For those who have been patiently waiting for the next story in the Austin Conrad thriller series, I have a treat for you. Call it a Christmas gift, or a Festivus miracle. But it’s a story fit for the season, an Austin Conrad thriller with a Christmas-themed setting. It’s called The Last Gift.

This is another quick read, falling somewhere between a short story and a novella in length. But it tells a Christmas story of despair, hope, betrayal and redemption, all in those scant 12,000 words. And of course The Last Gift comes with the three signature traits of every Austin Conrad story: violence, profanity and irreverence, in equal measure!

Earlier this year I was honored to be invited in to a group of accomplished thriller writers, most of whom I was already a fan of and had looked up to for years. It’s sort of a mastermind group, where we share strategies and ideas, collaborate on projects and just share some basic fellowship with a tight group of guys and gals who are facing the same challenges. I’ve benefited tremendously from the relationships and knowledge shared in the group. And it was great getting to hang out with some of the guys in person last month at a writers conference in Las Vegas. But one of the fun projects that has come out of that group is Dead of Winter, an anthology of Christmas-themed novellas and novelettes. The Last Gift is my contribution to that anthology.

Please pick up a copy of Dead Of Winter, on sale at Amazon now for only 99 cents. I know you’ll enjoy not only The Last Gift, but seven more action and suspense-packed novellas by some of the best authors in the genre: Nick Thacker, David Berens, Jim Heskett, Kevin Tumlinson, Steven Moore, R.A. McGee, M.P. MacDougall, and of course myself. Each of us has contributed a brand new story, written specifically for this book, featuring each of our main characters. Some of those authors you already know, some of them will become new favorites. For now, Dead of Winter is exclusive to Amazon so you can grab it from any of their stores: US | UK | CA | AU. And I’d love to hear what you think about the anthology in general, and specifically my story. Feel free to comment below or drop me a line, or post a review to Amazon.

We’re not sure yet whether we’re going to pull it out of exclusivity at the end of its 90-day Kindle Unlimited run. If we do, I’ll probably package The Last Gift as a stand-alone and make it available for free to my newsletter subscribers. In anticipation of that, I’ve gone ahead and made up a cover for it:

In the Austin Conrad timeline, The Last Gift takes place several months after the events in Blood Out, on the following Christmas Eve. But it’s written as a stand-alone story, meaning you don’t need to have read any of the previous books, as none of the plot overlaps with the other books. There are brief appearances of two of my favorite characters from the previous books though 🙂

And if you’ve been waiting for news on the next full-length Austin Conrad adventure, I’ve started plotting it out and hope to have it released by early to mid 2020. It’s tentatively titled Bones Don’t Bend, and it’s Austin’s first full-length adventure away from his past with the Rattlers MC. It takes place in a small town in middle-America, where Austin manages to stumble across some wrongs that need to be righted. If you’re a fan of the “vigilante drifter” stories like Jack Reacher, you’ll love where Austin is headed!