Nonstop action, rollercoaster twists and turns, and new fear unlocked. This book is PHENOMENAL!!
I’ll be recommending to all and have already added it as our book club read.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to read in advance!

“𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘭? 𝘐𝘧 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯, 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨?”

Happy pub day!! Thanks Netgalley and Little Brown for the advanced reader copy! TJ Newman has been a hot buy author these last few summers with her aviation-themed suspense thrillers. She holds back no punches in her previous two and this latest is no exception, starting off with a bang! And as the title states, just when you think it couldn’t get worse, it does.

But it isn’t just a seat-gripper; there’s always some emotional element, not to mention also the science. I can guarantee you’ll be engrossed, moved, and educated. Newman sucks you in with the intensity but keeps you with what ultimately is the heart of the story: the people. When tragedy strikes, the things people do, the risks they take, to protect and keep their loved ones and strangers safe, is the most powerful thing. So if you don’t tear up while reading this…

Warnings include a plane crash and details regarding the damage the debris causes, deaths by multiple accidents and exposure, talk of cancer, some profanity, a character’s spouse dies (off page), and mentions of miscarriage.

With each book she’s written I find myself more invested, more connected, and if she writes more, I guarantee it’ll be an autobuy. Between the thrills and feels, it gets a well-deserved full five stars.

This was quite a wild ride of a thriller. It had so many twists and turns and many I did not see coming. This was my first book by this author and I am excited to read her other books. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

Worst Case Scenario by T.J. Newman
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
336 pages
Releasing today August 13th, 2024

A pilot suffers a heart attack while 35,000 feet in the air, causing a commercial airliner filled with close to 300 passengers to crash into a nuclear power plant in Minnesota, leading to a national crisis. Power plant workers, firefighters, and those in the community surrounding the power plant must work together to do the unthinkable & make extremely hard decisions to save their friends and family.

What an emotional and tense ride!!!! T.J. Newman knows how to catch you & pull you in right from the start. Her descriptive writing style allows me to envision everything & make me feel like I’m there. The characters in this book all are faced with the unthinkable & have to make extremely hard decisions in a short amount of time. Each chapter started with “___ hours remaining” which made my emotions heighten. A thrilling ride!

Read if you like:
✨Intense storylines
✨Emotional reads
✨Multiple perspectives
✨On the edge of your seat feeling

Thank you @tj_author @littlebrown & @netgalley for an eARC & ALC!

#tjnewmanauthor #tjnewman #thriller #suspense #netgalley #netgalleyreviewer #arc #alc #littlebrowncompanypublishing

“Worst Case Scenario,” by T.J. Newman, Little, Brown and Company, 336 pages, Aug. 13, 2024.

When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, and the copilot is barricaded in the restroom, a commercial airliner filled with 295 people crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota.

Ethan Rosen is the manager of the Clover Hill Nuclear Power facility. Since Sept. 11, 2001, he’s known that a plane crash into the plant would be catastrophic.

The International Nuclear Event Scale tracks nuclear disasters. It has seven levels. Level 7 is a Major Accident, with only two on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a Level 8. This incident has the potential of being the first ever Level 8: an extinction level event.
 
When the plane crashes, the Rev. Michaels, pastor of United Grace Church in Waketa, is conducting a Good Friday service. Steve Tostig, who is in the church, is fire chief of the plant’s on site fire department. He rushes to the plant. Dr. Joselyn Vance, the regional nuclear emergency support team contact person, is on her way.

Power plant employees, firefighters, teachers, families, neighbors and friends are thrust into an extraordinary situation. With roads closed by vehicle crashes caused by the plane crash, the people of the town must come together.

This is a very intense, stressful, fast-moving disaster scenario with multiple storylines. Yes, it is about a plane crash, but it is more about the community coming together after the plane crash. The unforgettable characters are like people you know in your hometown. Have a box of tissues nearby: The ending is very emotional.

I rate it five out of five stars.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

When a pilot suffers a fatal heart attack, his plane crashes into a nuclear power plant outside of a small town in Minnesota, and the countdown to global cataclysm has started. Can the specialists at the plant and the town itself work together to avert disaster?

TJ Newman has readers in the palm of her hand as they turn page after page, hanging on every word, clinging to the hope that things will be okay on both a micro and macro level. That is one of Newman’s great gifts. She not only makes the reader care about the high-concept stakes but also the people involved. If you enjoyed her two previous thrillers, then this is a must-read. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading a TJ Newman book, this is a great starting place.

Thank you Little, Brown and Company for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Wow. Just wow. I've been a fan of T.J. Newman since her debut novel, Falling, and two books later I'm even more of a fan. Worst Case Scenario grabbed me from the first chapter and left me riveted until the last chapter.
The story starts with a bang and the action only continues from there. The first chapters, where Newman sets the scene--airline pilot suffers a fatal heart attack that sends the plane plummeting into the ground, which then sets off catastrophic events on the ground--were so intense I literally gasped out loud more than once.
In her previous books Newman used her knowledge of aviation safety protocols and the airplanes themselves to build the tension and construct a realistic setting for the thriller. I was initially sad when she stepped away from an aircraft setting for this novel, but after a couple of chapters I didn't care because I was so invested in the unfolding drama at the nuclear facility. The stakes were higher than in her previous books, and I admired both her execution of the plot and her willingness to step outside of her comfort zone for this. It definitely paid off!
Although she left the airplane to focus on a nuclear reactor, there were still some recognizable elements in her story. Newman writes great characters, especially her female heroes. They're plucky and resourceful, strong and independent women who are intelligent and compassionate. These are characters I would absolutely follow in a disaster, and I love seeing them on the page!
I also just love that Newman sees heroes in the Everyman. Yes her cast of characters includes experts in their fields working to save the day, but she also has regular people alongside, working the problem and being every bit as heroic as they go along. So many scenes in this involve regular people acting for the good of the community, it constantly left me incredibly stressed out, worried about these characters and their survival, and completely in tears at the goodness Newman lets shine through her characters. I loved all of it, the anxiety and the emotion.
I think it was around chapter four or five that I texted my friends to say I was hooked already and had mentally cleared my calendar. Sorry plans, the only plan now was to finish this book and see how it all ends. Did I stay up past midnight to finish it? Yes. No regrets. This was fantastic and I can't wait for the next!

My heart is racing just thinking about this book. I've read T.J. Newman's other books, Falling and Drowning, and thought they were both wildly entertaining (and stressful and intense and emotional!) Worst Case Scenario was just as good (if not better). I literally could not put this down - the action starts in the first few pages as a plane crashes into a nuclear power plant and the author really doesn't give you a chance to breathe for the rest of the book. It's suspenseful and scary but also incredibly emotional (I cried at multiple parts). This would make a great movie!

Joss Vance, a brilliant engineer and the regional Nuclear Emergency Support Team representative, lives in Wateka, Minnesota. This is a small town in which a nuclear power plant, Clover Hill, is seriously damaged when a passenger jet flying overhead crashes into the facility. If Ms. Vance and her fellow experts cannot come up with a viable plan to handle this crisis, a significant portion of the United States could be exposed to dangerous levels of radioactivity.

T. J. Newman's "Worst Case Scenario" is an adrenaline-fueled thriller in which the author is not content to present us with one or two shocking events. The perils multiply as the story proceeds and, unfortunately, the people in charge do not agree as to what should be done. Even the most knowledgeable among them is terrified of making a critical mistake.

The plot is engrossing, but Newman exhausts us with scenes of tremendous angst that grow more intense as the situation deteriorates. Although we glean basic information about the personal lives of the central characters, the novel's focus is less on their relationships than it is on their desperate attempt to stave off widespread devastation.

I have loved both of T.J. Newman’s books and this one was no different! For someone who flies as much as I do, I should really stop reading her books but they are SO captivating from start to finish, I just can’t look away. This book was about a pilot that has a heart attack in the air, resulting in the plane crashing into a nuclear power plant 😳 it then follows members of the town as they all work in different ways to stop the radiation from leaking out and killing them all. It is such an intense book, every page was a cliffhanger as you switch from different perspectives. I definitely shed some tears and fell in love with these characters as they pushed themselves to breaking points to save those they loved and the town around them. I would definitely recommend this book if you like thrillers! It is nonstop thrills from start to finish, and the writing is so beautiful! Both her other books, Falling and Drowning, are set to hit the big screen, and hopefully 🤞🏼 this one will as well, it would translate so well to a thrilling movie!

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for this ARC copy!

T.J. Newman delivers another pulse-pounding thriller with Worst Case Scenario. While this story takes a departure from her previous works by shifting the action from an airplane to a small-town nuclear power plant, the intensity remains as gripping as ever. The narrative's pace had me tearing through the pages, heart racing, desperate to see how it all unfolded.

Coming off the heels of reading about nuclear warfare, this book heightened my anxiety, amplifying the terrifying possibilities of what could go wrong. The plausibility of the events portrayed kept me up at night.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the adrenaline-fueled journey of Worst Case Scenario, I still hold Drowning as my favorite of her novels.

Author T.J. Newman had the idea for Worst Case Scenario while researching her first novel, Falling, by querying pilots not just about all aspects of their job, but also their fears. They often told her they worried about planes getting caught in power lines, making erroneous decisions, freezing and not being able to make decisions and, of course, not returning home to their families. But Newman says one pilot’s answer “stopped me in my tracks.” She wasn’t sure if he was serious and initially scoffed when he told her, “My greatest fear is a commercial airliner crashing into a nuclear power plant.” Newman believed it an impossibility due to structural standards and security measures in place “in a post-9/11 world.” She naively thought “all nuclear power plants were safe from attack.” But the pilot disavowed her of that idea, saying, “That’s exactly what they want you to think.”

Newman circled back to the idea for her third nove, Worst Case Scenario. At the outset, she knew virtually nothing about nuclear power plants but, luckily, discovered that because of industry transparency, the needed information is readily available. Newman describes her books as “plot focused” and once she completed her research, the genesis of Worst Case Scenario was a complete outline totaling around sixty pages laying out the action.

Worst Case Scenario is a departure for Newan in that the focus of the book is not on how her protagonists will rescue the airliner’s passengers and crew. But the story does open with a crisis on board. As the plane is flying over Minnesota, the pilot suffers a fatal widowmaker heart attack and the 757 goes into free fall. At United Grace Church in the little town of Waketa, fifty-five miles south of Minneapolis, widower Steve Tostig, the Clover Hill nuclear energy plant's on-site Fire Chief, is attending the mid-day Good Friday service. The walls and floor begin to rattle just as something flies over the church, and a loud boom shakes the entire structure. Steve immediately springs into action as Dr. Joss Vance notices the lights in her kitchen flickering and instantly knows what is about to happen. The power goes out. As she grabs her work go-bag containing a satellite phone, full-body hazmat suit, masks, gloves, rubber boots, and a bottle of pills, she washes down the radioprotective potassium iodide with the coffee she had been drinking at her kitchen table and races out the door, en route to Clover Hill. The alert on her phone confirms what she already knows. There has been an incident at the plant. Potentially, a Level 7 incident. “When you work in nuclear power, you never fully forget what it is you do. How dangerous it is, how horrific the potential could be. You always, always respect the potential.” So Joss has “always known a day like this was not a matter of if but when.” In fact, it was that knowledge that brought her home to Waketa and her job as the regional representative of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team. After earning a PhD in nuclear engineering at MIT, Joss worked on policy at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington, D.C. where she grew tired of “being dismissed as an alarmist.”

The large plane breaks apart, strewing debris across a vast area. Just as a van is crossing the bridge over the Mississippi River, carrying a family to an Easter celebration, one of the wings -- ten times larger than the van and carrying hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel -- lands directly in the van’s path. The rear of the van is left dangling thirty feet above the icy water as a massive fire erupts. Five-year-old Connor, who was riding in the van his father was driving, is conscious and still strapped into his car seat.

Once again, Newmans employs her straight-forward, unembellished storytelling style to describe the confusion and chaos that ensues after the crash. In the control room, Plant Manager Ethan Rosen and his staff don’t immediately know what has happened – explosion, earthquake, terrorist attack, equipment failure? – because they work in a windowless room in the building that houses one of three reactors. Clover Hill is in the process of being decommissioned, but it takes years. So only one reactor is offline. The other two were online and generating power when the plane crashed. With alarms sounding, staff frantically begin assessing the status of the plant and soon learn that pieces of the aircraft are scattered across the Clover Hill campus. Gradually, they realize what they are dealing with . . . and must figure out how to address the damage the plant has sustained, a situation no one has ever faced before. They discover that the power line to the plant has been severed so the plant is running on backup diesel generators, and there is extensive structural damage throughout, including to the pool where spent fuel rods are warehoused. It is leaking. If the water level becomes low enough and the rods are exposed, the building in which they are stored will explode. The plant began operating in 1973, so the amount of nuclear waste stored there would feed a fire of a “magnitude mankind has yet to conceive of a way to put out. It would burn forever.” In the other words, it could be the world’s first Level 8, “extinction-level event.”

Newman notes that “it’s very easy to get your characters into trouble. It’s a lot harder to get them out of trouble.” And the trouble her characters face in Worst Case Scenario could be exponentially more far-reaching than the crises depicted in her first two books. She “reverse engineers” her stories. So once she decided that the plane would crash into the plant, she had to figure out the challenges her characters would face and how they would handle them. She set the tale in the fictional small town, rather than a larger metropolitan area, to illustrate “a real nightmare worst case scenario for the country.” Other regions, like California (where only the Diablo Canyon plant remains operational, and three others have been fully decommissioned), have more resources and safeguards available. And by placing Clover Hill at the top of the Mississippi River, the catastrophe could destroy “the heart of the country,” rendering uninhabitable a large swath of land bisecting the United States.

Once again, Newman has created a cast of empathetic characters navigating a crisis that demands they be their best selves. Ethan and Steve, in leadership roles, gather input and make hard decisions, while Joss serves as the liaison to America’s youngest-ever President, who is safely ensconced five stories down in the White House’s Deep Underground Command Center with his advisors. Newman alternates the action between the plant and, to a lesser degree, the people of Wateka banding together, relying on information broadcast by a retired plant engineer from an underground bunker on the plant’s campus. His forty-seven-year career included a role in the plant’s construction and his insight proves invaluable.

A second major storyline focuses on a group of heroic first responders who refuse to abandon little Conner, even though they have no idea how to safely extract him from the van. Newman includes a gut-wrenching exploration of the allocation of scarce resources and the options available in such circumstances, noting that they are “undermanned, under-resourced, out of ideas, and out of time trying to save one individual person.” Must the needs of many be prioritized over the peril faced by one? “It’s about saving the fate of humanity. But what is that, if not the life of one individual?” she observes.

Throughout Worst Case Scenario, Newman deftly illustrates her characters’ palpable terror and the responsibility they feel to each other, as well as the countless Americans who will be impacted in myriad ways if their survival mission fails. The characters are fully developed and believable – not surprisingly, most rise to the occasion, but some take longer than others. Most importantly, Newman compels readers to care about her characters and their futures. The story would not succeed sans that emotional connection and she is gratified when readers identify with and cheer for her characters because she cares deeply about their welfare as she brings them to life, going through “boxes and boxes of Kleenex” while she writes. Her compassion is evident on every page, alongside her readily understandable and terrifying explanations of precisely what is at stake. Newman says that “the absolute heart and essence of my stories, is everyday people in an extraordinary circumstance rising to meet the moment. I deeply believe in the everyday hero in all of us, and that ordinary people only need the opportunity to be the heroes that they actually are.”

To dismiss Newman’s latest tautly crafted story as far-fetched or implausible would be a mistake. She says Worst Case Scenario was more difficult to write than her first two books. Once she began researching the subject matter, she “realized that the premise of the book is completely plausible, and . . . this research scared the hell out of me.” Still, she does not consider the tale an indictment of the nuclear energy industry. “If I have an agenda with my books, it is to entertain. Full stop.”

Newman has penned another horrifyingly realistic and deeply unsettling thriller. It is fast-paced, tense, and riveting. It is also moving, replete with heartbreaking losses and disappointment, as well as valor, personal sacrifice, and triumph. She explores familial and community relationships, challenging readers to contemplate how they would react in a similar situation. It is certain to be yet another bestseller . . . and leaves readers pondering just what she will come up with next.

TJ Newman has definitely solidified a place as one of my favourite authors after this! I love how fast-paced and action-packed her stories are, and this one was no different.

All of her books follow some sort of airplane incident. This one doesn't spend as much time with the actual plane, but rather the aftermath of the plane crashing into a nuclear power plant. While the plot was perhaps a bit outlandish at times, I still found it captivating from basically start to finish. And the ending was absolutely heartbreaking, but a testament to her writing and how quickly I get invested in these characters' lives.

Thank you to Netgalley and Little Brown for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher.

Whew, he did not pull any punches in this book! It was a high-speed adventure from beginning to end. Main characters got picked off, and other tragedies were averted. . .the highs were high, the lows were low, and the ending was tied up nicely.

A thrilling story that is completely riveting. Newman has a sensational hit on her hands, once again.
With level 7 being the highest nuclear reactor damage assessment known to mankind, the
town of Waketa, Minnesota, is about to hit an 8: Worst Case Scenario.
Waketa becomes ground zero when a pilot suffers a fatal heart attack and collapses on to the throttle of a jumbo jet causing the plane to crash and debris to embed in the town's nuclear reactor's holding towers for the core rods. Damage and death surrounds the community as flaming debris from the jetliner destroys the town that is usually a very quiet, unremarkable place to live and work.
Time is against them as they issue evacuation orders for the entire town's nuclear reactor radius and look to volunteers to enter the cooling pools to take the preventive measures needed to stop the cores from melting down and far surpassing the horrific destruction of Chernobyl.
This is one read you simply can not put down.
Fabulously thrilling with characters and interactions that simply jump right off the pages.
A story that could be, literally, as the saying goes, "ripped from the headlines".
Which makes it absolutely chilling.
Kudos to T.J. Newman.
Keep them coming.
PLEASE.

T.J. Newman does it again. This book kept me on the edge of my seat and my anxiety felt like it was at an all-time high (but in a good way). A pilot suffers a medical emergency while flying the plane and it crashes into a small town. What could possibly go wrong? EVERYTHING. This book made me laugh and cry, but also made me feel like I could picture all of the vivid scenes like a movie in my head . This novel is a winner!

TJ Newman is quickly becoming a new favorite / auto-buy author for me. They haven't failed to make me cry yet and this is one of the few five-star reads I've had in 2024! Fast-paced (like I finished this in two days) and heart-racing.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’ve never read a book like this…it will take your breath away and have you on the edge of your seat. It starts off so intense and doesn’t let up until the very end.

Your emotions, feelings and “what would you do” will be tested as you read this story. The characters are fantastic, the situation is terrifying but the good of people comes to light as they are facing one of the scariest moments of their lives.

I am looking forward to going back and reading the other books by TJ Newman. This one will stay with me for quite some time.

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the advanced readers copy.

Worst Case Scenario just went on my very short list of “I wish I could read this for the first time again” books! This is my first T.J Newman book and what an introduction to her it was!

I really wanted read this book when I heard about it and was so happy to receive an ARC of it, then when I got it I suddenly was hesitant to read it. I love to fly and Worst Case Scenario is one of those books where a real life worst case scenario happens and suddenly I had to pause and think am I ready to read this. Yes, I am!

Worst Case Scenario is told from multiple view points from Waketa, Minnesota heroes and residents impacted by a commercial passenger plane crashing into the local nuclear plant. We get a glimpse of what happens on the plane to cause the crash but the true story is the aftermath of the crash. It took me a moment to adjust to the alternating POVs and how they sometimes switched but this book was wonderfully written.

T.J Newman did a beautiful job building the relationships in the book, describing the workings of a nuclear power plant and also presenting us with the real life decision making that would happen from elementary school teachers protecting our kids to the Nuclear plant workers trying to save the city, country and world, all the way to the President of the United States.

I don’t cry when reading, I get little emotional tingles and maybe goosebumps but never flat out tears falling cry. This had me on an emotional roller coaster from anxious to proud of humanity to suddenly at 70% into the book I’m starting to feel gutted and tears appear and then around 90% I had a stuffy nose and couldn’t control my tears!

I wish I could read this for the first time again!

** Thank you to NetGalley, Little Brown & Company and T.J Newman for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. **

I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I had to know what happened. This book was addicting in a good way and kept me on my toes. I would highly suggest you read it. Also super fast paced which I'm a big fan of.