Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
Follow to get new release updates and improved recommendations
About Jenn McKinlay
Customers Also Bought Items By
Are you an author?
Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography.
Author Updates
-
-
-
Blog postRHYS BOWEN: Who could not love a post with such an irresistible title? I'm thrilled to welcome Lindsey to Jungle Reds today and to celebrate the pub week of her brilliant new book, RESERVATIONS FOR SIX.
LINDSEY J. PALMER: A half-written manuscript, a jellyfish, and me
It took 800 miles of distance and a jellyfish sting to realize it was time to give up on the novel I'd been toiling over for the past year. Things had been going poorly for a while, as much as I -
Blog postRHYS BOWEN: Have you noticed that reviewers love to point out that you have coincidences in your books, as if this is some kind of failing? There is a coincidence, or maybe two coincidences in the book I am just finishing: ISLAND OF LOST BOYS. I expect reviewers to point this out. I don’t care. The coincidence had to happen to reward the characters for what they have been through. I couldn’t leave them with a bleak, depressing end to their story.
And real life is full of coincide -
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Let’s do an experiment. Let’s see how you like the first sentence of this synopsis. Raise your hand if you are swooning with delight, and cannot wait to read it.
What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book.
I knew it! I see eve -
-
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Do you watch Ozark? I love it. I truly love it. And I loved the ending, too, but of course will not discuss it. (Although someday, we should.)
And whenever it was on, the name “Claire Booth” would always spring to my mind. The first time, I was perplexed. I mean, I love Claire, and I love her books, and I also love her main character, a sheriff named Hank. (Which I gotta admit took a bit of getting used to.)
But why would her name come -
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: A thought-provoking post today. A tough one. But the brilliant Aimie K. Runyan knew she had a terrific story. A shocking story. A heart–breaking story. A story that would be based on impossible facts.
How was she going to tell it–and make it ..real? And readable? And important?
As you'll see, it’s a challenge that would have been far too daunting for some. But after reading THE SCHOOL FOR GERMAN BRIDES, the amazing Pam Jenoff said: “Thi -
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Am I seeing a theme emerge? I am always so intrigued when our topics seem to–coincidentally–verge in the same direction. I know we rarely talk about how the JRW sausage is made, but you should know that when we schedule guest authors, we have NO idea what they’ll write about. That’s part of the fun!
So this week turned out to be a little…dark. GOOD dark, we like dark, but it’s so odd. First, Hannah Mary McKinnon and her bad guy main character -
-
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: One little question: A haunted doll? I know some of you Reds and Readers are late night/early morning readers, and we love that, and I certainly don’t want to introduce any unseemly thoughts into your impending dreams. In fact, you miiiight want to look at the photos, um, in the light of day.
If you are still with me, to you, I’ll just say: Aren’t dolls adorable?
I was not big on dolls growing up—in fact, proof positive, here’s a hilarious pho -
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well hey, couple of things today! First, breaking news! HER PERFECT LIFE is on sale today, for $1.99! And you can snap it right up for Kindle, Nook, Kobo or Apple. it’s s 80 percent off! (Isn’t that right?) Reds and readers, I really hope you will click and get a copy for yourself or a pal.. Every book makes a difference, and it really matters. Here’s a link. Tell your pals. End of sales pitch.
Also today, Happy Happy Birthday to one of my dearest -
-
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Have you played Tradle? I know we’ve talked about Wordle, and Tradle is like that, only with geography. Here's the link.
Reds and readers, this is an exercise in humility for me. It is TRAGIC. And yet, I KEEP doing it. And I keep discovering how clueless I am about geography.
It works this way: the game displays a block graph, with carrying sizes of squares, depicting the major exports of the country. For instance: In huge letters: AUTO -
Blog postHALLIE EPHRON: Among the best gifts of motherhood, ones that no one has to pay for or wrap up, are memories. One of my favorites is the time my 4-month-old firstborn could not… would not go to sleep. Collicky, she’d had us hopping up and down most of the night.
The final straw came when I’d barely put her down when she was screaming again. Her diaper needed changing (yet again). A new mom, exhausted and angry, I was at my lowest ebb.
I got her cleaned up and literally -
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We always talk about how a good story begins: with one huge out-of-whack inciting incident that pulls the rug out from under the main character and forces them to do something to regain equilibrium.
Dervla McTiernan has lived that.
When she was shopping her first book, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. A serious, deadly, horrible brain tumor.
Let’s have her tell it:
DERVLA MCTIERNAN: “I got the news from m -
-
Blog postHALLIE EPHRON: The recent months have been filled with new experiences for me… the double whammy of coming out of covid and learning to live alone. Some have been more pleasurable than others.
On the plus side, two weeks ago I went to the movies. In a movie theatre. First time since before, covid. First time EVER (cue drum roll) ALONE!
It was amazing in many ways.
First amazing part, there was actually a movie out there, in a movie theater, that I wanted -
Blog postThe winner of DEATH IN A BLACKOUT is Kathy Reel! Kathy, you can contact Jessica Ellicott with your information at Jessica at Jessica Ellicott dot com.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I first heard about the book that became CHILD ZERO in the late fall of '19. I was having cocktails at some cool Portland bar with Chris Holm and his wife, critic Katrina Niidas Holm (they know where all the cool bars are.) I asked Chris the question most writers don't want to hear, -
-
Blog postJULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: As most of you know by now, I love historical fiction. I majored in history in college, focused on early colonial history for my grad degree, and even wrote my law school thesis on 17th century law codes in Massachusetts. History is a story - it's no wonder it's had such appeal my whole life.
And I used to wonder, what was it like to live through this time or that time? How did people live through political disruptions, economic crises, war and plague -
Blog postBUY NOW!!! JENN McKINLAY: 50!!! How crazy is that? A reader commented when I made the announcement, that my publisher should give me a car. I like the way they think!
Aside from this being my 50th book, it's also the 14th book in the Cupcake Bakery Mystery series. How is this even possible? I remember the day the idea for the series came to me. It was spring of 2009. I was still working as a part-time librarian and my coworker was getting married. We spent our e -
Blog postHALLIE EPHRON: There was a time, not all that long ago, when it seemed like every time I turned around, one of my passwords or my credit card was getting hacked. Huge pain in the butt getting that sorted.
These days, so many accounts are requiring two-factor authentication. For the longest time I resisted. I don’t always have a phone with me for verification and I don’t want to risk getting locked out. I wonder, what about people who don’t have access to computers or cell phones, -
Blog postJenn: Okay, I am in full plotting mode, and I really wish I had an idea machine. Some big metal contraption with ominous looking buttons and levers, where I could just drop in miscellaneous junk like odd lengths of thread, a random thumbtack, child sized scissors that are too small but I can't manage to throw them out, business cards of people I don't remember meeting, you know...stuff. I'd like to drop it into the machine, hit a button or pull a lever, and have it whistle and hum,
-
Blog postJulia Spencer-Fleming: I'm still recovering from the good time I had at Malice Domestic, where I brought back not just great memories and a cool "Guest of Honor" tea cup, but also *cue dramatic music* Covid.
I'm fine; vaxxed and double boosted, my symptoms are identical to a boring head cold. I'm going through Kleenex fast enough to deliver a bump to Kimberly-Clark share prices and I've got a post-nasal-drip sore throat, but I was out yesterday tearing down multif -
Blog postDEBORAH CROMBIE: The last time I was up on our What We're Writing week, I said that by the time my next turn rolled around, A KILLING OF INNOCENTS would be finished!
Oh, oops, well, maybe not quite finished... but almost! Only a few days and two chapters to go, the climax and the resolution.
Resolution, now there's a nice word, and for a while I wondered if I would get there. I'd be the first to admit that I wandered and wobbled through the middle of this book, horribly f -
Blog postLUCY BURDETTE: I’m grinding along in the muddled middle of Key West mystery #13. Before we made our trip from Key West to Connecticut, I screeched to a halt at a scene where Hayley has lunch with her tarot-card-reading pal, Lorenzo. What would he tell her that could help her solve the mystery or sort out some questions in her own life?
Believe it or not, it always helps me move the plot along if *I* have lunch with my real friend, Ron, the model for Lorenzo. So I did -
Blog postRHYS BOWEN: I have had to take a break from serious writing this week, dear readers, for a very good reason--or rather two very good reasons. Over the weekend I was at Malice Domestic convention, where I was guest of honor. (along with fellow Jungle Red Julia, who was GOH for the year before. (Both of us a year late as the pandemic put the convention on hiatus for 2 years. And now we willingly shared the spotlight!)
I hope Julia had as fabulous a time as I did. It was utter -
Blog postHANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: A sneak peek at my new book below! But first, breaking news. First, I have been named Guest of Honor at next year’s Malice Domestic convention. SO AMAZING! (Julia and Rhys were this year’s and the year before, and can you imagine that powerhouse duo at the podium this year? So now, they will be able to tell me the secret handshake.) I am still floating.
Second: My new book THE HOUSE GUEST has a cover! YAY! And it will be revealed on Wednesday. So w -
Blog postHALLIE EPHRON: A character I’m (still) working on for a new novel that I’ve barely begun is an elderly woman (Helen) who runs Spiritualist meetings for people who want to send messages to their dead loved ones, queued up in the astral plain waiting to send messages back. It’s easy for me to understand why people would be seduced by the notion that the dead aren’t gone gone.
I don’t want to make Helen a fraud or a fool. Or silly or clownish. She believes she’s helping people who are -
Blog postJULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Once more, ladies and gentlemen, our own Celia Wakefield is here with an elegant, (relatively) easy dessert that will wow your guests and tastes like spring sunshine exploding in your mouth.
Good morning JRW’s and JRR all, it is such a pleasure to be back with you, and my grateful thanks to Julia et al for encouraging me to write more. As I am over my three score and ten, I am a little late to take up fiction or biography but memoir thr -
Blog postJULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: With apologies to the marvelous 60s comedy, IF IT'S TUESDAY, THIS MUST BE BELGIUM; I stole their title because if I'm in a hotel room, there is one thing on the increasingly wide screens in the room: HGTV.
Readers, I looooove HGTV. I get the HGTV magazine (or as my son calls it, middle-aged mom p*rn.) But I don't have cable, except for the internet - we cut the cord some twenty years ago. So for me, watching the channel is a pleasure reserved
Titles By Jenn McKinlay
$8.99
$14.99
$13.99
$7.99
$7.99
$8.99
$7.99
$7.99
