I LEFT OUT THE EVIL ELF
by H.W. Buzz Bernard
Despite there being a warm and fuzzy Hallmark Channel Christmas moment in BLIZZARD—you know, a crackling blaze in a huge stone fireplace, the aroma of gingerbread and German stollen wafting through a warm house, and outside a polar gale rattling the limbs of skeletal trees—the book is a thriller.
I mean who wouldn’t want to go on a buck ninety-nine, wind-whipped, bullet-riddled odyssey in a Mercedes Geländewagen through the worst Southern blizzard on record? And that’s not to mention the wolf pack escaped from a game reserve, drug-smuggling outlaw bikers hunkered down in a north Georgia “castle”—guys with names like Psycho, Cave Man, and Grizzly—and a pretend cop who carjacks my protagonist. I probably should have crammed an evil elf into my cast of characters, but alas, I didn’t.
Of course, I had to coat my post-Christmas drama with my trademark pushing-the-envelope meteorological icing. So I imagined Boston’s “Blizzard of ’78,” (which I experienced) displaced to the Deep South. That storm, which is still considered Boston’s greatest, shut down the city for a week. So you can imagine—well, I certainly did—what an event like that would do to Atlanta where even a forecast of snow flurries triggers more panic than a Zombie Apocalypse.
If you’re from or have visited places in northeast Georgia or the western Carolinas, some of the locales the drama sweeps you through, besides the ATL, may be familiar: Clayton, Georgia; Westminster, South Carolina, and Durham, North Carolina.
Like all of my novels, BLIZZARD is meant to thrilling and fun. After all, as a novelist, I am in the entertainment business. The book is designed to appeal to both your holiday spirit and your eagerness for adventure, and maybe even your sense of humor here and there.
As the dealer who leant the protagonist the Mercedes over Christmas vacation noted, upon seeing the SUV returned with shot-out windows, crumpled fenders, and a dead teddy bear in the rear seat: “So your Grandma in Durham, she was pissed, huh? Late with her Christmas gifts?”
Remember, you can find out what this is all about for just $1.99 . . . until New Year’s Eve.
Pick up BLIZZARD for only $1.99 til the 31st!
And don’t forget to grab the rest of H.W. Buzz Bernard’s Weather Series books!
