Yeah, yeah ... I know what you're thinking. You just read the subject line and thought, "Hey Johnny -- three weeks is basically Christmas! Are you seriously releasing a book on Christmas?"

Well, no. But I am releasing a new thriller on the day AFTER Christmas. I'm doing it because the book in question is called Winter Break. What better time to release a book about tension, betrayal, and bloodshed in the snow than DURING WINTER BREAK?

Because c'mon: Mood matters, people.

Setting the mood for a story is absolutely essential. I've told you before about the lengths I go to in order to set the mood while writing a book (a custom playlist, surrounding myself with the visuals that inspired it), but I do the same when reading a book.

I've read Dune several times, but only when it's hot outside -- hot like the sands of Arrakis. Books like The Shining, on the other hand, are cold and claustrophobic, so I only read those when it's cold: when I'm feeling trapped inside, preferably snowbound. Ideally, I'll make a fire beside which to read those books -- ideally with a hot beverage, ideally at night with only essential lights on, ideally when it's graveyard-quiet and all I can hear is my heartbeat and the whispery turn of pages.

When I finished writing Winter Break (about a college girl who spends Christmas break trapped in the icy wilderness with her meddling parents, who seem to be hiding a deadly secret), I knew I wanted you to read it in the cold.

I wanted you to feel Miranda's creeping dread and isolation -- her options cut off one by one as she finds herself trapped in menace -- at the same time she does. When Miranda's best friend Aubrey braves deadly winter roads to assuage her guilty conscience, I wanted you to feel Aubrey's cold in your bones as things turn brutal.

I moved away from Ohio 9 years ago. But when I'm reading, I still miss the snow.

The way it shuts you in.

The way it dampens all sound, and swallows the echoes.

The way sleeping tree branches crack and pop under its weight.

The way, when snow falls at night, you feel like the last person alive.

Trapped. Cut off. Vulnerable.

As if when things go bad, nobody could reach you in time.

No matter how technology advances, a heavy and dark snowfall still makes us feel like we have no options. Maybe we can call our friends from cell phones and maybe we can still browse Instagram ... but how much solace are those things when the snow gets deep and the roof groans under its weight? How much does connectivity matter if lines come down from ice, and the power begins to flicker?

Snow and cold are primitive things. With them, there is no reasoning. No rationality. No way out.

That's why I'm releasing Winter Break on the day after Christmas. Because even if it's not cold on December 26th where you live, most people can still tap into the common picture of Christmastime:

Snow and silent nights. Running off the road when nobody else is out, wondering if you'll freeze to death before you can dig your tires from the ruts. Finding yourself trapped with parents you've never gotten along with, wondering what terrible thing they seem to be hiding in the shed.

If you like the idea of a good, high-tension freak-out -- and a story so layered, you wonder if you'll solve the mystery before the killer finds you -- you could do worse than to read Winter Break this holiday season.

​Click here to preorder Winter Break at its launch price
(Price will go up after launch.)

More next week ...
JT

P.S: There's a very nice paperback version of Winter Break as well, but I can't offer preorders on paperbacks. You can preorder the ebook right now, but you'll need to wait until December 26th to buy the paperback. It'll be available first thing that morning, wherever paperbacks are sold.

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