The Body in the Wetlands - An Interview

I'm pleased to welcome Judi Lynn to the blog today. Judi writes the Jazzi Zanders Mystery series. The Body in the Wetlands is the second book in the series and was released earlier this week.

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.

****************************************************************************

The Body in the Wetlands (A Jazzi Zanders Mystery) by Judi Lynn

About the Book

 

The Body in the Wetlands (A Jazzi Zanders Mystery) 

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

Bait and Interview with a Giveaway

I'm happy to welcome ReGina Welling and Erin Lynn to the blog today. Together they write the Ponderosa Pines Mystery series. Bait and Snitch is the fourth book in the series and was released earlier this month.

 Kathy: Setting plays such an important role in a mystery. Why is Ponderosa Pines the perfect location for your series?

Erin: Ponderosa Pines is located in Maine, and it’s a perfect setting because Maine is a place where small town living is the norm. Our largest city has less than 70,000 people—it’s a state made up of nothing but small towns. There is also a focus on living off the land, conserving resources, and keeping local, small businesses alive. Those are things we care about, and wanted to include in the series—it just made sense to set the town in our own little corner of the world.

 Kathy: In Bait and Snitch EV Torrence and Chloe LaRue may expose their neighbor’s deepest secrets. Do you think your neighborhoods have secrets? Have they ever been exposed?

ReGina: I’m dating myself, but growing up we had party line phones, which meant I could accidentally listen in on my neighbors conversations. Good etiquette required hanging up quickly, but every now and then, a sentence snippet revealed interesting details about my neighbors.



Kathy: You write as a team. How does that work? Does one person work more on the plot while the other writes the actual words?

ReGina: We sit down together and write out a detailed plot, which then gets dumped into a Scrivener file that we share using Dropbox. Once the outline is finished, we decide who is going to write each chapter/scene. When the first draft is complete, we each take a second pass at the whole manuscript to make sure it all hangs together.
Erin: We also have daily discussions about the scenes we’re writing, and we read each other’s work throughout the process. We’re open to changes, and we have no problem editing and revising each other’s sections. By the end of each book, there will be some of both of us in every scene. We’re mother and daughter, so of course we have differences of opinion and occasionally a discussion that feels reminiscent of my teenage years—but five minutes later we’re laughing and smiling again!


Kathy: What first drew you to cozy mysteries?

ReGina: I read the first Cat Who book by Lilian Jackson Braun when I was in high school and fell in love with the genre. Then came the Mrs. Pollifax books by Dorothy Gilman and I was hooked.
Erin: I happened across mom’s collection of Agatha Christie books sometime in high school, though I didn’t know the term “cozy mystery” back then. Miss Marple was always my favorite, and I don’t think you can get much cozier than her!


Kathy: Do you write in any other genres?

ReGina: My Psychic Seasons series has a bit more romance than the typical cozy, and with a touch of paranormal added in, it crosses genres.


Kathy: Tell us about your series.

ReGina: Nothing bad ever happens in Ponderosa Pines. Or that’s how it was before the quirky little hamlet becomes a hotbed of intrigue when a hapless handyman ends up dead and it’s up to EV Torrence and Chloe LaRue to find his killer. The stakes are raised even higher when a second death, the handyman’s brother, occurs and reveals a blackmail scheme that threatens their beloved town.
Ponderosa Pines, located in the woods of Maine, started out as a commune in the sixties where a like-minded group headed by EV’s parents used their trust funds to build eco-friendly homes and raise their children. Fast forward to the present, and the next generation has embraced modern technology with an emphasis on green living while still retaining their small town sensibilities.
The first three books, Cat Killed A Rat, Crafting Disorder, and Caught in the Frame, are a trilogy where we follow EV and Chloe while they track the blackmailer and bring him to justice. Bait and Snitch, like the rest of the books to follow are single, standalone stories.

Psychic Seasons, my first series, has elements of the paranormal blended with romance, and a fun mystery. When Julie Hayward is dragged off to a Tarot card reading by her best friend, Gustavia, both women get more than they bargained for.
A ghostly encounter provides a cryptic clue to the location of a lost family fortune and a warning that Julie’s fiancé is not what he seems. Launched on a wild adventure, Julie and her three closest friends search for treasure, meet a guardian angel, deal with a dark spirit, and find love.

Earthbound, the spin-off series from Psychic Seasons, features former guardian angel, Galmadriel. After being tossed out of heaven, she isn’t like any other angel. Not quite human, yet not fully an angel, the best thing the PTBs can think to do with her is bounce her around so she can solve supernatural problems.
Ghosts that need to find their way home or that purposefully take the wrong path are her bread and butter. To add insult to injury, she is assigned a fledgling pair of guardian angels to train. Julius and Estelle are ready and willing to learn, but they also have a secondary agenda. One that Galmadriel is never supposed find out about.
Helping the ghost of young Ben Allen find his way home reconnects Galmadriel with Psychic Seasons alumni: Kat, Amethyst, Gustavia, and Julie in the first of many adventures to come.


Kathy: Do you have a favorite character? If so, who and why?

ReGina: No, I’m sorry, I can’t choose a favorite.


Kathy: Did you have a specific inspiration for your series?

ReGina: I grew up in a small town in Maine where the feeling of family—with all the good and the bad that can come along with it—was strong. I’ve watched feuding neighbors forget their animosity in the face of tragedy and be supportive of each other. It’s a singular feeling to grow up in a place where you know you can knock on any door and get help, or a drink of water, or even a shoulder to cry on.
Erin: A couple of years ago I lived in a townhouse that was part of a sprawling apartment complex in the woods. During the summer it felt like camping all the time, and it reminded me of home (I was living in upstate New York at the time). My mom and I had several conversations about the place, musing about how cool it would be if it was its own little self-sustaining community. It got our juices flowing, and eventually evolved into Ponderosa Pines.

Kathy: What made you decide to publish your work?

ReGina: Years of people telling me they wanted to read my stories and why didn’t I put them in a book.
Erin: I’ve been talking about wanting to write for a living since high school, but I never pulled the trigger. When we came up with the idea for Ponderosa Pines, my mom was writing her Psychic Seasons series. Seeing her succeed and have that much fun made me want to do the same. So we just decided to go for it.


Kathy: If you could have a dinner party and invite 4 authors, living or dead, in any genre, who would you invite?

ReGina: Madeleine L’engle, Anne McCaffrey, Jim Butcher, Maya Angelou.
Erin: Barbara Kingsolver, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, Amanda Hesser.


Kathy: What are you currently reading?

ReGina: A Scone to Die For by H.Y. Hanna
Erin: Oh, my goodness. Tea and Milk with Murder by H.Y. Hanna. Not even joking.


Kathy: Will you share any of your hobbies or interests with us?

ReGina: I haven’t had as much time to play with my camera of late, but photography has been a passion of mine since I picked up a Brownie camera as a kid.
Erin: Hiking, boating, camping in the summer; home improvement and décor projects in the winter when I don’t want to go outside for any reason.

Kathy: Name 4 items you always have in your fridge or pantry.

Erin: I have 9 and 11-year-old boys, so: fruit snacks, popsicles, smoothie supplies, and peanut butter. For myself, I can’t live without: coffee, salsa, diet coke, and yogurt.
ReGina: Coffee, apple cider vinegar (the good, unfiltered stuff), cucumbers, and don’t judge, but Pop Tarts. The unfrosted kind.


Kathy: Do you have plans for future books either in your current series or a new series?

ReGina: Absolutely. We have at least one more Ponderosa Pines book slated for release this year and we’ve been tossing around ideas for a new series. Plus, I’ve got book 2 of the Earthbound Series to finish up by fall.


Kathy: What's your favorite thing about being an author?

ReGina: No alarm clock. I’m not a morning person and I think alarm clocks are evil devices of torture.
Erin: Being able to work from pretty much anywhere. I wrote part of Cat Killed A Rat from a boat-access camping plot on a beautiful pond. Plus, no daily trudge to an office, and I can work in my PJs and nobody will know the difference.


a Rafflecopter giveaway