By John Balch
News-Leader staff
For his third book, Nashville author Jason Horn is taking the reader out of Hell’s Valley and into Fairbanks, Alaska to meet The Winter Bear.
The new self-published book is now available on Amazon and sees Horn deviating from his first two books, Crossing Paths and The Dark Path Home, a two-part Western set in the mid-1800s and loaded with factual events and recognizable local names and places.
“This one is a thriller,” said Horn about The Winter Bear, which he added is “a real thing” in Alaska when grizzly bears come out of hibernation, eat and go back in. But here’s the twist:
“My bear, I wanted a bear that came out and did not go back in,” Horn said.
The bear, which goes on a rampage and killing spree, is the main character along with “Sheriff James” and “Trip Gage,” a freshly-released inmate looking to get on with his life despite a tense relation with the sheriff. Bodies are starting to pile up. The two men have got to come together to do something.
“Can they bring down this murderous grizzly before more are victims?”
“This book has a really big plot twist,” Horn said, “and I try to do that with all my books to have a little surprise.”
Horn said the book opens like a Western, “but chapter two, boom, it turns into modern-day times.”
Horn was actually born in Fairbanks in 1973 and moved to Nashville soon after with his parents, Kenny Horn and the late Debbie Webb Horn. Both parents were avid readers and Horn said it was Dad who encouraged him to write the stories “he knew I had in my head.”
Horn has come a long way since his first book, which he wrote in longhand. Now, with an assist from wife, Allison Ball Horn, he can “hunt and peck” his way around a keyboard. Horn recalled his Dad reading those longhand drafts of the first book to his mother, whose sight had diminished due to diabetes.
Like most writers, there are more stories ready to come out of Horn. He already has his fourth book, Ringgold, waiting in the wings and there is even a teaser about it toward the end of The Winter Bear.
The fourth book will return readers to familiar pages of Hell’s Valley.
Horn plans to hold a book-signing in the near future once some readers have got the new book. As of Monday morning, at least one person had already downloaded and read the new book.
“I’ve already got a nice text and phone call,” Horn said, adding that he doesn’t expect to get rich writing books but he is going to continue when the urge hits.
“I’m not James Patterson, but when people come up to me in town and tell me they just finished my book, and they liked it, that makes me feel pretty good.”
Note: Horn’s second book, The Dark Path Home, is expected to be back on Amazon in the near future.
