25 Nights
You survived 25 Days. Now, brace yourself for what comes after dark.
Per Jacobsen's international bestseller 25 Days exposed readers to a family's terrifying Secret Santa nightmare. Now, the chilling countdown continues, but from an entirely new, unsettling perspective.
25 Nights pulls back the ski mask, inviting you deep into the fractured mind of the villain himself. What hidden darkness fuels his game? What shocking truths lurk beneath the surface? This immersive psychological thriller doesn't just revisit the events of the first book; it redefines them, forcing you to question everything you thought you knew about the architect of terror.
- Man in the ski mask - Simon
- Frank - Simon and Caleb’s father
- Elma - Simon and Frank’s mother
- Simon - Frank and Elma’s son
- Caleb - Frank and Elma’s son
- Adam - Beth’s husband
- Beth - Adam’s wife
- Abby - Adam and Beth’s daughter
- Chloe - Adam and Beth’s daughter
- Bill - Owner of the cabin
- Megan - Simon’s college classmate
- The boy: Nine-year-old Simon lives on his parents’ Christmas tree farm with his mother, brother and his physically and verbally abusive father.
- The Man in the ski mask: The man starts leaving eerie gifts in a Christmas stocking for Adam and his family to find while they are staying at Bill’s vacation cabin.
- He watches as the family looks at the pictures in the stocking and realize that they were taken while they were in the cabin and that they are being watched.
- The boy: A young customer gives Simon a snow globe that fascinates him. Simon thinks it looks just like Bill’s rental cabin.
- The teenager: In college, Simon takes part in a Secret Santa gift exchange when a pretty girl named Megan encourages him to join.
- The gift Simon receives is deodorant, breath mints and a note saying his girlfriend is one of the pigs on his family’s farm.
- Simon is angry at Megan, thinking that she purposely encouraged him to join the Secret Santa so the others could pick on him.
- The Man in the ski mask: The man sabotages the family’s car so they cannot escape.
- The man sees Adam grab the landline and make a call.
- He assumes Adam called Bill for help, so he intercepts Bill on the road, knocks him out and kidnaps him.
- The man ties Bill to a chair in an abandoned radio outpost and cuts off one of his fingers.
- He puts Bill’s finger in a stocking and hangs it in Bill’s SUV.
- When Adam and his family flee from the cabin on foot, they discover the stocking with the bloody finger inside.
- The man shoots Adam and believes he is dead.
- The teenager: Simon finds a dead bird, puts it in Megan’s stocking and hangs it on her window.
- Megan is terrified by the dead bird just as Simon hoped she would be.
- Someone sees what Simon did and he gets expelled.
- The man in the ski mask: The man kidnaps Beth, Abby and Chloe and locks them up inside an abandoned radio outpost.
- The boy: Caleb starts finding ways to get Simon in trouble with Frank because he enjoys seeing Simon get punished and likes having Frank’s attention focused on Simon.
- The man in the ski mask: Adam arrives to save his family but the man stabs him in the leg with one of his tools.
- Beth stabs the man in the back with a branch cutting tool.
- The outpost catches on fire, so the man leaves, assuming the family will die in the fire.
- The boy: Simon runs away from home and walks to Bill’s cabin.
- No one is at the cabin and it is locked, so Simon breaks a window to gain entry.
- The man in the ski mask: The man has been at Bill’s cabin for two days recovering from his back wound.
- Adam, Beth, Abby and Chloe escape from the radio outpost.
- The boy: After three days, Frank finds Simon at Bill’s cabin and takes him home.
- Frank takes Simon’s snow globe away from him and gives it to Caleb for Christmas.
- Simon grabs for the snow globe, and it breaks.
- Simon cleans up the broken pieces and keeps them because the snow globe was so precious to him.
- The teenager: Simon kills Caleb, Frank and Elma with a piece of the broken snow globe.
- Simon sets the house on fire.
- The man in the ski mask: He tracks down the family at a gas station where Abby starts a fire so they can escape.
- He wakes up in the hospital where they try to save him, but he dies.
Thank you to Sarah Jacobsen for an advanced copy of this book.
25 Nights is every bit as good as 25 Days. I would recommend reading 25 Days before starting this one in order to fully appreciate the story and avoid being confused.
This story jumps between three different time periods, following Simon at nine, Simon at eighteen, and the man in the ski mask in the present. While the present-day storyline continues the events from the first book, the book is more focused on Simon’s childhood and how his experiences shaped the person he eventually became.
Simon has a very difficult childhood, and that part of the book was what made it so emotional. Seeing what he goes through at such a young age and then watching him grow into his teenage years gave me a better understanding of the person behind the mask. I also liked getting to see the same events from the killer’s perspective because it added another layer without simply repeating the first book.
The medium-length chapters kept things moving, and the ending was appropriate and left me satisfied with how everything came together. Overall, I thought this was a great follow-up to 25 Days and a much more emotional book than I expected.
If you like dark Christmas thrillers, troubled childhoods, and stories told from the killer’s perspective, then you will love this book.
- Simon - Dead - Succumbed to his injuries from the fire
- Frank - Dead - Killed by Simon
- Elma - Dead - Killed by Simon
- Caleb - Dead - Killed by Simon
- Animal death
- Torture
- Child abuse
- Murder
ISBN: 9788794319485
Publication Date: November 1, 2026
Note: Details are for the original edition. Other formats, editions, and audiobook versions may be available.
