The Year of Dan Palace

Dan Palace has always played it safe. He chose the safe job. Married a safe woman. Rarely travels far from home. But something is missing - until a man named Tucker Farling delivers a doomsday prediction that changes Dan’s life. In the final minutes before the New Year, Dan embraces the potential end of humanity in order to muster the courage he desperately needs to embark on a quest to find that missing ＂something＂ the sense of adventure and true magic he remembers from his youth, along with the love of his ex-wife, who’s hated him since their wedding night nine years before. When things don’t go as planned, Dan finds himself on an unexpected road trip with a young hotel worker and her possessive boyfriend. Together they experience some of the surprising consequences of living life to its passionate fullest - as do the people they love.

Chris Jane is a fiction and freelance writer living in New England. Early work involved going door to door and offering to take out the neighbors’ trash for a nickel a bag.