It’s official. Fade In is one of the hottest reads of the summer!

Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Scot Harvath series, shares why he loves Fade In on the Today Show—watch the full clip

Preorder your copy today!

Preorder Fade In from one of the participating indie bookstores below and you’ll receive an autographed bonus alternate ending to the book.

Book Passage
Buffalo Street Books
Murder By The Book (tour store)
Mystery Lovers Bookshop
novel. Memphis
Once Upon A Crime (tour store)
The Book Dragon Shop
The Poisoned Pen (tour store)

My tour will begin on July 29, 2025. Here are the tour stores if you’d like to attend an event.

If you’ve been following the lead-up to the launch of my new series, no doubt you’ve seen the news that Will Damron will narrate Fade In. Along with many fans and the publisher, I’m excited to have him on board. When we started discussing audiobooks, I made a short list of the readers who seemed right for the role. Then I listened to their auditions and Will was the guy who sounded like the Fade in my head. Oddly, this is the first time I’ve been invited to weigh in on who will read a novel I’ve written. It was a challenging but fascinating process.

We Have A Narrator. Now What?

After this experience, I realized that I had no idea how the narration process works. How are mistakes fixed? How long does it take to prepare for the role of every single character in the book? What kind of notations are on the manuscript?

I started a short list of questions that then transformed into a long list. Since I now have a professional voice actor in my contacts, I thought this might be a great time to dig into the world of audiobooks.

The Process. Revealed.

Will and I recently recorded an in-depth Q&A that will pull back the curtain and give fans a look at how the sausage is made. We’ll only offer this exclusive episode at the end of the Fade In audiobook. So stick around after the last chapter. You won’t regret it!

One of the goals of leaving the amazing Rapp-verse was to move away from the problems of the Middle East and dive deep into the rapidly evolving dangers of the modern world. If you were born in 1300 and were lucky enough to live to be a hundred, what would you have seen? The development of a slightly better cannon? A marginally taller cathedral? The development of mechanical clocks that only existed in a few of Europe’s wealthiest town squares?

By contrast, I now have to constantly monitor the news for new technologies that might make entire chapters obsolete before they’re even finished. Fade In had some fascinating topics to tackle and the research necessary took a lot of time and energy. It’s not your dad’s wheel gun anymore. This stuff’s getting complicated.

Artificial Intelligence

For good reason, AI is on everyone’s mind right now. When I started Fade In, it wasn’t much more than media hype. At the end, it had begun to permeate every aspect of our lives.

A lot of people think about it becoming sentient and ending up in a Terminator/Matrix-type dystopia, but that’s unlikely. It’s actually more insidious than that. Autonomous cars eliminating an entire category of jobs, deep fake videos, increasingly sophisticated internet scams and social media bots, and independent weapons. I explored a number of these angles, including an autonomous anti-personnel drone that was terrifying because I know that it’s inevitable. With sophisticated signal jamming, there’s no question that these will be the weapons of the future. Let’s hope they’re a little more predictable than the current version of ChatGPT.

COVID

I did a detailed review of the origin of the disease, which was intriguing in that it was so inconclusive. The intelligence agencies can’t agree on whether the virus was created in the Wuhan lab or spilled over from a nearby wet market.

The critical piece here is that the former is so plausible. As technology advances, it becomes easier and easier to produce weapons once unimaginable of mass destruction. How will the world survive when someone with an undergrad degree can create a bioweapon capable of killing billions? Or maybe skip the degree and just ask AI.

Medical Advances

We are quickly entering a new age of custom therapies that can be designed to work with a single person’s genetic makeup. Cancer treatments, anti-aging strategies, and even physical and mental improvements never considered by Mother Nature. They’re expensive, though, and their potency is going to get way ahead of their affordability.

Are we moving into an era that the hyper-wealthy will no longer die of cancer? Age more slowly than the rest of us? Will their children be faster, stronger, smarter, and better looking than us? How will we compete when they’re not just richer than us, but genetically superior? The really scary thing is that this isn’t just something playing out in my book. Some of it is already happening in the real world.

Population Collapse

This isn’t something that most thrillers touch on because it’s kind of a slow emergency, but it plays a part in the book and it turned out to be a fascinating subject.

With the exception of some time around the plague, the human population has always grown, and since 1930 has flat out exploded. It’s hard to believe, but when I was born, the number of people on earth was less than half of what it is today.

The ramifications of this are massive and far reaching, affecting everything from economics to geopolitics, to the environment.

China is a country with one of the steepest declines and it’s interesting to think about how that will play out. One terrifying theory relates to a potential invasion of Taiwan. Because of China’s rapidly aging population and the fact that their opponent will inevitably be at the forefront of AI air and sea drones, their attack window is closing. Will that loudly ticking clock goad them into making one of the most disastrous moves in modern history?

Now that you’ve read about my research for the book, do you know the story Behind the Book? 

We’ve all been there. An unforeseen event takes us in a direction we never dreamed of. Sometimes the disruption is welcome and other times it’s not. But one thing’s certain: The universe has a way of keeping you guessing.

The roots of my life today stretch back twenty years to when I’d started writing a manuscript about an ex-SEAL called Fade. In that era, I was known for creating plots that had enormous stakes for both the characters and society. It was a terrifying departure to write an anti-hero whose struggles and charisma were the primary drivers of the story. But what the hell? I did it anyway.

When my editor sent the initial book layout, it included the following quote:

“Kyle Mills is a master of the page-turner. His attention to detail and his smooth style will keep you reading well into the night.”

That blurb was from the one and only Vince Flynn. Vince and I started our writing careers around the same time and despite having mutual friends, we never met. At one time, we had a tentative plan to get together in Utah, but our schedules never synced. It’s a missed opportunity I still regret.

After Vince passed, I had one of those weird small-world moments—a call about continuing the Mitch Rapp series. A decade after receiving his blurb for Fade, our worlds once again aligned and would be forevermore intertwined.

As I was penning my last entries into the Rappverse, it seemed that geopolitics were spiraling more and more out of control. The universe had another surprise: In that messiness, a door had swung wide open for me to resurrect Fade—a character that neither I nor many of my fans could completely shake.

Unlike Mitch, Fade isn’t always the master of his universe. He can be dragged along in the same currents as everyone else—struggling with runaway technology, political instability, and the breakneck speed of change that we all feel so keenly in 2025. He’s a pop philosopher with a dark sense of humor and a gift for killing people that helps make sense of a world that seems to have gone a little off the rails.

While didn’t see this fork in the road coming, I’m happy to be along for the ride. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to understand the importance of saying yes to new challenges and reinvention. It can be terrifying to close your eyes and leap into the unknown, but also a thrilling opportunity to learn new things and seek new perspectives.

It’s hard to believe that June 1 will mark twenty years since I created Fade. I’ll be raising a glass of top-shelf tequila to toast him and this next phase that we’ll all be embarking on together.

Fade will return in Fade In, the start of my new series, on July 29, 2025. Check out the plot and the story behind the book.

Believe it or not, after nearly thirty years in this business, Fade In will mark the first time I’ve been asked to participate in choosing an audio reader.

It was a fascinating process but also a complicated one. I’ve never considered how much a narrator’s voice does or doesn’t sound like the character in my head.

Until now.

I’m happy to announce that Will Damron will voice the book and I think he’s the perfect choice. In addition to sounding just like the Fade I imagined, he’s a fascinating guy to chat with. More on that later…

Would you like early access to the most compelling new character to hit the thriller scene in years?

Are you a fan who likes to spread the word about your favorite novels?

If so, we need your help to make Fade In the hottest book of the summer.

Fade Nation Application

I can’t believe that Fade In is finally on its way to the printer! I’ve been thinking about this book for almost fifteen years now—slowly filling a drawer with notes that I assumed would never see the light of day. When that drawer finally overflowed, though, I knew it was time to put pen to paper.

My decade advancing the Mitch Rapp series was both a privilege and a blast, but it was equally fun to rediscover my own voice and apply it to the strange and dangerous world we live in. I hope you enjoy reading Fade In as much as I enjoyed writing it. Let the countdown to pub day begin!

Want to more about Fade In, the book that will kick off my new series? Find it here.

Despite having twenty-four books to my name, a new novel never feels real until the cover art is out in the world. FADE IN is no exception, and for that reason, today is a special day.

On Shelves July 29, 2025

Preorders

Early sales are critical to the success of a new release. Order FADE IN now and you’ll not only get the book as soon as it’s available, you’ll help assure the future of a provocative new character.

Plot

There’s no better way to spend a winter day than with friends—those favorite characters who can be trusted to always take us along on another incredible adventure.

Books have long been the cornerstone of my Christmas mornings. It started with a stocking full of comics that I could only peruse for the pictures, then for my first forays into Dr. Seuss and my beloved Roald Dahl. And, finally, into Steven King, James Clavell, and Trevanian.

Those characters felt as real to me as family, neighbors, and classmates. Sometimes, I went along for the ride. Other times, I put myself directly into the shoes of John Blackthorne, Nicholai Hel, or Jason Bourne. Either way, it was as much a part of the magic of the season as Santa and his reindeer.

My Christmas wish is that you find a book under the tree that casts a spell you never escape.

Happy Holidays!