The opening novel in my new middle grade series, PLEASE RETURN TO: NORBERT M. FINKELSTEIN, hit shelves in September 2019 and fell into the hands of so many exuberant readers. The story is written in the form of a journal, from the perspective of a struggling middle school teacher who leads a double life as a professional wrestler. The book, and the series in general, is a #stopbullying tale that reminds young readers they are not alone in the struggle…that even adults face their bullies.

Over the past six months, I’ve been hard at work writing and developing the second book in the series. And now, it’s almost ready to find its way into your hands. Ladies and gentlemen, we have an official launch date! PLEASE RETURN TO: TOBY SOLANO will hit shelves on MARCH 27, 2020, with a brand-new narrator but all the usual, zany suspects you loved in the first book. I hope you’ll keep an eye open for all the fun updates I’ll be posting over the next several weeks, including cover reveals and blog tours.

Book Bloggers: Start looking for it on Netgalley soon!

In the meantime, enjoy a brief recap of the upcoming book:

Toby Solano never asked to leave El Paso. He never wanted to be the new kid in Mapleton, or sit in a classroom full of strangers, or endure the snooze-worthy ramblings of his new English teacher, Mr. Norbert M. Finkelstein. But that’s what he got–a life sentence in Boringville, USA–and it all happened on the same day his dad lost his status as a wrestling superstar, his mom lost her teaching job, and he got expelled from school after stuffing a classmate in a gym locker.

If he hadn’t found his new teacher’s top-secret journal lying around in the streets of Mapleton on his first day in town, Toby would have nothing to do at all. But now that he’s armed with a full-blown knowledge of Mr. Finkelstein’s hidden life as a professional wrestler and the inner thoughts of good-for-nothing, new classmates like Jimmy Baker and Maya Providence, he might as well make good use of the intel. 

As Toby scribbles his own thoughts on the pages of Norbie’s original journal, he must decide whether he’ll fall back on his old ways and bully his new classmates (and his teacher) into a submission hold that’s impossible to break, or if he’ll help Sensei Clement shape the Mort-tician into a Lucha Libre wrestling legend so he can regain his crown as king of the MWF. You’ll find it all and more on the super-private and slightly-wrinkled pages of Please Return To: Toby Solano.