cecilia is funny, protective, exhausted, and ambitious, often within the same conversation. Her Shakespeare habit gives their sibling banter a recognizable rhythm, while the practical demands of raising her brother make her feel like someone with a life of her own. Charlie’s friendship with Jalen has the comfortable teasing and occasional friction of two kids who’ve known each other for years. Zoey brings sharp humor and an independence that challenges Charlie’s assumptions. Around them, adults and athletes have their own loyalties, pressures, and imperfect judgment. Charlie’s anxiety comes through in physical habits and private thoughts, making his fear of disappointing people easy to understand. His intelligence sits alongside a very believable hunger for approval, belonging, and financial security.
Michalowski’s short chapters and direct prose keep this contemporary teen fiction moving, even as it takes on grief, bullying, public scrutiny, and questions of personal responsibility. There’s plenty of goofy humor, especially in the food-centered conversations and awkward exchanges between friends, and it gives the heavier scenes room to breathe. Some explanatory dialogue and encouraging speeches spell out ideas that the surrounding scenes already communicate, so a lighter touch there would’ve made the emotional moments sharper. Still, the book’s affection for its characters gives those conversations warmth. Readers drawn to young adult sports fiction will find detailed basketball action alongside a thoughtful look at how a young person handles expectations. Brave New Game is strongest when it lets us feel the daily effort of being Charlie: talented, worried, sometimes impulsive, and eager to matter to the people he loves.
Pages: 285 | ASIN : B0HFT8XCC7
That Love Has Turned Into A Career
Brave New Game follows a thirteen-year-old basketball-loving math genius who, after a disastrous moment on the court, finds his basketball dreams ending until a college coach rebuilding their team recruits him for his statistical talents. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Two things inspired me. First, I’ve been a teacher and school librarian for 16 years and I’ve seen a shift in middle-grade books away from stories that are grounded in traditional team sports like football, basketball, baseball, and soccer. It’s wonderful to see other sports represented now – like track and tennis – but, I know from experience how many young boys in my classroom caught the reading bug from books about the team sports that they were playing. Some of the great sports novelists aren’t writing as much anymore, and I want to fill that gap.
Second, I have a nephew and a son who are involved professionally in college sports. They inspired me with all the personal, complex stories of their players. I wanted my students to hear those too.
What were some driving ideals behind Charlie’s development, and what interested you about exploring a character who can analyze complex situations mathematically but struggles to understand his own emotions and relationships?
My students who love sports but aren’t playing on elite teams – they inspired this story. And my son, too. He’s had a mind for numbers and stats since he was five. Now that love has turned into a career.
What does Charlie’s journey suggest about accountability, second chances, and learning to trust your own judgment?
Teens make mistakes. They choose poorly, they mess up relationships, and they feel immense pressure in today’s world. That is part of growing up and finding your inner well of resilience, forgiveness, and strength. Charlie’s had it harder than most, so we feel for him. And he is a sympathetic, lovable character, for sure. But, just like other kids, he is capable of making terrible decisions, lying, and cheating. His journey is an age-old, very human tale, about consequences, hard truths, and the ripples our choices have on other’s lives.
Will this novel be the start of a series, or are you working on a different story?
I’m currently working on something very different, but yes, I have a story brewing for the deeply unlikeable villain in Charlie’s story. Can’t wait to tell that tale.
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Thirteen-year-old Charlie Gold is the orphaned son of a basketball legend, a 6’2” would-be hooper, and a math prodigy who sees the game in numbers. But after an on-court disaster goes viral, Charlie’s own basketball dreams collapse overnight.
Forced to the sidelines, he turns to his secret strength: statistical analysis. When his gift for numbers catches the attention of a local college coach, Charlie sees a long-shot chance at redemption—helping rebuild a broken team into March Madness contenders.
But even math geniuses can miscalculate. When Charlie’s mistakes threaten the team he loves and the legacy his family has left, he must decide whether to stay in the shadow of his late father’s name or step into the spotlight and find the courage to play his own game.
HARDCOVER FLAP TEXT:
As a six-foot-two seventh-grader, Charlie Gold is a giant among dwarves, a tree that towers over lunch ladies and bathroom stalls. As the son of a late March Madness legend, he is all too aware that with great height comes great expectations—especially on the basketball court. Problem is, Charlie’s more mathlete than athlete. He’d much rather be solving calculus equations than practicing crossovers.
After he gets into an ugly on-court scrap, a video of the fight goes viral. Overnight, his hoop dreams go up in smoke and he becomes a national meme known as the Bully Baller.
Desperate for redemption, Charlie turns to his real superpower: numbers.
When a local college coach spots his genius, he gives Charlie a secret assignment: use his calculus knowledge to tutor the team’s star player and his stats skills to scout hidden gems who can help next year’s team make a March Madness run. But success puts Charlie back in the spotlight. This time, if his mistakes go public, he won’t just ruin his family’s name—he’ll take an entire team down with him.
I Felt A Calling And Responsibility
Ay Ya Yai! Miss Lou celebrates Louise Bennett Coverley’s transformation of Jamaican Patois into a source of literary authority, cultural memory, and belonging through biography, poetry, and personal recollections. What inspired you to write this book?
As a Jamaican-born Canadian who grew up experiencing the one-of-a-kind joy of Miss Lou on Ring Ding, a children’s show that exposed us to Jamaica’s culture, I was inspired to introduce Louise Bennett-Coverley—lovingly known as Miss Lou—to people around the world, especially younger generations, both Jamaican and non-Jamaicans. Miss Lou charged us to teach “di pickney di sinting dat belong to dem.” (teach the children the things that belong to them.) I felt a calling and responsibility to preserve her legacy through writing the book and through performing.
Miss Lou was a poet, performer, folklorist, educator, and cultural trailblazer. As Jamaica moved toward and gained political independence, she helped show us that true emancipation also meant embracing our language, culture, and identity. Through her wit and wisdom, she transformed Patois—what she called “Nation Language”—into a source of literary authority and cultural pride. In her poems, books, newspaper columns, and theatre, radio, and television performances, humour often carried a deeper message: stand tall, be ‘tallawah”—strong and resilient—and face adversity with courage. She gave voice to ordinary people’s joys and struggles, affirming that we are “smaddy pickney”—somebody’s children—and that our language and culture are uniquely ours.
I wanted to celebrate Miss Lou as a national treasure, our unofficial National Hero, and make the case for recognizing her contributions to Jamaica’s national and social development. Writing this book also felt like a way to preserve and promote the living culture she championed before, during, and after Independence. Miss Lou is our Queen Mother of Jamaican Culture and Poet Revolutionist. Her legacy reminds us that our culture cannot be erased or colonized.
I wanted readers to experience Miss Lou in a multisensory way—to hear her voice, feel her spirit, and see the impact of her work. The book brings together my essays, her poetry, songs, stories, proverbs, riddles, and games, alongside tributes from people who knew her. Miss Lou’s legacy lives not only in the archive, but in the memories and everyday practices of Jamaicans who continue to carry forward her dignity, tenacity, and love of culture.
Though Jamaica is a small country – “likkle speck”, our pride in ourselves, our language, and our culture is known around the world. Miss Lou helped nurture that pride one book, one performance, and one Patois declaration at a time. I wrote this book, Ay Ya Yai! Miss Lou: Voice of the Jamaican People, so the world could know this “shero”—the voice of the Jamaican people—and understand how she fought with the pen and not a sword, and elevated our people, language and culture for all to see. And as Miss Lou would end all her Patois poems: Ay Ya Yai!
2. How did your work as a Miss Lou tribute performer influence your interpretation of the social criticism embedded in her humor?
My interpretation of Miss Lou’s social criticism was not formed in the library alone. It was formed on stage, in costume, in voice, and in the response of the audience. It’s a synergy between performer and audience who knew the narrative and understood it.
When you perform Louise Bennett-Coverley, you cannot simply recite her. You must become her instrument. For over 30 years, I have worked as a Miss Lou tribute performer, as a folklorist, storyteller and cultural keeper. Through that work, the humour stopped being just funny to me – it became a tool, a weapon, a shield, exactly as Miss Lou intended it to be.
On the page, a poem like Nuh Likkle Twang, Colonization in Reverse or Jamaica Oman read as witty social commentary. On stage, when you deliver it as Miss Lou, you feel the bite behind the laugh. You feel when the audience laughs because they are uncomfortable, when they laugh because they recognize themselves, and when they laugh because truth has been told that could not be told straight.
I am not writing as an outside observer. Through my lived experiences on Ring Ding – growing up with Miss Lou in our living rooms, hearing that voice as a voice of authority, morality and nurture – and through performing as a folklorist internationally, carrying our culture to Canada and beyond, I was able to channel the voice of Miss Lou in a way that is embodied, not academic. Having said this, note, no one can be the quintessential Miss Lou, I am just blessed to be able to channel her along with my own unique artistry to tell the story.
My performances influenced greatly the interpretation of the social criticism because I lived it to some extent, observed it, and understood it.
I lived the classism she mocked – the way people would straighten their speech to sound more English, more acceptable. I lived the colourism, the shadism, the colonial hangover where what is Jamaican was seen as lesser. I observed it in the audiences abroad – the Jamaican grandmother who weeps because she hears home, and the second-generation child who is hearing Patois legitimized for the first time. I understood that when Miss Lou made us laugh at the boasy, pretentious lady or the man who denies his own language, she was not being cruel. She was doing social correction. She was decolonizing us with a joke.
When you stand in her shoes, you realize her humour was never just humour. It was Anansi tactic. Anansi uses wit when he has no power. Miss Lou used humour when Black, working-class, Patois-speaking Jamaicans had no platform. The laugh was the entry point, but the lesson was the payload.
This is why people would come up to me after performances and say, “Yuh favah and perform like Miss Lou. Unu related?” It was never about physical resemblance alone. It was because I was not impersonating her. I was channeling her spirit, her mission, her understanding that to preserve our folklore is a political act.
So, my work as a tribute artist taught me to read her work from the inside out. I no longer ask, “What is she criticizing?” I ask, “Who needed to hear this criticism and could only receive it through laughter?” And that question, I learned, not from a textbook, but from the stage.
3. What did the archives in Jamaica and Canada reveal about Miss Lou that personal recollections alone could not convey?
The archives in Jamaica and Canada revealed the scale and consistency of Miss Lou’s work in a way that personal recollections alone could not. They documented more than 70 years of her consciously championing Jamaican people and helping them recognize the beauty in themselves.
Across her career as an ethnographer and performer, she researched and unearthed folklore through conversations with working-class people, including those in the countryside. Her work also affirmed the deep roots of Jamaican culture in African ancestry.
The records showed Miss Lou not only as a gifted artist, but as a teacher and nurturing presence who shared what you might call “the milk of culture.” They revealed her authenticity, her down-to-earth spirit, and the wit and wisdom she drew from the ancestors. They also traced how the adversity she faced strengthened her determination to become a voice for Jamaican people in their own language.
Miss Lou championed Jamaican, or Patois, as a language of identity, freedom, and creative expression. It emerged through the meeting of African languages with English and other influences under colonial rule, when enslavers and colonial authorities tried to suppress African languages, fearing they could help people organize and rebel. The archives help us see how Miss Lou reclaimed and elevated Jamaican as a language that expresses our personhood and identity as a people. Personal memories can convey the affection and inspiration she left behind; the archives reveal the breadth, depth, and enduring purpose of her life’s work.
4. What guided your translations of Miss Lou’s Patois poetry, especially when preserving its verbal precision, comic timing, and cultural meanings?
My translations were guided first by my own understanding and use of Patois, which I grew up speaking in Jamaica. I also consulted archival and scholarly resources to check the wording, context, and meanings of Miss Lou’s work. These included her earlier works held at the National Library of Jamaica and her later works archived at McMaster University Library, as well as books by Jamaican authors, professors, and linguists.
A particularly valuable reference was F. G. Cassidy and R. B. Le Page’s *Dictionary of Jamaican English*. Together, these sources helped me stay attentive to the precision of Miss Lou’s language, while also considering the cultural context, humour, and performance qualities that give her poetry its distinctive voice. My aim was to make the meaning accessible in English without losing the spirit of the original Patois.
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Miss Lou is an icon – a cultural visionary who celebrated Jamaica’s vibrant language and traditions. Through her work as an author and entertainer, she elevated the once-marginalized Patois into a language now studied in universities around the world. Dedicated to preserving Louise Bennett Coverley’s legacy, this book has been recognized internationally for its cultural and literary significance:
2025 NYC Big Book Award – Distinguished Favorite (Cultural Heritage)
International Impact Book Award – Winner (Historical)
Preserved in McMaster University’s Mills Memorial Library Collection
CANREADS Review Selection
Ay Ya Yai! Miss Lou: Voice of the Jamaican People is a joyful homage to Louise Bennett Coverley, the woman who gave Jamaica its voice.
I Aim For Entertainment
Love in a Hurry follows a woman desperate to find love and start a family and a Catholic priest questioning his vocation and wanting an heir, who meet in a support group and form an unconventional romance. What inspired the unusual premise behind Love in a Hurry?
As a young adult, an attractive priest visiting the parish came to Sunday lunch at the family home. He revealed he’d been pressured into the priesthood by his family; it was expected in Ireland. This meant he was destined never to have children, yet he’d have to baptise all the parish babies. I felt so sad for him and wanted to write a story where a pressured Irish Catholic priest escapes the Church to find his own path. The fate of priest I’d met? No idea. But I do think about him and wonder if he was ever happy following not his calling, but his family’s.
Miranda is a character from the second book of my series, Love in the Cupboard, my first sweet Catholic priest romance. With Miranda as the heroine in Love in a Hurry I felt that a Catholic priest would be the best fit for a virgin mother’s love interest— and the funniest.
How did Miranda’s childhood in care shape the adult woman we meet at the beginning of the novel, and why was it important for her desire for another child to be connected to a larger longing for love, security, and family?
Being passed from one care placement to the next, one foster family to the next, Miranda’s life has been filled with insecurity. It isn’t much better now, because her home is tied to her job as a live-in carer. Although her son’s daddies are supportive, she wants someone for herself to have her second child with because she has never been loved and has never been part of a family. She does not want her son to grow up as a lonely, only child who becomes a lonely adult.
She longs for motherly love from the crotchety woman she cares for, and dearly wishes to be invited to stay as a substitute daughter instead of constantly being at risk of losing her home at the whim of her employer. Although one of the daddies might provide her with a second child, she does not want to be a single mother to two children. She wants a husband, the love of a committed man who will be there for her and her hoped-for children in a way that no one else ever has.
What interested you about writing a priest who is questioning whether his vocation reflects his own desires or his family’s expectations, and what does Kieran have to discover about himself before he can genuinely build a new life with someone else?
Even popes in the Catholic Church used to be allowed to marry, although rules varied around intimacy until 1139 AD, when the Catholic Church prohibited any marriage for future priests, even celibate ones—who often still managed to procreate. The Church was concerned about losing wealth to inheritance. However, today, if a married Protestant priest wishes to convert to Catholicism and become a Catholic priest, he is allowed. So there are some married converted Catholic priests with children. I think a life of celibacy and loneliness, without the companionship and love of a partner, is harsh and unfair—and too many men, and too many women, have been pressured into the priesthood, and into becoming nuns, by their families’ expectations.
Kieran has long felt lonely and sad, and the emptiness in his heart is amplified when he finds out that his brother had stood up to their mother in a way that had given her no choice other than to accept the situation. Kieran reevaluates his life. He now knows that, if he has any chance of true happiness, as his brother has secretly been enjoying for years, he must break free of continuing along the path his mother had chosen for him. He discovers that he has the strength to defy the Bishop, and his mother’s memory, by leaving the Church and starting afresh somewhere else—he just has to find a wife.
What do you enjoy about using awkwardness, misunderstandings, and physical comedy within a romance?
I aim for entertainment as well as plenty of heart, and I love characters who don’t fit into the expected norm, giving rise to behaviours and situations that can be quite a surprise and are typical of farce—a big part of British humour, past and present.
I love the unexpected when I watch or read a comedy, even better if it is a romantic comedy. The journey that takes us to the end of a framework heading towards a happy ever after can be enormous fun. Awkwardness, misunderstandings and physical comedy can add to that fun.
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Will they need a miracle to make it work?
Father Kieran Quinn is in crisis. His brother does not want children, so there won’t be anyone to inherit the long-standing family business—unless Kieran defies the Church by seeking marital bliss. Then he meets Miranda with a child in her arms, looking like a Madonna. But isn’t she taken?
Miranda Morton’s time is running out. She yearns to have a baby conceived naturally by a man who loves her, yet she’s never even been kissed! When she meets Kieran, he talks of returning to Ireland, but her life is bound in Bristol, where she’s a live-in help for arthritic Judith, her snappish, flame-breathing dragon of an employer.
Judith Gold generally can’t stand Catholics, especially priests. She must make her best-personal-assistant-ever see sense over this Kieran nonsense, before Miranda’s life echoes her own tragic past. But how?
The clock is ticking. Can Kieran and Miranda find happiness together before it’s too late?
Tropes:Catholic priest romance
Forbidden love
Cinnamon roll
Virgin
Single parent
Found family
Grumpy/Sunshine
Love in a Hurry: Rom-com-women’s fiction fusion, set in Bristol, UK. A story within a story, one tragic, the other guaranteeing a happy ever after.
Heat level: mild – sometimes described as ‘fade to black’ – and comedic.
Language: mild.
LOVE IN A HURRY is a TRAGI-COMEDY, the FOURTH standalone book in the LOVE & MISHAPS QUIRKY ROMANTIC COMEDY series. Witty dialogue, laugh-out-loud and heartbreaking moments, farcical situations and a multi-story interwoven plot. MARI JANE LAW’S brilliant, emotional, romantic comedy will tug on your heartstrings! Buy your copy today.
If you like sweet Catholic priest romances, read the double award-winning Love in the Cupboard first as Love in a Hurry is a standalone sequel.
Love & Pollination, Book 1 in the Love & Mishaps series, was shortlisted for Choc Lit’s 2019 Search for a Star competition.
‘…a delightful romantic comedy that seamlessly blends humor and heart.’ Reader review
Love in the Cupboard, Book 2 in the Love & Mishaps series, won a silver medal in the Readers’ Favourite International Book Awards 2023: Fiction – Humor/Comedy and a bronze medal in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2023: Fiction (adult).
‘Great fun. Laughter, as they say, is the best medicine. Just what the doctor ordered!.’ Reader review
Is This All A Simulation?
The Tatagonian Code follows a wisecracking ghostwriter whose bond with a memory-altering entity draws him into a mission across universes, forcing him to confront who controls his past and whom he can trust with the future. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
There’s been much discussion in recent years about the possibility that we are living within a computer simulation. The question that came to mind was: If true, who runs the simulation and why? Then I asked what would happen if the masters had conflicting goals. So, I created Tatagonians and divided them into two opposing factions: gold-plated Cybortics and swirling Energetics. So, as with all global (and interstellar) politics, humanity needed one of them to flip and take its side. I’m a big fan of John Scalzi, who tends to have sarcastic protagonists. So Daniel’s persona was developed along that vein.
How did Emma’s unequal memories of her relationship with Daniel shape your exploration of consent, responsibility, and the possibility of renewed intimacy?
At first, by remembering only bits and pieces of their previous relationships, Daniel felt betrayed by Emma—that she had used him to advance her project’s goals. But after he realized she actually HAD fallen in love with him twice, he knew there was something special between them. Rather than attempt to jump back into romance immediately, he allowed Emma to slowly regain her memories of their shared past. His love for her was the deciding factor in his participation in the war against the Cybortics.
What shifts in Daniel and Gofer’s relationship were essential to making an intrusive, memory-altering voice become someone Daniel could trust?
At first, Daniel viewed Gofer as a violation of his private life. Having an alien share your body would be discomforting, especially when you discover the reason is to experience existence as a human rather than a form of energy. Gofer also represented danger—an entity that Daniel couldn’t understand. Their relationship pivoted when Daniel realized he could use it to his benefit. For example, he could reverse Sierra’s implication in the killing of a thug who wanted to kidnap him and the alien. Still, he feared that such power could corrupt whoever possessed it. But after he realized the need for such power to save humanity, they became close friends even after Gofer separated from Daniel’s body.
How does Sierra’s friendship with Daniel, built through shared danger and insults, complicate his understanding of protection, vulnerability, and loyalty?
When Daniel first meets Sierra as his personal trainer at the gym, he views her as a potential romantic partner. She vanquishes that notion when she saves from being kidnapped and displays her militaristic, kill-when-necessary attitude. Knowing that Daniel lacks the toughness to be part of the mission to save humanity, she takes verbal shots at him to toughen up his mental game. Daniel doesn’t understand her killer instincts, but he begins to appreciate it when he realizes she brings to the table—unrelenting commitment to destroying the Cybortics.
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Daniel Cadence thought he had enough problems—his fiancée left him, he’s been assigned to write the memoir of a brain-addled backup guitarist, and he hates the physical trainer at the gym. But that was before he discovered the horrifying truth: humanity is living in a massive cosmic simulation controlled by an inscrutable race of astral beings called the Tatagonians.
Even worse, their species has fractured in two. While the Energetics use human hosts to experience the sensory world of Earth, the ruthless Cybortics purge and reboot civilization every 200,000 years.
Now, the clock on the latest wipeout is running out.
Teaming up with rogue scientists from Pullman Laboratories and bound to “Gofer”—a bizarre, sentient Energetic capable of bending reality across multiverses—Daniel is handed an impossible mission: infiltrate and destroy the Cybortic stronghold in another universe before humanity disappears one more time.
Armed with subpar tech, endless snark, and an alien entity he barely understands, Daniel must pull off the ultimate cosmic hack. If he fails, the next version of humanity will have to reinvent the wheel all over again.
Packed with sharp wit, mind-bending concepts, and Philip K. Dick–style speculative flair, The Tatagonian Code is a high-stakes sci-fi adventure about freedom, unintended consequences, and fighting back against interstellar creators. Scroll up and grab your copy today!
A Whole New Meaning
The Race for the Lost Coin follows a history teacher racing to rescue his kidnapped grandfather and protect an ancient teleportation coin from an industrialist intent on harnessing its power for his Nazi ambitions. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I’m a bit of a fan of the Indiana Jones movies, a bit of a Trekkie, and an avid reader of sci-fi books and stories involving time travel. I wanted to write a story that combined my first love, ancient history and mythology, with contemporary fiction, particularly thrillers and action-adventure, incorporating the concept of teleportation.
It’s a unique mix, and I wanted to inject a bit of fun into the writing process. My first book, The Guardian’s Legacy, places the main character, Nikolaos, in the role of a reluctant hero and guardian of the coin. The Race for the Lost Coin introduces elements of the high-stakes chases we see in the Indiana Jones movies, the hunt for artefacts, and a recognisable foe: the Nazis.
Hitler and Himmler sought esoteric artefacts and spent thousands, if not millions, of dollars searching for sources of power and knowledge that they believed could help them win the war. It’s this combination of modern and ancient history that I wanted to explore and weave into my stories. At the same time, I hope to encourage readers to discover more about our ancient past.
How does Nik’s work as a history teacher shape his response to inherited guardianship, especially when protecting his grandfather disrupts his ordinary responsibilities?
It is Nik’s love of ancient history that not only piques his interest in becoming a guardian, but also helps him understand the importance of protecting the legacy of our ancient past for future generations. In many ways, this is what education is all about. Well, that’s why I studied teaching!
Nik’s role as a high school teacher places him in a position of responsibility, where he helps nurture the growth and intellectual development of young people. When he learns that his grandfather has been kidnapped, Nik must make a choice. Finding his grandfather becomes his priority, and his role as guardian takes on a whole new meaning.
This experience helps him understand what his grandfather had tried to explain during his training as protector of the coin: that some individuals use history to further their own agendas and gain power over those who are less able to defend themselves.
What guided your decisions about the coin’s painful landings, exhaustion, and unpredictable reactions, and how do those limits shape Nik’s choices?
I wanted to create an object of power that, while offering extraordinary means of transportation, also carried disadvantages for those who sought to control it. I decided that the impact of using the coin would physically manifest the consequences of a person’s decisions, with the effects potentially being either positive or negative. In this case, the coin’s power has a detrimental effect on the user.
Through his research into previous guardians and their use of the coin, Nik comes to realise the potential adverse effects of its continual use. He doesn’t make the decision to use the coin lightly, justifying his actions initially as a means of escape and, more recently, as a way to access resources he knows are available at his grandfather’s home. He understands that prolonged use could alter his biology, yet it’s a risk he is currently willing to take.
How did you develop Nik and Detective Sauveterre’s attraction through their repeated confrontations while preserving the distrust and conflicting obligations between them?
I wanted Nik to maintain his independence while building friendships with unlikely allies who could help him operate outside the boundaries of the law. The inclusion of Detective Sauveterre was initially intended to make the detective a foil for Nik, but as the story progressed, their relationship began to change.
Nik wants to trust the detective, and during their first meeting, he realises that doing so was a mistake. However, their subsequent interactions establish a tentative rapport, which gradually develops into an attraction that becomes more evident each time they meet.
Although they often butt heads, their mutual admiration and attraction continue to grow. Nik is desperate to find his grandfather and recover the second coin, using whatever means are available to him, while the detective is determined to follow the leads and work within the boundaries of the law. Their conflicting approaches create tension between them, even as their feelings for each other grows.
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One toss of the coin is all it takes.
Nik races to Paris to find an ancient coin with mythological forces before a clandestine organisation can use its destructive power to wipe out civilisations. However, the trip does not go as expected. Nik’s grandfather has been kidnapped, and he is on the run, evading the French police, Interpol agents and a powerful, wealthy Slovakian magnate.
Nik teams up with a French taxi driver, a hacker and a librarian to avoid capture. Clues take him to Geneva and Rome, where he learns there is more to the coin than what his grandfather told him. After a close encounter with the police, Nik forms an alliance with the most unlikely partner—Detective Sauveterre. But is that the right decision?
Fans of Steve Berry, James Rollins, and Dan Brown will love this latest action-packed and suspense story from Award-Winning author Luciana Cavallaro.
Their Shared Determination
Patrol Officer Hudson follows a concerned woman searching for her missing brother, and her only clue leads her to an infuriating patrol officer who, while trying to keep her safe, is also keeping secrets from her. What inspired the setup of your story?
I do ride-alongs with my Sheriff’s office and assist in their new officer role-playing scenarios. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to volunteer with our sheriff’s office during the National Police Bloodhound Association (NPBA) Certification Program. Hiding from those bloodhounds, combined with my experience as a retired high school teacher, inspired me to put a troubled teen at the center of the story.
How does the search for Pike force Hudson and Verie to build trust faster than they otherwise might, and what did you want their disagreements about honesty, protection, and independence to reveal about each character?
Hudson cares about Pike and Verie’s family. Although Verie had never met Hudson, she knew from her mother that he was someone she could trust, and Pike’s note telling her to find Hudson reinforced that trust. At the same time, I wanted Verie to remain suspicious of him because he was still a stranger to her. She had been cheated on in a previous relationship, so trusting a man didn’t come easily.
Hudson is all about protecting and serving his community, and that includes Verie, even when she doesn’t necessarily want his protection. Their disagreements allowed me to show Hudson’s protective nature while also showing Verie’s independence and determination. Hudson believes withholding information is sometimes necessary to keep people safe, while Verie believes she deserves to know the truth, especially when it involves her brother. Searching for Pike forces them to work through those differences and learn to trust each other much faster than they normally would.
What role does family loyalty play in both the romance and the suspense storyline?
Family is extremely important to both Hudson and Verie. Verie’s loyalty to Pike is what drives the suspense. She refuses to give up on her brother, even when searching for him puts her in danger. Hudson already cares about Pike and wants to protect him, but he is first and foremost an officer of the law. He can’t ignore what Pike has gotten himself involved in simply because he cares about him and his family.
That same loyalty also brings Hudson and Verie closer together. As Hudson becomes more invested in keeping Pike safe, he also becomes protective of Verie and the rest of her family. Verie begins to see that his involvement isn’t just about doing his job—he genuinely cares about what happens to them. Their shared determination to bring Pike home safely helps build the trust between them and ultimately strengthens their relationship.
What is the next book in the Haven Island PD: Protecting Paradise series that you are working on, and when will it be available?
The next book in the Haven Island PD: Protecting Paradise series is Diver Sawyer. I’m also writing my clean romantic comedies under my other pen name, NL DiDeo, so I’m splitting my writing time between the two series. Diver Sawyer is currently planned for release in April or May 2027.
Together they must find her brother before it’s too late.
Verie
My brother’s missing. His medicine sat untouched on his desk, and the only clue he left behind was a note scribbled on a crumpled math assignment.
Find Hudson. Need help.
So I do.
Officer Hudson Shaw is bossy, infuriating, and far too handsome for his own good. He promises to help me, but every answer leads to more questions—and he’s keeping secrets.
I.don’t. like. liars.
Hudson
Verie thinks I’m hiding the truth.
If she knew everything, her life could be in danger.
Her brother is tangled up in something worse than either of us imagined. Every move he makes pushes him deeper into the crosshairs.
I’ll do whatever it takes to bring Pike home.
If I fail, I won’t just lose the case—I’ll lose Verie, too.
Patrol Officer Hudson is a first-person, dual POV small-town romantic suspense featuring a protective hero, forced proximity, slow-burn chemistry with serious heat, and family loyalty. HEA guaranteed.
Murder Amour
Michael Alan Stimmel’s Murder Amour follows private investigators John Mathews and Kayla Van Saint from Portland to Los Angeles, where a job involving a fire at a movie studio leads them into a much larger tangle of money, sex, and personal loyalties. John’s background in fire investigation and Kayla’s experience as a homicide detective give their partnership a useful mix of skills, though their work is only part of what keeps them occupied. They’re also lovers trying to agree on what that means. The novel moves through hotel suites, studio grounds, fashion events, and the world of a powerful escort agency, giving its crime story a distinctly social character. Access matters here: who’ll take your call, who’ll open a gate, and who has something worth protecting.
John’s first-person narration gives the book much of its personality. He’s observant, hungry, easily distracted by beautiful women, and prone to acting before he’s thought things through. His jokes and running commentary make him easy company, while his jealousy, drinking, and desire to rescue people give that company some uncomfortable edges. His compassion can be sincere even when his judgment is poor, and that tension becomes one of the story’s more interesting concerns. Kayla brings confidence, practical experience, and an appetite for adventure to their exchanges. Their conversations have the familiarity of two people who know how to tease each other and exactly where to press. The friction between professional trust and romantic uncertainty gives their scenes a reason to matter beyond the next clue.
Stimmel writes in a direct, conversational style, with short chapters and plenty of dialogue. He’s particularly attentive to the physical pleasures and daily inconveniences of the setting: a good sandwich, an extravagant purchase, a convertible ride, or another stretch of Los Angeles traffic. Those details make the characters’ time in the city feel authentoc, and the recurring Cadillac becomes an enjoyable part of the book’s personality. The same habits can wear thin, especially the repeated descriptions of women’s bodies and the extended discussions explaining the escort business. Some exchanges sound like arguments prepared for the reader, and several investigative leaps depend on convenient timing or quick assumptions. The broad sexual humor also sits alongside graphic violence, creating abrupt changes in tone that can be jarring.
I think what gives Murder Amour its strongest emotional pull is its interest in the obligations people take on when they claim to care about someone. Protection, generosity, desire, and self-interest are closely tangled throughout the story. The escort agency provides a particularly charged setting for questions about women’s independence, vulnerability, and the cost of defending a business’s reputation. John’s perspective on those questions is uneven, and his judgments can feel reductive, but his involvement gives them personal consequences. I’d recommend the book most to adult readers who enjoy private-eye fiction with a talkative narrator, a complicated detective couple, and morally messy situations. Readers drawn to Hollywood settings and the everyday push and pull between two recurring leads will have plenty to enjoy, especially if they’re comfortable with blunt humor and disturbing crime scenes.
Pages: 242 | ASIN : B0HH7WBP36
