Survive the Christmas Drive

by Krystal Powers

Fasten your seat belt. This is one trip you’ll never forget.

It’s Christmas 1985. Phil Collins rules the airwaves, Back to the Future rocks the box office, and Teddy Ruxpin reigns supreme as the season’s must-have gift.

Meet Tim and Blair, young upwardly mobile professionals from Omaha, Nebraska. They’re traveling to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for Christmas in their brand-new Jeep Wagoneer.

They’ve driven this same 250-mile stretch of Interstate 80 countless times without incident.

Tonight will be different.

A blizzard descends. There’s been a prison break. And that’s just in the first few miles.

Will they make it to their destination where yuletide cheer awaits?

Only one thing’s certain. It will take a Christmas miracle to survive this drive.

If Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are on your list of must-watch Christmas movies, then you’ll enjoy Survive the Christmas Drive.

No batteries or assembly required. Each copy of the novel

✅ Fast-paced thrills
✅ Totally awesome ’80s nostalgia
✅ Plenty of holiday cheer with a side of action

Treat yourself to an exciting thriller, no matter the season.

Genres: Christmas, Thriller

319 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 22, 2025

About the author

Krystal is the author of The Missing Client and The Elusive Client, the first two books in the Jocelyn Bennett Crime Thriller series. She is also the author of Survive the Christmas Drive, a standalone holiday thriller.

She lives in Southern California with her husband. When she’s not writing, she enjoys trying new recipes, hiking trails along the beach, and reading thrillers.

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Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this in a Goodreads giveaway and I'm sad to say this was really bad. Every decision these 2 dingle berries made was dumb. For lawyers they had the IQ of a turnip. I've seen fruit flies make better decisions. Tim and his wife Blair are traveling from Omaha to Cedar Rapids, in the middle of FUCKING SNOWSTORM. Since these 2 talk continuously about how they have made this drive countless of times you would think that the weather report of an impending storm would make them think twice before packing their new Jeep Wagoneer (Yes we hear about this countless times throughout the book) and getting on the road. Anyone who lives where it snows pretty often knows to keep their ass home if they don't have to be out in it because the weather can change at any given minute. But yet, they continue on their merry way making one bad decision after another. I'm all for flawed characters, but being plain stupid and knowing better is something I can't get behind. Reading about their stupidity is not enjoyable. I've never been so happy to finish a book in my life.

[Yolanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one! It kept my attention the entire time, and the writing played out so vividly it felt like watching a movie. This was a refreshing change from my usual Christmas romances, and it ended up being an engaging read.

[Kyra Battle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book… for it to be a Christmas thriller, I thought it was entertaining. I like roadtrips too and the books I’ve read, where the setting was on the road, in the car, would get a little boring, but this one kept my attention. I think the ending could have been better… it felt a little rushed and less detailed. Overall, I enjoyed it though.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

This. Was. Tedious. I got through 3.5 chapters, looked to see how much time I had left to read (Kindle edition), said "Fudge that," and started skimming because I was both bored and annoyed. The "thrilling action" scenes fell incredibly flat. They were not compelling nor in any way, shape, or form entertaining. By the end of my read/skim, I didn't care if the main characters lived or died. The dialogue read was poorly written - as if the author has never had a real conversation in their life. The plot was dumb, the scenes eye-rollingly bad, the characters annoyingly stupid. The author spent pages describing things and scenes that could have taken a paragraph - or less - which is the main cause of the tediousness. I would not recommend this and will probably never read another thing by this author.

*I won this from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.*

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! This book would make a really good movie!

[Shilo Goodson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like this book had the potential to be a really great book. The idea behind it was interesting and exciting. For me, though, it fell short. I felt like it had some bursts of a really great story, but then we'd hit a point where the story just felt off.

The author gets overly descriptive at times to the point of seriously distracting from the story. This includes clothing, the places located along the route, and other things. While I'm all about using description to allow the reader to better view the setting, when the description takes away from the story, it becomes a problem.

There were also several places in the story where I was very confused as to why the two main characters would do something (or would not do something). For example, at one point, they aren't very far from their home. They are in the middle of a blizzard. Rather than turning around and going back home, they decide to continue on their trip, which is still several hours away. I want to say that they had 200+ miles to go if they continued on their trip, but less than 30 miles if they turned around and went back home. Their reasoning was that the storm was coming from the direction they'd come from, so it would be worse if they headed back home. There were a few other situations where they made decisions that really didn't make sense.

As a warning to readers, this book does end on what I'd consider a cliffhanger. There were several things that I wondered about. As far as I can tell, this book is supposed to be a standalone book. Honestly, I don't think that there's enough there to create another book. I just felt like there wasn't closure, and like there were several things that were hinted at but never resolved.

This book doesn't have any swearing or sexual content. There are several violent scenes, mostly toward the end of the book. They were more graphic than I prefer, although they're probably "medium" when it comes to violent content.

Overall, I enjoyed this book enough to finish it. I do feel like there were some bursts of really great writing. Unfortunately, there were too many things about the book that bothered me. Ultimately, I wouldn't recommend it.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I won this book as a Goodreads giveaway.

Christmas 1985 is the backdrop for this traveling tale reminiscent of old teen Christopher Pike thrillers from the same era. The nostalgic details work best when they are in the background. At other times, the narrative adopts a wikipedia tone just after someone does a word search for "1980s party snacks" or "popular 1980s culture". This isn't necessarily a criticism - I still enjoyed it and, if written another way, the author probably couldn't have included as much. However, sometimes less is more.

The best job this book does is conveying the absolute claustrophobic atmosphere of driving at night on the interstate during a winter weather storm. And before cellphones! As someone who has done this, it took me right back. In fact, the most research seems to be on the interstate itself, so much so that I wondered at one point if the writer was a former truck driver.

The rest of the book - including the mystery at its heart - seems wholly uninterested in details. There are a host of implausible situations the author takes no time to explain and many plot threads that are simply left behind for readers to futilely wonder about.

Final notes: The book does get violent but keeps details fairly PG. The Christmas atmosphere is thick. If you desire a Christmas story devoid of Hallmark vibes, and rife with 80s nostalgia, this is a decent distraction.

[Lesley Goldthorpe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Survive the Christmas Drive is one of those books that starts out feeling like a familiar holiday headache—packing up the car, arguing over directions, trying to beat the weather—and then slowly turns into something much more tense and unpredictable. It’s quick, easy to read, and surprisingly fun in that slightly stressful, “oh no, what now?” kind of way.
The characters feel like people you’ve actually traveled with: stubborn, tired, a little snappy, but still trying to make the best of it. As the road conditions get worse and strange things start happening, the story picks up real momentum. You’re never quite sure if the danger is out on the highway or inside the car with them, which keeps the pages turning.
It’s not overly dark or intense, just suspenseful enough to keep you hooked. If you want a holiday read with a little edge—something that mixes Christmas chaos with a touch of thriller—Survive the Christmas Drive is a great pick. It’s fast, fun, and has that “I’ve definitely been on this road trip” vibe.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a thriller that takes place mostly over the course of one night, and primarily on the road. The book had an interesting premise with the 2 main characters trying to make their way across Iowa in a pre-Christmas snowstorm while there are murderers “on the loose” (having escaped from the local prison.) I got through this pretty quickly, partly as I skimmed through a lot of the filler, such as the details of the drive or the unnecessary chit chat. I was just going for the action. There is a nice little revelation and character arc that adds value to the story. This is my honest review, and I am posting it voluntarily. Thanks to the author & publisher for the giveaway opportunity that enabled me to win this book.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won an ebook version of the Book from Goodreads book giveaways and was so looking forward to diving in after reading the description. I thought this book was going to be a really great read since it takes places in the 80s and it would be a fun flash back. However, it gets so descriptive and detailed at some points that I was thinking it was just filling in space. Some of the details just made me loose track of what I was reading and stalled the story a bit for me. Overall I was able to finish the book and thought it was okay. I always like a good thriller but some of this book was just a bit flat for me and a bit easy to figure out what was going to happen next.

[Whitney Warrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice little Christmas thriller.

Recommended.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5