Tripio is historical fiction novel, set in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago in the summer of 1992. From his small apartment, where he works on his first novel, Jay takes in his surroundings, survives his workdays as a key holder at an embryonic company called Starbucks, and begins a romance with a fellow employee. However, Tripio is not a love letter to Starbucks, but rather a day in the life of someone who experienced its’ growth in the trenches, giving the reader a look behind the curtain at the beginnings of world-renowned company during its early, formative years. As Jay is pulled up the ladder at Starbucks, he resists because he has moved to Chicago to test his metal as writer, not find a career. The book opens as he is struggling with writing the final chapters of his first novel. The inner workings of the mind of a first-time...

Grab a cup of your favorite coffee beverage and take a seat at the Trier, a funky coffee house in mid-eighties Dayton, Ohio, where you find humor, romance, and possibly a ghost, but no traces of cell phones, laptops, or logo sirens. It's a normal Tuesday, and the Trierlings are busy writing novels, being cast in a play, finding, and trying to forget romance. The coffee is great, but the service not so much. They have no idea that their favorite coffee house is about to be sold by its disinterested owner. That is just the start of the week. On Wednesday night, the closing barista hears weird noises in the one-hundred-year- old building that has housed the Trier for a decade. Talk of the “Century ghost” circulates among the regulars as the day barista and his band, Tofaco, are planning to perform on Saturday night. On Thursday, Trier regular...

Ironjaws is not the first fish story ever told. But it may be the first one to blend fishing with basketball in a way that asks us to think over what teamwork and friendship are, and what winning really is.