Tropic of the Mourning Gecko (2026)

At the edge of manhood, with one foot already bound for the army, eighteen-year-old Yorgos is about to trade his Cretan village for a soldier’s uniform. But a chance meeting with a mysterious stranger ignites a flame he never knew existed—a desire too dangerous to name. As the relentless Mediterranean sun beats down on those final, fleeting days of summer, the life carefully scripted for him begins to crack. In the heat of that reckoning, his sleeping imagination stirs, shedding the old world to grow a startling new self.