January Always Comes

December is good at disguises. Holiday lights soften hard edges. Parties blur what we don’t want to think about. Music fills the silence. We toast, we gather, we exude cheer—sometimes convincingly, sometimes not. For a few weeks, it’s easy to believe that what troubles us has been handled simply because it’s been ignored. But whatever was there before December is still there. January proves it.

The decorations come down. The noise fades. The calendar turns, but the unfinished business remains—quiet, patient, and waiting. January doesn’t create problems. It reveals the ones that never left. January always comes. It strips away the gloss and leaves us alone with ourselves.

Mystery fiction understands this instinctively. In many stories, a character believes they can outrun who they are. They reinvent themselves. They bury a past mistake, a crime, a truth they’d rather not face. Sometimes the disguise even works—for a while. But just as December can’t permanently mask what lies beneath, neither can a false identity. The essence remains. It presses upward, threatening to surface. And it always does.

In mysteries, the January moment is the moment when the mask slips. When the polished version of a person cracks. When the truth—long submerged—emerges despite every effort to keep it hidden. The cold has a way of sharpening things. So does silence. So does time.

January doesn’t judge. It doesn’t comfort. It simply exists. It reminds us that celebration is temporary, distraction is fragile, and truth is persistent. You can cover it with lights and laughter for a season, but eventually the music stops. Eventually the room empties. Eventually, you’re left with what’s real. That’s not a failure. It’s a reckoning. And for mystery lovers, it’s exactly where the story gets interesting.

January strips away the gloss and leaves us alone with what’s real.

Work in Progress: Going Where the Story Goes

Writing the second book in the Cody Hart Series, Two for Fear, has reminded me of something I sometimes forget between projects: going deep has a cost.

Cody, the protagonist, carries a great deal of loss, and there are days when allowing myself to fully enter that space—his grief, his near-exhaustion, his stubborn refusal to let go—leaves me more drained than I expected. Not sad, exactly. Just wrung out. As if I’ve been holding my breath longer than I realized.

I’ve learned not to fight that feeling. For me, it’s usually a sign that I’ve gone where the story needed me to go, rather than skimming the surface for the sake of comfort. The trick, of course, is knowing when to step back—to take a walk, make a cup of tea, and remind myself that the weight belongs to the page now, not to me.

January seems like the right month to acknowledge this kind of work. It’s a quieter season, one that doesn’t pretend depth is optional. Some stories require us to sit with what’s uncomfortable, even briefly, in order to tell the truth.

I’m grateful for the days when the writing flows easily. And I respect the days when it asks more. Both are part of the work.

Let’s Stay in Touch

Festival season will start soon. Please follow me on Facebook for details. I’ll be at the Laurel Haven Winery in Lancaster on January 24. I’m also on Instagram and LinkedIn and occasionally on TikTok and BlueSky. Until we talk again in January, be safe and keep reading!