SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, My Friend Greg is now available worldwide, introducing readers to a first-contact love story that begins at an astronomy camp and descends, quietly, inexorably into an underground ET base disguised as a Brazilian farm.
Jota, a terrestrial scientist, is recruited by a group of human-like extraterrestrials and placed under the mentorship of Antonina, an extraordinarily intelligent ET researcher whose influence doesn’t arrive by force, but through a disarming, transformational kind of love. As Jota joins the group’s routine and mission, he discovers that affection itself can be a form of conditioning, raising urgent questions about consent, equality, and what it means to be seen and changed by a mind greater than one’s own.
Early readers of speculative romance and first-contact fiction will recognize the novel’s blend of intimate stakes and big ideas: geodesic domes and hidden labs beneath a working farm, measured scientific briefings alongside the hush of nights under Brazilian skies, and a slow-burn relationship in which mentorship and devotion blur. “What compelled me wasn’t alien technology,” says author Joaquim Procopio. “It was the unsettling notion that love—without coercion, without threat—might still rearrange who we are.”
The book arrives as an unusual but natural step for its author. Joaquim Procopio de Araujo Filho is a Brazilian medical doctor, scientist, and lifelong seeker of deeper truths, both scientific and personal. He holds an MD and PhD from the University of São Paulo and completed postdoctoral work at Cornell University Medical College in New York, specializing in membrane biophysics. Across a career spanning bioelectricity, diabetes, and theoretical physiology, he has published more than 60 scientific papers and co-authored or edited several academic books, including Fisiologia Básica and Entendendo a Gordura. While his background is firmly rooted in science,
My Friend Greg marks a turning point, an imaginative foray into fiction, based on experiences that didn’t quite fit within the boundaries of research papers. Originally published in Portuguese, this English edition has been reworked extensively while staying true to the story’s heart. “I don’t write to impress,” Procopio adds. “I write to leave a trace, one that might resonate with anyone who’s felt the edge of something unexplainable.”
My Friend Greg is available in paperback and eBook and can be found at major online retailers. Booksellers, librarians, journalists, and bloggers may request review copies and a media kit, including cover art, author photo, sample chapters, and a discussion guide. Rights inquiries for translation, audio, and interviews are welcome.
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