Imagine starting your day at a swim meet, then finding yourself travelling through time to the lost city of Atlantis. That’s the journey that readers will find themselves on in swim coach Ann Searle Horowitz’s new novel, Trident.

Horowitz, a coach at the Rye YMCA in New York, combines her own swimming and coaching experience with bits and pieces of her personal life to take swimming enthusiasts and readers on an aquatic, literary adventure.

“It really combines lots of my interests and experiences; it features a swimmer protagonist and has characters who are twins, and I have identical twins too,” Horowitz said. “One of the storylines is that the protagonist wants to qualify for the Junior Olympics, and that’s something my son wanted to qualify for when he was younger. I’m also a fan of Greek mythology and loved English back in school, so I bring the myth of the lost city of Atlantis and the Greek god Poseidon into the story.” 

Horowitz was able to draw on her own swimming and coaching experience to paint a realistic picture for her readers. 

“The book starts out at a swim meet and talks about that experience you have as you’re swimming in a relay, standing on the block waiting for the swimmer in the water to touch – the noises, the smell of chlorine, the feel of the starting block under your feet,” she said. “Having that experience enhanced my ability to describe that type of scene.”

Horowitz combines other aspects of her swimming and coaching experiences in the novel, like visualizing her races and posting sticky notes of her goals in places around her house.

“Those two skills – coming up with positive affirmations and being able to visualize, are important things that athletes can also use, and I’m able to share those through fiction or a story,” she said. 

Horowitz said she just finished the first draft of the novel’s sequel, which will feature the Trident main character’s twin sister, Lucy, and her adventures. 

Trident is available from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and local bookseller Arcade Booksellers in Rye, NY.