A competitive figure skater, a Peace Corps assignment in Tunis, and a marriage interrupted almost immediately by an international crisis give Goodbye Demons an unusually wide emotional range. JJ Harrigan follows Angie Fernandez Parnell and U.S. diplomat James Whitcomb through two ordeals unfolding at once: James faces deprivation, political manipulation, and uncertainty as a hostage inside the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, while Angie’s refusal to remain passive leads her toward a high-risk plan that could reunite them or destroy the life she is trying to preserve.
Goodbye Demons
Author: JJ Harrigan
Genre: Suspense, Historical Fiction
Date Published: April 24, 2026
Publisher: Salty Books Publishing Company, LLC
When injuries cut short the figure skating career of Angie Fernandez Parnell, she joins the Peace Corps. She is assigned to Tunis where she finds her soulmate, U.S. diplomat James Whitcomb. At the conclusion of their tours of duty, they marry, and within weeks of the wedding, he is taken captive in the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979-81.
James, held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, endures the same demons that afflicted the real-life hostages during the actual crisis 45 years ago. Deprivation, bad treatment, political manipulation, and above all the uncertainty of whether or when it would all end.
Angie, biting her nails at home, endures her own demons. How can she support him? Should she join efforts that pressure the president to negotiate a release? Or even a rescue? A take-charge person by nature, she follows a path that will reap huge benefits if it works. Or destroy her life if it fails.
Goodbye Demons is a visceral, emotionally charged exploration of resilience in the face of adversity. It is the story of a man and a woman struggling to overcome demons beyond their control.
This was the chance of a lifetime, and Angie swore she wouldn’t blow it. She did elaborate stretching exercises and weight training. She followed a dietician’s meal plan and skated five days a week under the guidance of her coach. Angie concocted a brilliant plan to capture the Gold at Nationals and guarantee her a slot on the Olympic team.
Her coach objected. “No woman has ever done a triple axel, and you’re not ready.”
“I did it in practice. You saw me.”
“You fell. A perfect double axel that you’re capable of doing trumps a triple axel that you screw up.”
Angie was determined to do the triple without falling. She doubled down on her training regime. Bruising falls came each day. It wasn’t until a week before the competitions that she completed a triple. She grinned triumphantly at her surprised coach. Then on the next try she took a nasty fall that left her limping when she rose from the ice. Her coach sped over to her. After making sure Angie had broken no bones, she again warned her to stop trying the triple axel.
“You’re not ready. It’s a riverboat gamble.”
“I have to take the gamble when I’ve got the chance.”
“You’ll have a chance next year. You’ll be stronger and more experienced. That’ll be the time to do it.”
“In the meantime, some other girl might do it first, and nobody will ever hear about me. Even if I do one the next day. Can you tell me who was the second woman to fly across the Atlantic?”
Angie’s history as an athlete matters because it establishes the instinct that drives her throughout the novel: she would rather risk a painful fall than surrender an opportunity through caution. The excerpt places that trait on the ice, where a triple axel becomes a “riverboat gamble.” The hostage crisis later gives the same instinct far greater stakes.
The dual storyline also allows the novel to examine powerlessness from opposing directions. James must survive confinement while decisions about his future are made elsewhere. Angie remains physically free but cannot protect her husband through ordinary means. Her refusal to remain passive creates the suspense beyond the historical outcome itself.
Harrigan’s background as a former U.S. Service Officer and political science professor supports a premise built around diplomacy, political pressure, and the human consequences of international conflict. The result is historical fiction shaped not only by a well-known crisis but by the private calculations of a newly married couple caught inside it.
This novel belongs on the reading lists of those drawn to historical suspense in which political events are experienced through intimate relationships. The Iranian Hostage Crisis provides the larger framework, but the emotional focus remains on James and Angie as they respond to separation, uncertainty, and pressures neither can fully control.
The story may also appeal to readers interested in diplomatic history, the Peace Corps, international service, and protagonists whose defining qualities create both their strengths and their dangers. Angie’s competitive nature, first tested in figure skating, gives the novel a heroine who responds to crisis by searching for leverage rather than accepting helplessness.
Couples separated by military, diplomatic, or government service form another natural audience. James and Angie’s brief marriage is forced to endure a public crisis through profoundly private fear, making their relationship central to the novel rather than incidental to its historical setting.
Historical thriller author JJ Harrigan is a former US Service Officer and political science professor. He scribbles his tales of intrigue on the banks of the St. Croix River in Minnesota, where he lives with his wife, Sandy.
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The defining question in Goodbye Demons is not simply how James survives captivity. It is what happens when Angie applies the fearless logic of an elite athlete to a political crisis in which determination cannot guarantee control.
Her willingness to gamble once distinguished her on the ice. During the hostage crisis, that same quality may become the only force capable of changing her circumstances—or the decision that destroys the life she is trying to preserve. That tension gives the novel its sharpest edge.
By connecting a young woman’s competitive ambition, a newlywed marriage, and a defining episode in U.S. diplomatic history, Harrigan creates a story concerned with more than endurance. Goodbye Demons asks readers to consider what action means when every available choice carries a cost.
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