My new book, City of Light, is releasing in a couple of weeks on August 12, 2026, and I’m excited to finally post an excerpt from it. City of Light is part of a new series I’m starting, The Jack Valentine Adventures, which will be three books for now.

A few details about the series:

• It stars Jack Valentine (obviously)

• These books are first-person thrillers with supernatural elements

• City of Light takes place 5+ years after the events of the Trouble: Girl Detective mystery series

• You don’t really need to have read the Trouble books to enjoy this one, but there are a few easter eggs for the fans (and some potential Trouble spoilers for new readers)

Without further ado, please enjoy this excerpt from City of Light. If you want to stay abreast of what’s going on with my books and podcasts, feel free to subscribe.

1

It was raining, I remember. Unusual for August in Paris, but I was happy for an excuse to wear my black Kensington, which I’d packed against my girlfriend’s advice. (That’s a trench coat, for the fashion-deficient.) I went down to the lobby early, hoping to snag a good table and try one of the cafe’s famous pastries. My right thumb absentmindedly rubbed the little velvet box in my coat pocket. This would either be the best or the worst day of my life.

Turns out, it was the last.

The cafe was packed, so I hurried to the only open table, barely avoiding a collision with a small blonde woman rushing the other way, and draped my coat over the empty chair to let everyone know it was spoken for. Seat secured, I got in line to order.

They say you haven’t truly tasted coffee until you’ve tasted French coffee. I’d say they haven’t tasted my coffee, so we’d have to see about that. I chose a chocolate-dipped palmier from the display case. It came highly recommended. “Best Pâtisseries in Paris,” according to La Liste, and they’d know, wouldn’t they?

For the record, I’d been planning this for six months. It’s not like I was going to surprise pop the question to my girlfriend in public and hope she’d be too embarrassed by onlookers to say no. We’d talked about marriage. She’d jokingly told me her ring size countless times. I knew she preferred synthetic diamonds, and I knew she wanted a green one ever since she saw Mrs. Lockhart’s red one. No, when I bought this ring, I had zero doubt what the answer would be.

And then we got to the hotel last night, and she said we needed to talk.

The coffee smelled pretty incredible, I had to admit. I stirred in my customary two packets of turbinado cane sugar (they call it Cassonade over here), grabbed my palmier, and returned to my table, only to find a man sitting in my chair.

He could have been a haggard thirty or a virile sixty. At a guess, by the platinum hair that fell to the shoulders of his Gucci turtleneck, he was Scandinavian. He had, I noted with distaste, moved my Kensington to the other side of the table. Several quips surfaced in my head, but I bit my tongue and nodded to my coat.

To speak first is to cede the advantage, my father once told me. And I didn’t need to dig into my rusty French to let this guy know he was in my seat.

The man grinned, showing off bright, pointy teeth. The words he spoke, if I understood correctly, were something like, “Do not worry, that family is leaving.”

I glanced back, and sure, another table was opening up. But this table was mine. I put my coat there, buddy. That’s like an international law of seat-saving. He knew this. He knew that I knew he knew this. He held his unfriendly grin, daring me to challenge him.

I set my coffee and pastry down on the table to free up my hands. This was stupid, but weren’t you just saying I was too passive, Alicia?

“Excusé moi, monsieur?” a man said, tapping me on the shoulder. I flinched. It was a little guy in the hotel’s pink hat and waistcoat. “Est-ce vous Jacques Valentin?”

“Uh, oui!” I said.

“Come with me, s’il vous plaît,” said the concierge.

Good, I didn’t actually want to fight. I shot one last glare at that sneering, seat-stealing asshole, grabbed my Kensington and food, and let the concierge lead me back through the lobby to la recéption.

“You have a delivery,” the concierge said. “Un petit paquet, just this morning.”

“For me, or Alicia?” I asked.

That’s my girlfriend. She was usually the one who got deliveries.

“Ah, you are Jacques?” he asked.

“Oui.”

He pulled out a bulky manila envelope from behind the counter and handed it over to me, directing me to sign on a clipboard.

“Merci,” he added, and busied himself as I examined the package.

Strange. I wasn’t expecting anything. Had Mom sent it? There was no return address, literally just my name: Jack Valentine, scrawled in blocky letters across the 9” x 12” envelope with a red sharpie. It was heavy, with something dense and oddly shaped within. I drifted away from the front desk and pulled the tear tab to see what was inside.

It was a silver Beretta M9 semi-automatic pistol with a matching stainless steel suppressor.

My blood ran cold. Who sent this? Was I being set up?

I forced myself to play it cool and looked closer. There was a note inside. I reached in, trying to avoid touching the weapon, and pulled out an index card.

Jack,

I’m being followed. Meet me at the club where Nilay knew a guy. Tell no one. Come alone. I’ll explain there.

— Eliza

P.S. Keep it hidden, and keep it on you.

Keep what hidden? The gun?

I risked another look inside the envelope and saw, at the very bottom, an ornate golden ring with a giant emerald stone.

Okay, this was getting really weird. I hadn’t told a soul I was planning to propose to Alicia tonight. Not even my mother. Suddenly, the engagement ring in my coat pocket—green diamond, princess-cut, 1.2 carats, with a solid gold band—felt like a Cracker Jack prize. The ring in the envelope, with its big, honking gem, looked like something Elrond would use to control the waters that border Rivendell. (Wrong stone, I know. Settle down, nerds.)

A part of me didn’t want to accept that it was real. It had to be a prank. At any second, I was going to turn around and find Alicia filming me on her iPhone, laughing that wonderful laugh of hers. But no, she wasn’t there.

“Monsieur, monsieur,” I said, jogging back to la recéption. “When was this dropped off?”

“Ce matin,” said the concierge. “Only a few minutes have passed.”

“Minutes?! Did you see her? Did you see who?”

He nodded.

“What did she look like?” I asked. “Uh, à quoi ressemblait-elle?”

The concierge raised his hands, moving them as if trying to mold a description of the woman from clay. A thought hit him, and he held his left hand over his eye.

“She was missing an eye?”

“Oui! Oui!” he said, nodding with enthusiasm.

That could only be Eliza, my crazy half-sister. She preferred an eyepatch over a glass eye ever since she lost hers. What the hell had she gotten herself into? She hated guns, never touched ’em. I thought she was in Spain. Did she and Charlie break up again?

“Merde!” I said in the local custom. “I must have just missed her. Merci! Merci!”

I tucked the package under my arm and considered my coffee and pastry. Fuck it, I’d have to come back and try the palmier later. I tossed the cup and pastry into a trash bin and hurried out of the lobby, pulling on my coat.

I had to fight the urge to run. Under my Kensington, I slipped the emerald ring into the front pocket of my chinos. Then I screwed the suppressor onto the Beretta. Jesus. I could probably be sent to the Hague just for carrying a piece like this in Europe. But if Eliza left it for me, then there was a good chance I’d need it.

Meet me at the club where Nilay knew a guy.

The last time Eliza and I were in Paris was for our senior class trip. One night, we ditched the parent chaperones to visit a club called Cristal. The new guy on the trip, Nilay, miraculously knew the DJ and finessed us into the VIP section. That was a fun night. He’s dead now.

(Nilay, not the DJ. That’s not really relevant. I promise this isn’t going to be some boring story about Trauma.)

Cristal was only a few blocks away from our hotel. But if it was still in business, you could have fooled me. The door wouldn’t budge when I tried it, and no one answered when I knocked. When we came here six years ago, the place was bouncing, absolutely packed. To be fair, it was like 8:00 AM right now. Even the French didn’t party that late.

But there was no sign of Eliza. The club had a few windows at ground level, but they were too dark to see inside. I walked around the side of the building to a narrow cobblestone alley, still quite dark in the overcast morning.

“Eliza?” I called out softly.

No reply came. I headed into the alley, keeping one hand ready to reach for the Beretta in my coat. When I made it ten yards in, about as far as I could go before a cast-iron gate blocked my path, a voice called out behind me.

“Where is she?” asked a man in an Eastern European accent.

I spun around, startled. No bullshit, it was that motherfucker from the cafe! The one who stole my seat!

Now that he was no longer slouching behind the table, I could see that I had at least three inches on him (I’m six foot for real; I inherited my dad’s height, thank god). His eyes sparkled golden from the streetlights, even though he was standing in the shadows at the mouth of the alley.

“Where’s who?” I asked.

“It seems you are alone,” the man replied. “Did she fool us both?”

I became uncomfortably aware of the iron gate at my back, blocking my retreat.

“Je suis désolé. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” I said.

I took a step forward. So did he.

“Sebastién. Not that it matters to you.”

“I’ll decide what matters, Sebastién,” I said, gripping the pistol inside my coat pocket. “Why don’t you take it easy?”

Sebastién took two more steps my way. “And if I don’t?”

Look, I might have refined tastes (Alicia’s annoying friend keeps trying to make “Fancy Jack” stick), but I’m not some helpless soy boy. I’d faced down more than one killer before I turned 18, so I knew my life was in danger if I let this guy get any closer. I pulled the pistol out. I’d never fired a gun before, but I’d watched a few YouTube videos. There was a first time for everything.

The man smirked, unfazed, and pulled out a knife from his jeans. The nerdy part of my brain, the kind that used to collect swords (okay, I still collect them), was too preoccupied with Sebastién’s weapon to make a “brought a knife to a gun fight” joke. That cross guard, the pommel, the diamond cross-section blade…it was a 12^th-century crusader dagger. A replica, obviously, but plenty sharp by the look of it. Who was this guy?

“Let’s have it, then,” Sebastién said. He took another step and extended his empty hand.

“Have what? What do you want?”

“I think you know, Jack. This will go much easier if you simply hand it over.”

He knew my name. Concerning. Sebastién was halfway into the alley now, remarkably unfazed by the gun I had aimed at him.

“I’m warning you, man!” I said, gripping the pistol with both hands. “I’ll shoot.”

“I don’t care,” Sebastién replied.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the dagger into the air, just enough to spin it around and catch it by the point. The motion startled me, and I accidentally squeezed the trigger.

BLAMMO!

Sebastién toppled back onto the cobblestones from a direct hit to center mass. Oh shit! I killed him!

The gun clattered to the ground, and I bent over, bracing my hands on my knees. I wasn’t sure what was worse: what I’d just done? Or how easy it felt?

Alicia was terrified of birds. My mom would lose her shit if she saw a spider. But the only thing that scared me was myself. Of what I might be capable of…

Distantly, I became aware of someone laughing.

The dead man, Sebastién, sat upright. He glared at me, shaking his head in rueful mirth. Then he was back on his feet, no worse for wear, and digging a finger into the bloody hole I just blasted through his turtleneck.

“This is Gucci, asshole,” he muttered.

“Sorry, man, but I warned you!”

Why was he alive? Why was I apologizing?? With a grimace, Sebastién plucked the bullet out and held it aloft for inspection. From that distance, all I could see was a red pellet, but he saw more.

“Hawthorn!? That cunt nearly killed me!” he said, and tossed the bullet away in disgust.

“That’s what you get for playing with your food,” said a woman’s voice behind me.

I didn’t even have a chance to turn around. Something punched me in the back, hard. Horrible pain exploded inside my lungs, silencing my agonized scream. In horror, I glanced down to see three inches of a diamond cross-section blade sticking out of my chest.

A woman in a pink rockabilly skirt and chunky Doc Martens stepped past as I fell to my knees. How had she even gotten behind me?

“Good thing he can’t aim,” the woman said, sneering down at me. “Rictor must have talked; they’re far too prepared.”

“What happened to the girl?” Sebastién asked.

“I lost her at Saint Séraphin; she must have doubled back.”

“Sloppy.”

This was all fascinating, except I was choking on my own blood. As if sensing my distress, the miniskirt lady bent over and yanked the dagger out of my back. That really unclogged the pipes. Now I was gushing from my chest like a shotgunned beer. I pissed myself. (You would, too.)

“Ugh, every time!” said Sebastién, his suede Moncler loafers leaping back from my body. “There goes my appetite.”

“Just get the ring, La Zair is waiting,” said the woman.

Sebastién risked dirtying his shoes to crouch down with the woman. They rifled through my pockets like a couple of hookers rolling a drunk.

“Here we go,” said Sebastién.

The woman grunted and snatched something from him before rising. Heels clacked on the cobblestones, softer and softer, as they left me for dead in the alley.

It was getting dark now. Like someone was cranking up the vignette setting on my personal Instagram filter all the way to infinity. My mind reeled for some final profound thought. I hoped Alicia wouldn’t find me like this. I should have proposed sooner. She would have liked the green diamond…

“Jack! Shit! Jack, hold on!” a girl whispered in my ear.

Where did I know that voice from?

A girl’s face swam into view. She had the most amazing, flawless skin, like a polished Fuji apple. Wait! It was Charlie Zaleska! Eliza’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. Fuck yes, I was saved! I tried to tell her to call an ambulance, but all that came out was a crusty gurgle of blood.

She grimaced and glanced over her shoulder. Strange, she looked exactly the same as I remembered her from high school…

“Damn. I’m sorry, Jack,” Charlie said. “It’s the only way.”

Clutching the lapels of my Kensington, she pulled me close. I thought she might kiss me. Girl, I’m spoken for, an ambulance will do. Instead, she bit me!

My sagging head buzzed with confusion. Why did I get stabbed? It wasn’t even a fair fight… I struggled to conjure Ali’s face one more time…

Then I died. There’s a first time for everything.

City of Light is releasing on Kindle and paperback on August 12th, 2026 (which just so happens to be the day of the total solar eclipse in Europe). You can pre-order the ebook on Amazon now.