Kathy: Jazzi Zanders and her cousin Jerod are house flippers. Are you handy with a hammer? Have you ever wanted to flip houses or do your own home repair and remodel?
JL: I wouldn’t say I’m handy with a hammer, but I can swing one. When my husband and I got married, we bought a 1920’s bungalow that needed EVERYTHING redone on it. We hired someone to knock out a wall and make our kitchen bigger and to add a dormer upstairs, but we did a lot of of the other work ourselves. And it’s a LOT of work. Enough that I’d never want to be a house flipper, but I really enjoyed making our house pretty much what we wanted.
Kathy: Do you watch a lot of HGTV?
JL: I was hooked on FIXER UPPER until the series ended, and I watched Property Brothers for years. Now, I love Home Town. And I liked Rehab Addict while it was on.
Kathy: In The Body in the Wetlands, a friendly senior goes missing and his dog leads Jazzi to the wetlands...and a corpse! Has a dog ever led you to something unexpected?
JL: A rotting groundhog, and that was enough😊
Kathy: What first drew you to cozy mysteries?
JL: I’m a longtime fan of Agatha Christie, and I really enjoy the Hamish Macbeth series by M.C. Beaton. Then I discovered Martha Grimes, Nancy Pickard, and Carolyn Hart. I was hooked.
Kathy: Do you write in any other genres?
JL: I’ve written a lot of urban fantasy novels and novella bundles as Judith Post. And I wrote six Mill Pond romances for Lyrical Press. I’ve learned something each time I change genres. It’s pushed me to learn new skills.
Kathy: Tell us about your series.
JL: I started out writing mystery short stories, so when I got a chance to return to mysteries, I was thrilled. The Jazzi Zanders mystery series appealed to me, because I like cozies. An amateur sleuth solves crimes, and they usually have a niche of some kind. I liked the idea of fixer-uppers. When I wrote my Babet and Prosper urban fantasy novellas, I enjoyed bringing the setting to life, and I really enjoyed showing a romantic partnership and characters who grow to become part of the threads of the stories. I wanted to keep those elements in my cozies.
Kathy: Do you have a favorite character? If so, who and why?
JL: Well, I have to love Jazzi and Ansel. They’re my leads, but I have to say the more I wrote Jerod, the more I loved him. He’s such a wisecracking smart mouth. He reminds me so much of a neighbor boy who spent a lot of time at our house while he was growing up. I still love that kid!
Kathy: Did you have a specific inspiration for your series?
JL: Not really, except maybe my Babet and Prosper stories without the supernatural.
Kathy: What made you decide to publish your work?
JL: I’ve been writing for a long time, and the more people who read my stories, the more fun it is. I used to write a book a year while my kids were in school. I’d start writing in September and wrap it up by June first. I’d faithfully send the manuscripts out, and when they got rejected, I’d throw the manuscripts in a drawer and forget about them. Then I’d start the next book the next September. But then I went to a mystery conference—Of Dark and Stormy Nights—in Chicago and paid for a professional to critique my first fifty pages. And she said, “Why aren’t you selling these?” And that made me think that maybe I should take my writing a little more seriously.
Kathy: If you could have a dinner party and invite 4 authors, living or dead, in any genre, who would you invite?
JL: Jane Austen, Ilona Andrews, Mae Clair, and Agatha Christie. But I’d have to invite my good writer friend Julia Donner, too, because we always yak writing together.
Kathy: What are you currently reading?
JL: Anna Lee Huber. I love her Lady Darby series.
Kathy: Will you share any of your hobbies or interests with us?
JL: I love to cook and entertain! And I love to garden, but I’m not as good at that😊
Kathy: Name 4 items you always have in your fridge or pantry.
JL: Sausage—bulk or links, capers, diced tomatoes, and onions.
Kathy: Do you have plans for future books either in your current series or a new series?
JL: I just signed a contract to write three more Jazzi mysteries--#4, 5, and 6.
And I started self-publishing a supernatural mystery series (because I do miss my urban fantasies)—I put up Muddy River Mystery One, and I’m working on the second book, Mixing It Up with Mortals.
Kathy: What's your favorite thing about being an author?
JL: I love swimming in ideas for plots and characters and escaping into their worlds for a few hours each week day.
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The Body in the Wetlands (A Jazzi Zanders Mystery) by Judi Lynn
About the Book
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Lyrical Underground (April 23, 2019)
Paperback: 208 pages
High summer in River Bluffs, Indiana, is always sweltering and sweet. But the heat is really on when a decidedly dead body turns up in the neighborhood.
When established house flippers Jazzi Zanders and her cousin Jerod donate a week’s worth of remodeling work to Jazzi’s sister Olivia, they’re expecting nothing more than back-breaking roofing work and cold beers at the end of each long, hot day. With Jazzi’s live-in boyfriend and partner Ansel on the team, it promises to be a quick break before starting their next big project—until Leo, an elderly neighbor of Olivia’s, unexpectedly goes missing . . .
When the friendly senior’s dog tugs Jazzi and the guys toward the wetlands beyond Olivia’s neighborhood, they stumble across a decomposing corpse—and a lot of questions. With Jazzi’s pal Detective Gaff along to investigate, Jazzi finds her hands full of a whole new mystery instead of the usual hammer and nails. And this time it will take some sophisticated sleuthing to track down the culprit of the deadly crime—before the killer turns on her next . . .
About the Author
Judi Lynn received a Master’s Degree from Indiana University as an elementary school teacher after attending the IPFW campus. She taught 1st, 2nd, and 4th grades for six years before having her two daughters. She loves gardening, cooking and trying new recipes.
Readers can visit her website at www.judithpostswritingmusings.com and her blog writingmusings.com.
Purchase Links Amazon B&N Kobo Google Play
Thanks so much for hosting me today. I loved your interview. Great questions!
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