To salvage their crumbling marriage, Madeleine and Julian devise a secret retreat to Ethiopia’s remote Omo Valley with their infant daughter, Leopaula. To avoid getting caught, the small British family voyages down the Omo River in a rowboat. With Leopaula softly snoring in the bow, the young parents finally find a loving moment of peace as the rhythmic ebb lulls them into a deep slumber—until Julian’s frantic cries shatter the silence. “Maddy, wake up! Leopaula’s gone!” As the boat steadies and the gravity of their situation sinks in, Julian scrambles to craft an alibi for when they return home. Old resentments resurface, reigniting the bitter arguments that drove them to the valley. All the while, an ominous, unnoticed tribesman mutely watches as despair grips the Brits. “Hey,” he calls out, voice piercing through the tension. “ I know where your baby is. ” Slowly Sinking is the world's first novel to be featured in a Cinematic Book Trailer . There are four trailers in total, each told from the point of view of one of the main characters: Julian, Madeleine, Imamu, and Francis, each of whom experiences a life-altering shift when baby Leopaula goes missing. Each trailer is custom-built to reflect its character's predicament, mindset, and motivation, down to the smallest details, from the narrator's voice and direction, to the visual tone. The trailers are primarily AI-generated, with a few real clips captured via mobile devices and DJI drones. Watch them in their highest quality on Dasher Canon's YouTube channel , and find additional content on Instagram and TikTok . Every character in Slowly Sinking should feel weirdly familiar, either because they reflect you, or someone you've known. One of the most consistent pieces of feedback from beta readers and ARC reviewers was that every scene has a perfect host, guiding the reader seamlessly into each new environment, situation, or scenario. Slowly Sinking doesn't end on a cliffhanger. There's no cheap bait to drag lukewarm readers into a sequel. The ending is clear, distinct, and deliberately final, yet powerful enough to make you want to reread the entire story once you've uncovered the truth. Prepare from now. You will be taken out of your comfort zone. Slowly Sinking is the first of the ten part canon series, in which the following novels are not sequels. Instead, they'll be interweaving characters and settings. Slowly Sinking was inspired by a torrent of both current and historical events. As the author, the premise struck me the moment I held my newborn in my arms and asked myself:  What would I do if I lost this defenseless child? The setting was born from a DNA test revealing that I'm part Ethiopian, a detail about me I had no idea about. That discovery reshaped my connection to the story's landscape and history. The complex weaving of subplots and the overarching narrative draws from modern global realities, where oppression is often normalized in the name of capitalism and prestige. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. After closing the back cover of The Giver by Lois Lowry in eighth grade, I remember how fast my mind was racing. She once said she wanted to inspire youth through that title—and she certainly did. "That was good ..." I thought. "But I could do better!" From that moment on, I started planning my first novel. Fast forward to 2025: I've published Slowly Sinking , with five other novels in their first drafts and thirty more fully outlined. Thank you for helping me live the dream Lois sparked in me all those years ago. Dasher Canon is an engineer by day and an author by night, predawn, and dawn. He's traveled the world and befriended people from over 40 countries. He brings this experience into each of his novels by exposing our shared humanity in every character, whether it's the villain or the protagonist—making them hauntingly relatable. He doesn't believe in sequels, for the same reason everyone knows The Lion King , but few remember The Lion King 2 . The same goes for cliffhangers. Dasher is a straight shooter who doesn't rely on cheap tactics to hook readers into the next book. He lets the plot do that. Every one of his novels ends cleanly, meaningfully, even if ambiguously. The next novel in the Canon Series is Therapissed , a dark comedy thriller about a fed-up patient who takes matters into his own hands after concluding that his therapist was never trying to help, only trying to turn him into a repeat customer.