With an upcoming international tournament where top college recruiters will take note, sixteen-year-old Rowan trains to earn a scholarship and secure her planned future with her Shakespeare-thespian boyfriend, Ozzy. But when a costly treatment for her father's worsening ALS symptoms emerges in Sweden, Rowan decides to train with an MMA fighter at her gym to fight and make money in an underground — and illegal — fight club. As Rowan delves into the world of cage-fighting, risking her relationship and her wrestling career, she soon learns that no amount of money — or fighting — can solve her problems.

Takedown is a high-intensity coming-of-age story about familial grief and competitive combat, with lots of heart, hope, and headlocks. (From Cormorant Books)

Ali Bryan is a writer from Halifax currently based in Calgary. Her first novel, Roost, won the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction. Her second novel, The Figgs, was shortlisted for Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2019. She published two books in 2023: Coq and The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships. Bryan's debut YA novel The Hill was longlisted for the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

Bryan was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2014 and in 2010. She was also a reader for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize.