Jonathan Lowe, audio book reviewer for Land Line, has interviewed authors from Nora Roberts and Nicholas Sparks to Garrison Keillor and Dan Rather. Now it's his turn in the spotlight. With the publication of "Fame Island," due out from Blackstone Audio books as an exclusive first release in September, this "Lowely" reviewer might just have a blockbuster on his hands, according to AudioFile magazine editor Robin Whitten.

The novel, partly based on a true story, involves a mega lotto winner who engineers his own disappearance, and the tabloid writer who finds him, only to get hired as his "Apprentice."  Narrated by acclaimed Hollywood character actor Kristoffer Tabori, "Fame Island" is being directed by Yuri Rasovsky, who has won two Peabody awards, two Audie awards, and a Grammy award for his previous efforts.

Lowe says there’s a bit of romance involved in this offbeat action adventure, and he hopes to attract a female audience too. The idea for the story came to him years ago while interviewing John Caldwell, former owner of Palm Island in the Caribbean, for a travel magazine.

“John and his family had transformed an unlivable island – called "Prune" twenty years before – into a paradise, through sheer hard work, after sailing around the world to find it,” says Lowe. “Then he was attacked by some renegades who'd taken over a neighboring island. He defended Palm, helped jail the attackers, and in the end became a local hero. Later, Donald Trump offered to buy his island, but Caldwell refused. And an independent film on his story was planned but never made. All this set me on a ‘what if’ track to the novel, which now includes a reality show plot, and not a little Hollywood satire.

“The reason for this coming out as an audio first release--instead of hardcover--is that I'm a big fan of the medium, which has evolved and grown in the past few years. Audio books are like audio movies now, in an age when people just don't have time anymore to drop everything and read a print book."

As a finalist judge in the industry's Audie awards this year, Lowe has now been reviewing audio books in Land Line for five years. His previous fiction has been endorsed by Clive Cussler and John Lutz, and he has published widely in magazines, with awards for writing from the S.C. Arts Commission and Writer's Digest. "Fame Island" will be available, for sale or lease, in September from BlackstoneAudio.com.