Tag Archives: Delay of Game

Cover update

Book cover with the author's name (Lisa L Hilton) at the top and the title "Delay of Game" at the bottom. It's in a serifed font that looks a little magical, and it slants slightly to the right. There's an American football player in a tunnel with a light at the end of it. On the wall are some runes, a caduceus with runes around it, and a football play diagram, all glowing with blue magic.

Behold, the updated cover for Delay of Game! This being a genre-blending book, I started out with the idea of targeting the thriller/mystery market, but that wasn’t going well, so I decided to instead target the urban/contemporary fantasy market. The designer did a great job!

This version will be rolling out over the next few hours for the ebook. The print version will take a bit longer, but it’s coming as well!

How do you break someone without anybody noticing?

That was the question I needed to answer while working on Delay of Game. It couldn’t be a physical injury. And it couldn’t be a straight-up poisoning. Those would both be too obvious.

I needed something quiet, something that could be dismissed or ignored.

In 2025, I saw what that looks like up close.

I saw the side effects of one medication take someone from being active, productive, and curious and, inch by inch, turned them into someone I worried might never be able to care for themselves again.

I know how easy it was to dismiss the symptoms. Confusion. Fatigue. Lack of effort. I did it myself, until I couldn’t ignore that something was seriously wrong.

And then I had to convince other people that it wasn’t just confusion, or fatigue, or a lack of effort. People who were not mean or lazy, but for whom the easy answer was often the right one.

Gradual erosion blamed on the person being eroded? That’s what I was looking for.

I just wish it had come at less of a cost to people I care about.