Count To Ten by RAÚL QUINTANA SELLERAS

The Pitch

A man wakes bound in a darkened warehouse with no memory and ten numbered boxes — each holding a relic of his past — and a serial killer who knows his every secret promising that only the truth will set him free. The countdown has started, and survival means confronting the one betrayal that could shatter everything he believes about himself.

Synopsis

Evan Morris regains consciousness in the dark, bound inside an abandoned warehouse with no memory of how he arrived. Arranged around him are ten numbered boxes, each holding a relic drawn from his own past. His captor is the Chaos Killer, a taunting murderer who has stalked Dallas for years and has now turned Evan into the centerpiece of a meticulously staged game of survival.

To live, Evan must open the boxes in sequence, and each one forces him to confront a buried memory or a truth he has spent years avoiding. As the countdown advances, it becomes clear that the killer knows him with disturbing intimacy—too well to be a stranger. The puzzle is not only about escape; it is about how much of his own life Evan is willing to look at, and what he has refused to remember.

Count to Ten is a psychological thriller that uses its locked-room premise to excavate themes of deception, self-deception, and betrayal. The mechanism of the boxes keeps the tension tight and forward-moving, while the real stakes are internal: each revelation reshapes Evan's understanding of himself and of the people he trusted, driving toward a final disclosure that recasts everything that came before.

About the Author

Short bio

Raúl Quintana Selleras is a thriller author with a fascination for the dark corners of the human mind. In Count to Ten, he crafts a relentless psychological game of survival, memory, and betrayal—pulling readers into a countdown they won't be able to look away from until the final, breathless page.

Full bio

Raúl Quintana Selleras writes psychological thrillers built on tension, moral ambiguity, and the secrets people carry into the dark. His fiction is driven by a single, unsettling question: how well do any of us really know ourselves—or the people we trust?

In Count to Ten, he traps a man in an abandoned warehouse with ten numbered boxes, each holding a relic from a troubled past, and a killer who knows every shadow in his life. The result is a taut, twist-laden race against time that probes deception, buried memory, and the lengths a person will go to survive.

Quintana Selleras favors intricate puzzles, escalating dread, and finales designed to leave readers reeling. Count to Ten arrives in 2026, marking his latest descent into the kind of suspense that grips tighter with every revelation.

Suggested Interview Questions

Let's start with the hook: how did the idea of a man waking up in a warehouse surrounded by ten numbered boxes first come to you?
The "Chaos Killer" has terrorized Dallas for years in your story. What drew you to building a villain who seems to know your protagonist better than he knows himself?
Evan Morris is forced to confront his own buried memories to survive. Without spoiling anything, how did you balance the external ticking clock with that internal, emotional unraveling?
Each of the ten boxes holds a relic from Evan's past. How did you decide what those secrets would be, and how did you keep the reveals feeling earned rather than gimmicky?
At its core, the book digs into deception, trust, and self-knowledge. What is it about betrayal that you find so compelling to write about?
Psychological thrillers live or die on pacing. What's your process for keeping readers on the edge of their seats while still slowing down for the emotional gut-punches?
The story builds to a finale you describe as leaving readers breathless. As a writer, how do you know when you've landed the ending you were aiming for?
Count to Ten releases in October 2026. What do you most hope readers carry with them after they turn the final page?

Talking Points

True crime obsession: the cultural fascination with serial killers and "puzzle box" murder games.
Memory and trauma: how buried pasts shape identity and the science of repressed memories.
Betrayal by those closest to us: when the people we trust most become the greatest threat.
The psychology of survival: what ordinary people are capable of under extreme pressure.
Privacy and surveillance: the modern fear of being watched and truly known by a stranger.

Pull Quotes

Ten boxes. Ten secrets. One chance to survive.
This killer knows him in ways no one else should. How can someone know every shadow in his life?
With every revelation, the line between past and present blurs—until the truth becomes impossible to escape.
A pulse-pounding descent into the scars of deception and the lengths one must go to survive.
The Chaos Killer is watching. The countdown has begun.

Why Now

Audiences have never been more obsessed with the psychology of survival. From escape-room entertainment to the streaming boom in true-crime and "trapped" thrillers, readers are hungry for stories that lock them in a room with a ticking clock and force them to ask: what would I do? Count to Ten arrives in October 2026 to meet that moment head-on, delivering a single-location nightmare built around ten boxes, ten secrets, and one chance to survive.

Releasing on October 10, 2026—squarely in the Halloween reading season when demand for dark, pulse-pounding suspense peaks—the novel taps into a cultural nerve about deception, hidden pasts, and how well we truly know the people closest to us. As trust becomes the defining anxiety of our time, Count to Ten turns that fear into a relentless countdown, making it a timely pick for thriller coverage, seasonal reading lists, and conversations about why we can't look away from a killer who knows us better than we know ourselves.

Praise & Reception

What to expect: Count to Ten promises a taut, claustrophobic descent into psychological suspense, built around a deceptively simple premise—one man, ten boxes, and a countdown to survival. Readers can anticipate a relentless pace as Evan Morris confronts the relics of his own past, each unlocked secret tightening the tension and reshaping what he thought he knew about himself.

Fans of intricate cat-and-mouse thrillers will find plenty to savor here: a taunting, intimately knowing antagonist in the Chaos Killer, a steadily blurring line between memory and present danger, and the kind of late-stage betrayal that recasts everything that came before. With its focus on buried truths, deception, and the cost of trust, this is a novel engineered to be read in a single breathless sitting—and to keep readers guessing right up to its final revelation.