One Response to About Us

1. Timothy Jay Smith says:

   at

   I hope you will want to review my new novel, Fire on the Island (Arcade Publishing), a romantic thriller set in Greece to be released July 7, 2020. It will be my fourth published book and is 267 pages long. The main character is gay and homosexuality is an important theme in the story.

   In Fire on the Island, an arsonist threatens to burn down a Greek village by blowing up a fuel tank in its harbor. Alarmed by the possible disruption of the Coast Guard’s vital role in rescuing refugees, the FBI agent posted to Athens arrives to investigate. He discovers a village rife with conflicts, some dating back generations, and any of which might compel someone to exact vengeance on the whole village.

   Fire on the Island took the Gold Medal in the 2017 Faulkner-Wisdom Competition for the Novel (for unpublished works). My latest published book, The Fourth Courier (Arcade; April 2019) is a finalist for Best Gay Mystery in the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards. Bookstr selected it as 1-of-5 books to honor Stonewall’s 50th anniversary and 1-of-5 best novels set in Europe published in 2019. I am represented by Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group.

   Below is a synopsis of Fire on the Island and my short bio.

   Thank you for your consideration.

   Sincerely,

   Timothy Jay Smith

   FIRE ON THE ISLAND – SYNOPSIS

   FIRE ON THE ISLAND is a playful, romantic thriller set in contemporary Greece, with a gay Greek-American FBI agent, who is undercover on the island to investigate a series of mysterious fires. Set against the very real refugee crisis on the beautiful, sun-drenched Greek islands, this novel paints a loving portrait of a community in crisis. As the island residents grapple with declining tourism, poverty, refugees, family feuds, and a perilously damaged church, an arsonist invades their midst.

   Nick Damigos, the FBI agent, arrives on the island just in time to witness the latest fire and save a beloved truffle-sniffing dog. Hailed as a hero and embraced by the community, Nick finds himself drawn to Takis, a young bartender who becomes his primary suspect, which is a problem because they’re having an affair. Theirs is not the only complicated romance in the community and Takis isn’t the only suspicious character on the island. The priest is an art forger, a young Albanian waiter harbors a secret, the captain of the coast guard station seems to have his own agenda, and the village itself hides a violent history. Nick has to unravel the truth in time to prevent catastrophe, as he comes to terms with his own past trauma. In saving the village, he will go a long way toward saving himself.

   A long time devotee of the Greek islands, Smith paints the setting with gorgeous color and empathy, ushering in a new romantic thriller with the charm of Zorba the Greek while shedding bright light on the very real challenges of life in contemporary Greece.

   TIMOTHY JAY SMITH – BIO

   Raised crisscrossing America pulling a small green trailer behind the family car, Timothy Jay Smith developed a ceaseless wanderlust that has taken him around the world many times. En route, he’s found the characters that people his work. Polish cops and Greek fishermen, mercenaries and arms dealers, child prostitutes and wannabe terrorists, Indian Chiefs and Indian tailors: he’s hung with them all in an unparalleled international career that saw him smuggle banned plays from behind the Iron Curtain, maneuver through Occupied Territories, represent the U.S. at the highest levels of foreign governments, and stowaway aboard a ‘devil’s barge’ for a three-day crossing from Cape Verde that landed him in an African jail.

   Tim brings the same energy to his writing that he brought to a distinguished career, and as a result, he has won top honors for his novels, screenplays and stage plays in numerous prestigious competitions. Fire on the Island won the Gold Medal in the 2017 Faulkner-Wisdom Competition for the Novel, and his screenplay adaptation of it was named Best Indie Script by WriteMovies. Another novel, The Fourth Courier, set in Poland, published in 2019 by Arcade Publishing, received tremendous reviews, and is a finalist for Best Gay Mystery in the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards. Previously, he won the Paris Prize for Fiction (now the Paris Literary Prize) for his novel, A Vision of Angels. Kirkus Reviews called Cooper’s Promise “literary dynamite” and selected it as one of the Best Books of 2012.

   Tim was nominated for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. His stage play, How High the Moon, won the prestigious Stanley Drama Award, and his screenplays have won competitions sponsored by the American Screenwriters Association, WriteMovies, Houston WorldFest, Rhode Island International Film Festival, Fresh Voices, StoryPros, and the Hollywood Screenwriting Institute. He is the founder of the Smith Prize for Political Theater.

   Reply