Genre-Hopping with Author Jenn McKinlay and a Giveaway!

When I discovered our monthly genre-hopping feature was the day after Valentine’s, my thoughts turned naturally to romance. Edith/Maddie suggested Jenn McKinlay and I jumped at the chance. Jenn has one foot firmly in the rom-com world, while the other remains firmly in cozy mystery–very much a part of our Wickeds’ world. I couldn’t wait to ask her about that.

Jenn agreed, and is generously offering to giveaway a signed copy of her just released cozy mystery, Fatal First Edition, book 14 in her Library Lover’s Mystery series, to one lucky commenter below.

Our conversation follows below.

Barb: Hi Jenn! So great to have you here. What is a rom-com? How do you describe the characteristics of the genre?

Jenn: Thanks so much for inviting me to the Wickeds. Rom-com is a romantic comedy mashup. So it’s a romance but funny! The characteristics are a meet-cute (think when Sally gave Harry a ride to NYC and they were horrifically incompatible). After that, it’s usually a trope like enemies to lovers or friends to lovers that drives the plot to the HEA (happily ever after) which is an unspoken guarantee between the author and the reader. If one of the main love interests dies or they don’t end up together, that is NOT a rom-com.

Barb: You started off writing rom-coms then moved to mystery. In your bio you say, “I learned that I was not a romance writer so much as a mystery writer. I’m just better at killing people than I am at making them fall in love.” What shifted that enabled you to return to rom-coms, happily and successfully this time? What did you learn about writing about love?

Jenn: I think I was too young to write romcoms when I first started. I hadn’t even had my own happily ever after so I was writing from inexperience. The truth is mysteries are easier because a dead body really a plot along but a romance has to have authentic emotional angst and growth, which is not intuitive for me as I prefer to crack and joke and move on, in fiction and in life.

Barb: Even while writing rom-coms, you’ve kept on writing your mystery series. In fact, Fatal First Edition, the fourteenth book in your Library Lover’s Mystery series came out just two days ago. Is your process different for writing a mystery versus a rom-com? Do you use the same approach?

Jenn: Same approach! I’m a plotter so I work off a ten-page outline for every book, no matter the genre. Although recently, I neglected to finish the outline and I had to seat of the pants write the second half of the book. It was actually a heck of a ride and not having a plot set up, I didn’t know who the killer was and was able to add some unexpected plot twists. So, I might start writing half outlines. We’ll see. I have come to realize the process is a constantly evolving thing.

Barb: Your books take place in a series of swoon-worthy settings—Martha’s Vineyard, Sussex, Ireland, Paris—as well as richly-detailed fictional towns. How do you choose your settings? What’s the difference between writing about a real place and a fictional setting?

Jenn: I choose my settings by thinking of a place I’d like to go. LOL. I have planned many a vacation around my books. Paris is Always as Good Idea was the easiest because I’d already been to two of the places (Ireland and Italy) and only had to shoehorn in a trip to Paris (hardship, I know). The upcoming Love at First Book is set completely in Ireland so it required a trip back because I needed to DRIVE the Ring of Kerry. Yes, there was a moment I was certain I would get my travel companions and myself killed but I managed it and it became a fun scene in the book!

I’ve only made up a few settings for the books because I feel like a real place gives the book more heft. I live in Scottsdale, where I set the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries and I get a lot of readers who read the series specifically to visit a place they’ve been to before. I think writing a fictional place, which I did for the Library Lover’s mysteries makes it a bit easier. I chose to make that setting fictional because I knew if I used the real location Stony Creek, CT (I call it Briar Creek) all of the persnickety historians would call me out if I took fictional license with the local history. Scottsdale (1894) is centuries younger than Stony Creek (1685) which does make it easier.

Barb: Right. And the people complaining about one way streets going in the wrong direction or it’s a stop sign, not a traffic light. What do you see when you look up from your writing place?

Jenn: I write in two spaces. The kitchen table which looks out onto the backyard where my lemon tree is fully loaded at the moment and I can watch my dogs playing. And the second is my office which overlooks the front yard, which is desert landscaped with loads of cactus and agave, and I have a bird feeder hanging in the window to invite the rogue flock of lovebirds that live in our neighborhood. The cats and I both enjoy watching them!

Barb: What are you working on now?

I am currently writing proposals and working on a brand new project called Books of Dubious Origin in the cozy fantasy genre which I’m very excited about. The goal is to write a mystery, a rom-com, and a fantasy book every year. We’ll see if I can pull it off!

Barb: Books of Dubious Origin! I would definitely read that.

Readers: Will you follow a favorite author into a new genre? What if it’s one you haven’t read or haven’t resonated with before? Leave a comment or just say “hi” to be eligible to win a signed copy of Fatal First Edition.

About Jenn McKinlay

Jenn is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author of several mystery and romance series. She is also the winner of the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award for romantic comedy and the Fresh Fiction award for best cozy mystery. A TEDx speaker, she is always happy to talk books, writing, reading, and the creative process to anyone who cares to listen. She lives in sunny Arizona in a house that is overrun with books, pets, and her husband’s guitars.

About Fatal First Edition

People are dying to get their hands on a rare, valuable book in the newest Library Lover’s Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Plot and the Pendulum.

Briar Creek Library director Lindsey Norris and her husband, Sully, are at a popular library conference in Chicago to hear book restoration specialist Brooklyn Wainwright give a keynote address. After the lecture, Lindsey looks under her seat and finds a tote bag containing a first edition of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, inscribed to Alfred Hitchcock. Brooklyn determines the novel is one of a kind and quite valuable, so Lindsey and Sully return the book to the conference director, not wanting to stir up any trouble.

But just hours after the pair boards the train back to Connecticut, rumors that the Highsmith novel has gone missing buzz amongst the passengers, and they soon find the conference director murdered in his private compartment. And worse—the murderer planted the book in Lindsey and Sully’s room next door, making them prime suspects. Now, they must uncover the murderer and bring them to the end of their line, before they find themselves booked for a crime they didn’t commit.

Featuring a cameo by a beloved character from the New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle’s Bibliophile series!