Something is Coming Soon – The Yank Striker

I really wasn’t expecting to make this announcement this soon.

I had thought that I would have been putting this project forward sometime later next year, definitely as a self-publishing project. Even though I have been working toward self-publishing and still might put some projects out there under self-publishing, my next venture is going to be with someone familiar.

I have been talking with Biblio Publishing, the publishing company that worked with me to put out my book The Holy Fool. I mentioned that I had been working on a book project I had just recently completed, and they said that they were interested in publishing that book. Pending final agreements and so forth, it appears that my second book, The Yank Striker, will be published through Biblio this coming January.

I will give more details about publication, availability, etc., in the coming weeks and months. Again, all of this is preliminary, but from my past experiences with publishing I think that it is important to get as much word out about this upcoming project as soon and as often as I can.

The whole idea came to be a few years ago when I was getting ever deeper into my obsession with the sport of soccer. At a certain point, examining how Americans were starting to have careers in the major soccer leagues around the world, I asked myself a simple question:

What would the American Lionel Messi look like?

Liegois

After a bit of thinking, the character of Daniel John “DJ” Ryan came to mind. Over time, his story began developing like a sapling tree with branches sprouting up and down the trunk.

I’m going to include a brief synopsis of the book at the jump. I wrote it due to my love of the sport and the people who play it. I’ll be talking about this project more as its publication draws near, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with everyone.

Synopsis:

As Daniel John (DJ) Ryan approaches his 18^th birthday, he finds himself at a unique crossroad. The grandson of a legendary Texas high school football coach and the son of John Daniel (Junior) Ryan, Jr., an NCAA national football championship winning coach, it’s only natural that he would take his receiving talent to his father’s school, Hamilton State University, near Dallas, and make a run at a national championship with his quarterback brother, John Daniel (Trey) Ryan III.

However, there are a few complications to his plans of progressing to the NFL and making enough for a good retirement fund and benefits. First, there is his not secret but not publicized life as a pansexual/bisexual young man, and what effect that might have on his burgeoning college football career. He’s trying to keep that lifestyle quiet, as he’s helping his mother, Junior’s ex-wife, not publicize her own situation as the spouse and business partner of a female Navy veteran.

Another complication is his love for the other sport known as football – soccer. He’s been honing these skills on the public fields around his home and matches between semipro teams. He’s good enough to earn a look from a scout with the historic if modest East London club known as Donford FC. Would there be any situation that would cause DJ to abandon what he sees as a sure thing to travel across the Atlantic Ocean for a different type of football career?

The Yank Striker is a portrait of a young man on the precipice of deciding his life path and identity. What type of footballer will he turn out to be? And, will that life be lived in the shadows, or out in the open?