I’ve had some messages. I’ve been off SOL for a while now. A combination of heavy heavy workload at the day job, and on working on a more mainstream-esque indie writing career, with a lot of writing, editing, designing, and backend work as I try to make a flip from full-time classroom and part-time writing to the opposite.
Because of Ali Hazelwood releasing her book “Deep End” I can’t reliably use that title anymore. The new version keeps most of the story that you remember, from the original but has had a lot of genuine developmental work to fix up the inconsistencies and flat out mistakes that everybody was so kind to overlook (and fight about in the comments) as I wrote and posted it over 7 years.
It is arguably a much better book for the work and rounds of critique and editing that have gone into it.
“Touch and Turn: A 1990s Second-Chance Swimming Romance” will release widely in eBook (limited to the river site, unfortunately), paperback, and a beautiful jacketed hardcover with a special hidden casewrap design on 29 October 2026. eBook pre-orders are open, and if you live in Australia, you can order a special physical edition pre-release pack with limited edition swag that will ship before the official release date so you should have it first.
The blurb:
"I don't mean to be rude—"
The perfect precursor to an unwitting insult.
"—but you beat me. And you're just a girl."
She thought he was a dick. A textbook egotistical swim jock.
She was right.
She was also the first thing that ever made him want to be more.
Toronto, 1992. Jimmy Connor thinks he's the fastest thing in the water. Then Nao MacRae walks into his training program and beats him — and keeps pushing him past every limit he'd settled for.
He didn't stand a chance. He fell first, he fell hardest, and then he set about becoming someone she might actually want.
A twist of fate broke them. Pride kept them apart.
Jimmy went from the top of the podium to rock bottom — and just when he's made his peace with where he landed, guess who shows up.
Chlorine and cassette tapes. Calls on the house phone, where anyone can pick up the extension and listen in. Seven years, Toronto to Sydney, and neither of them ever quite let go.
Touch and Turn is a slow-burn, second-chance sports romance with a heat no amount of time in the water can cool down.
There is, of course, “It’s Always Been You: A Japanese Romance Collection” also available now, and a supernatural Japanese romance novella releasing at the end of November.
Thank you so much to all those people who have messaged me, asking about when the release was coming. I genuinely wanted to make sure it was worth the wait and everybody’s time and money.
Thank you for still thinking of me.
It’s been more than a hot minute. I have been grinding my way through multiple rewrites and critique reads of “Off The Deep End” but in the meantime (as part of a broader plan to hopefully semi-retire from classroom teaching in the next few years), I have released a book called “It’s Always Been You” which you can google for. There’s a beautiful physical edition available but at the moment, the ebook is only available on a billionaire book site.
“Off The Deep End” will actually get a full retitle, as a well known author released a romance last year called “Deep End” so watch this space.
Just a reminder that at the end of this weekend (which is conveniently the end of the month) ‘Off The Deep End’ in its current iteration will go offline.
I have been working on a detailed rewrite to address the two main issues with the story; the lack of specific geography, and the lack of specific timeline.
It’s also meant that, as the better writer I am 10 years later, I’ve been able to address huge chunks of exposition and info-dumping. And there’s some extra bits and pieces to flesh out some of the places that are lighter in detail in the original.
I’m currently up to the final part. The plan is for wider ebook and paperback release in October/November which will have the added advantage of allowing people to read the new version in the timeline that it happens (the story starts in November). It will be up on ZBookstore as well as other outlets.
The title will stay the same (just too good to lose) but the cover art is getting a refresh. If you’d like to support me in the meantime, grab a copy from ZBookstore or support my caffiene addiction at the usual outlet.
Oh, and there is something new in long form coming, and it won’t take 7 years for me to finish uploading it.
If you enjoyed ‘Off The Deep End’ in it’s current iteration or not read it, you have until the end of June to re-read it or (hopefully) purchase a copy from ZBookstore (formerly ) before it disappears from SOL and ZBookstore.
I am in the process of revision for content and other reasons and need to take it out of circulation.
It is a very special story to me as it literally took years to finish, but I now have some time and distance to be able to fix up a lot of the structural inconsistencies that kind readers overlooked while supporting an emerging irregular writer.