Loukas & Lydia and the Secret of the Disk, the debut novel by A.F. Helios, has been named Grand Prize Published Book at the 2025 Eyelands Book Awards.
The award was shared with Nick Crawford’s The Bright Highway after an equal vote in the published books category. Eyelands announced the winners on December 30, 2025, noting that it was the first time in the contest’s eight years that two published books had shared the Grand Prize.
The story follows Loukas and Lydia, two children on a family trip to Crete. During a visit to Knossos, an earthquake opens a hidden chamber beneath the palace. Inside, they discover a disk covered with strange symbols. According to the book’s Barnes & Noble listing, the discovery sends them into Minoan Crete, where they encounter the Labyrinth, bull-leaping, Ariadne, and Daedalus.
An Eyelands interview identifies Anastasios Fakinos as the writer behind the A.F. Helios pen name. The novel itself is published under the Helios name and introduces The Disk Chronicles, a planned adventure series for young readers.
The novel draws on Greek myth, ancient history, science, and puzzle-solving. On the Epodos Media author page, Helios is described as a composer and storyteller whose fiction brings together science, history, and imagination.
In another interview, Helios said the award carried special meaning because the competition is based in Greece. He spoke about Greece as the place of the stories that shaped him, where myth and history remain closely connected.
The book also grew out of family storytelling. In the same interview, Helios described Loukas and Lydia as characters who were first shaped by stories he told at home. His children were the first audience, reacting directly to the pace, suspense, and humor of the early material.
Helios also writes music for media and video games. In his Eyelands interview, he said his main focus over the past decade has been open-world video game music, where the player moves freely while the story can suddenly shift into something more intense. He said he approaches storytelling in a similar way, building arcs and connections that reveal themselves over time.
The novel is the first book in The Disk Chronicles, which Helios has described as a six-part series. He told Eyelands that two books are already completed and moving toward publication. The next title, listed by Epodos Media as coming soon, is Loukas & Lydia and the Shadow of Thera, which takes the twins to Thera on the eve of a world-changing eruption, earlier in the timeline than the events at Knossos.
The novel places Crete, Knossos, myth, family travel, and ancient history inside a mystery-adventure format for younger readers.
The book is published by Epodos Media and is available through major retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.