Playing With Destiny
by Phillip Thomas Duck

In his powerful debut novel, Phillip Thomas Duck reaches into the hearts of two brothers struggling to understand the boys they once were and become the men they were meant to be. As brothers, Colin and Courtney Sheffield know their lives will always be connected, but their mistakes, and those of their absent father before them, have tangled them in a web of bitterness and regret neither of them can shake. More than siblings, less than friends, neither of them is willing to place their blood bond over the painful secrets that threaten to shatter their futures. A writer constantly struggling to live up to the hype surrounding his first book, Colin is haunted by an event in his past that still darkens his dreams and casts a shadow over his marriage to Liza, a former model with ghosts of her own to vanquish. Even the birth of their beautiful daughter, Lyric, can’t hold them together when Colin begins to measure every word he writes against that of another bestselling author who has suddenly taken an interest in him—and his brother. Basketball is Courtney’s lifeblood. With only one year of college left, he’s willing to leave school when rumors of a valuable NBA contract promise to make him everything his brother is not—a true success, and a winner his mother will finally be proud of. But with all he’s ever dreamed of within reach, he begins to wonder if he wants something else more—a true relationship with Chante, the only woman he’s ever loved, and the mother of a child who may or may not be his. Examining the emotional complexities of family and the nature of fatherhood, Phillip Thomas Duck has written a book that shines a light into the souls of two young men with everything to lose in their battle with each other—and true brotherhood to gain.