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.