T.J. Newman's newest thriller is a must-read, and continues her reign as the best in the genre

Is there a point when you are no longer the flight attendant author? Is it after multiple bestsellers? Or two multimillion-dollar movies based on your books going into production? Maybe after your third book comes out? Is that when you are just known as an author?

T.J. Newman is learning all this in real time.  

For her, authenticity is important in storytelling. Newman did not seem overly concerned when asked about the labels attached to her in the writing world. 

”I think I can only be exactly what I am. That is my past, that is my journey. I am a failed actress-turned bookseller-turned flight attendant-turned published author. That is my past, I am proud of it.” says Newman, whose highly-anticipated thriller of a novel, “Worse Case Scenario” (Little Brown, 336 pp) releases on Tuesday. The book covers a commercial airplane that crashes into a nuclear plant in a small town in Minnesota. The drama comes from regular people who must fight against a meltdown that could kill or displace millions. Newman details unassuming characters who must rise to the heroic occasions, and make monumental sacrifices. 

Newman is in many ways a study of resilience, and even if she would never admit it, may be one of the everyday heroes from which she says she draws for her own stories. 

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Calling from Los Angeles where she is working on the screenplay for a movie based on her first novel, “Falling” with Universal, and executive producing on a movie based on her second novel, “Drowning: Flight 1421” and starting media promotion for her third novel, Newman is sometimes also just thinking about a vacation. 

An overnight success

When Newman’s first book “Falling” was released in 2021, legendary author Don Winslow called it “stunning and relentless,” though there was still seemingly as much talk about Newman being a flight attendant as there was the book. 

Newman has always loved telling stories. She tried at first to make it on Broadway after graduating from college with a degree in musical theater. 

When that didn’t work, Newman moved home – to her childhood bedroom at her parents' Phoenix area house and got a job at an indie bookstore. It was here where she was surrounded by people who loved stories. She then got a job as a flight attendant – a job her mom and sister both held. It was there that she found inspiration for her first book after asking a pilot a "what-if" question. 

Her story has been told as a seemingly overnight success – with her writing the first plot details on a Virgin Atlantic napkin on the red-eye flight between LA and New York.

Newman likely finds humor in the “overnight” part of the success story. 

She had 41 rejections from publishers before she found an agent who would take on an unknown writer. Yet, after all this, there was a bidding war for that book – and the flight attendant was soon an author with several seven-figure offers before her first book was even published.

In the acknowledgments in her first book, Newman credits her mother for helping her past adversity, saying “I pushed this book from draft to draft because my mom refused to let me settle for anything less than everything I’ve ever wanted.” 

She also profusely thanked her agent Shane Salerno, whom she compared to a “Mr. Miyagi-like mentor." Newman’s humble nature shines through in her fictional characters, as well as in interviews. When asked about her many perceptions and labels, she seemed most proud of her resilience, and says, “I think people can relate to being told ‘no,' can relate to rejection, and pursuing a dream and being told you’re not good enough. And being that example of someone told no, and finally gets her yes, I’m fine with that label because it shows people if this can happen to me, this could happen to you too.” 

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Drawing inspiration from regular people

“Worst Case Scenario” is Newman's first novel that does not take place primarily on an airplane, but rather, it deals with a potential nuclear disaster in a small midwestern town. “Worst Case Scenario” is yet another of Newman's page-turners, keeping me up later than anticipated as I could not set the book down. 

Drawing inspiration for this novel again from asking real pilots about their worst fears, Newman delivers another set of captivating characters and blockbuster-like suspense.

Newman seems to be able to see the best in all of us, telling me: “As scary as the stories are that I write, the essence of them, 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.” 

Newman also says “Worst Case Scenario” has been her hardest book yet to write, and half-jokingly said that she wanted to write a list of “grievances” in place of the typical acknowledgments section. 

Part of what made this novel so difficult for Newman to research, beyond the main obstacle covering a more niche subject of nuclear energy, was the fact that Newman found the research to be unnerving. 

“I was hesitant to write this book once I started researching it because I realized that the premise of the book is completely plausible, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to put myself in that world,” she says, and also admitted, “this research scared the hell out of me.”

But she said that also invigorated her, as she thought she could harness that fear into what could make a blockbuster. 

“I write big summer action movies, except they are books, and Michael Crichton, is essentially my north star,” she says. After praising Crichton’s versatility, she teleports back over 30 years: “When I saw 'Jurassic Park' in the theaters in 1993 as a little girl, and can remember standing in the lobby and holding my hand up and watching it shake because I was so terrified, that book and that movie connected something in my mind, if you can bring dinosaurs back, anything is possible, it just expanded my creative possibilities.”

Newman was also quick to give flowers to her firefighter Jeremy “Cousin Jer” Newman, and her engineer brother-in-law, describing them both as invaluable assets to her research and writing process. It is possible the heroic fictional firefighters Dani or Steve were inspired by these real-life figures, or maybe the clashing and entangled nuclear engineers Joss or Ethan were. Maybe you will see shades of your grandpa in the heroic retired nuclear engineer character of Marion. Maybe the small town coming together displayed in the setting of Waketa, Minnesota, will remind you of a community you grew up in or once visited.

What's next for T.J. Newman?

Newman has been in Los Angeles working on “Falling” and writing the screenplay for her second novel. Neither yet have release dates. When asked if she could ever see herself appearing in a movie based on one of her books, as she does have prior acting experience, Newman relays another humble answer, saying that although she would love to make an appearance, she “knows what it is like to need that job, to need that role, and even just an extra, even just a walk-on position, maybe that's the difference between having health insurance or not for an actor, maybe the difference between giving up on their dream, or keeping on going.” 

For now, Newman is working on yet another story, as she says she always has a story alive, and something in progress. She is also hoping that her work could inspire more girls to write, saying “If my success can show other women, or little girls, that are like me, and I know they are out there, I know I am not the only women has these stories (big psychological thrillers) to tell, and if my success can encourage women to write the stories that they want to tell, not just the stories that they should tell, or would be allowed to tell, but to write what they want to tell, that would be a huge, huge privilege, and I hope that can happen.” 

But for now, a break may be in order, as Newman tells me, “But if I am being totally honest, right after this book comes out, there is going to be a vacation somewhere. Three books, one movie, and one script in three years, I am overdue for a good vacation and a breather.”