Snow Blind (Published)

The stags went to celebrate a marriage. The groom just hoped for survival.

Could you survive the modern stag weekend? Snow Blind is a black run to the heart of the male psyche

Snow Blind is a viciously funny novel with a moral. Set on a stag ski weekend in Chamonix it lifts the lid on male relationships and asks whether we are taking responsibility to leave a legacy for our

Snow Blind is a viciously funny novel with a moral. It lifts the lid on male relationships and asks whether men ever truly grow up. More importantly, what impact is this having on the legacy we leave our kids?

Dan Greenhenge is sliding uncontrollably towards the dual dangers of a gaping ice-blue crevasse and a marriage of convenience. This 40-year old music obsessed copywriter is a lovely, but hapless man, his survival will be determined by whether he can finally take responsibility for himself. Richard Blanchard’s début novel takes place over an extended stag ski weekend in Chamonix, France, below the peaks of Mont Blanc. Dan is under pressure from every angle. First his son Bepe is in a life threatening accident at Manchester Airport, and then there is Robert, an estranged college friend who disrespects everything Dan is, who leads the stag party astray. Dan’s boss has heaped work on him, to try to save their advertising agency. But his biggest worry is the presence of Juliet, the ‘love of his lifetime’ ex-girlfriend who has wrangled her way into the weekend, an honorary stag-ette on a mission. As the stags push Dan into increasingly embarrassing situations, he can’t refuse. But when they take this novice skier to the Vallee Blanche, some of the most challenging terrain in Europe, have they pushed him too far?

To Buy the paperback or the ebook on Kindle just go to my Amazon page to buy from Richard Blanchard Books.

Alternatively you can always find it by searching for either

– Snow Blind Richard Blanchard

– ISBN 978178306845

Intro to Snow Blind

Snow Blind is my first novel. I aimed to write a morally challenging but entertaining story.

I have been able to draw on my experience as an older father of two young sons, and an avid skier. Although I currently run my own online consultancy for retailers, I have always been driven to write. In 2007 I got the chance to put my redundancy cheque where my mouth was and proceeded to start Snow Blind. I decided to self publish as an antidote to simply waiting for the off-chance that an agent and publisher would in turn pluck me from casting couch obscurity.

When Dan brings together a group of seven so called friends: brother Chris; best friend Johnny; Boss Max; Colleague Steve; old college friend Robert and ex girlfriend Juliet. They all have their own agenda for the weekend.

The central theme of Snow Blind is responsibility, most prominently the extent to which men truly grow up and accept theirs. There are quite a few Peter Pans out there and my motivation for writing Snow Blind was to get us to think about the impact of not growing up. Having had a few scares myself (Hillsborough, Vallee Blanche crevasse) it always struck me as a tragedy that it is only when we are near death that we value life. The central drama takes place on the stunning Vallee Blanche in Chamonix where I had a very close call experience with my solid best friend John Young (RIP mate, miss you so much). We ended up crashing into each other, but he was mightily relieved as it diverted me from a path down a crevasse!