Hi, Ellen here, welcoming Laura Jensen Walker back to Chicks. Enjoy her journey from inspiration to publication for her latest mystery – and a giveaway! Authors, have you ever been told, “It won’t sell?” Laura was. But it didn’t stop her…

Senior Sleuths – A Look Behind the Scenes of my New Cozy (Giveaway)

Thanks so much to Ellen and the Chicks for having me back again! It’s great to be here celebrating my new cozy, The Alphabet Sleuths.

I’ll start with a disclaimer. There’s been a raft of senior sleuth mysteries released in the past few years, but I am not jumping on the bandwagon. I actually had the idea for The Alphabet Sleuths years ago when my then-publisher asked what I wanted to write next. I shared my thoughts of a Golden Girls-type group of accidental sleuths solving mysteries.

The response? “Books set in retirement communities don’t sell.” A few months later, The Thursday Murder Club came out. Sigh.

Oh well. After that idea was turned down, I moved on to a historical set in England I’d been wanting to write for ages. Before I even finished that book, I learned about a group of real-life women heroes in England that history had overlooked and knew I had to tell their story. This Anglophile, formerly stationed in the UK, wound up writing two back-to-back WWII novels, both of which were repeatedly rejected: “World War II novels aren’t selling right now.”

And so, I set those books aside and moved on. After writing two books set in wartime, I needed to immerse myself in something light, so I dusted off my senior sleuths idea. The minute I wrote the opening line: “Claire Reynolds hadn’t planned to kill a man that day, but stuff happens,” I knew I was in for a fun ride with my diverse group of women: retired journalist Atsuko; former actress/model Barbara; widowed Claire, a retired paralegal, and Daphne, a retired cop and the youngest member of the Alphabet Girls.

When I was writing the character of gorgeous Botoxed Barbara (who refuses to reveal her age) I thought it would be fun for her to have a vintage Barbie doll that plays an important role later in the book. This was long before the Barbie movie juggernaut appeared. Who knew? Can you say a day late and a dollar short? I prefer to think of it as always being ahead of the curve.

Oh, and those two WWII novels that agents and publishers repeatedly rejected? Death of a Flying Nightingale was nominated for a Lefty award for Best Historical last year and The Postmistress of Puddlington, the book of my heart, comes out in August. Yay!

Readers, for a chance to win a signed copy of The Alphabet Sleuths, (U.S. entries only) tell me who’s your favorite Golden Girl and why.

BIO: Laura Jensen Walker is the award-winning author of more than twenty books, including the Lefty-nominated Death of a Flying Nightingale and the Agatha-nominated Murder Most Sweet. Her next book, The Postmistress of Puddlington, (not a mystery) releases in August. Her book club fiction debut, The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch, about a neurodivergent senior on a quest, comes out in Fall 2026. Laura lives in Northern California with her Renaissance-man husband and their two rescue pups.

SYNOPSIS: At sixty-nine years old, Claire Reynolds is changing things up. She’s volunteering. Learning to rollerblade. She’s rescued a shelter dog. And today, she’s killed a man. It wasn’t on her to-do list, but stuff happens.

Besides, the man in question was strangling her good friend Daphne, and what’s a gal to do? Scream, possibly. Call the cops. Or—at retired officer Daphne’s insistence—call in the rest of their senior gal pals, roll up the body in a blanket, and toss it off a cliff.

The dead man is a member of the local crime family, and if the police get involved it’s not just Daphne at risk, it’s them all.

But the body’s just the start. Soon the Alphabet Girls—Atsuko, Barbara, Claire, and Daphne—must transform into the Alphabet Sleuths, if they’re to keep both their liberty . . . and their lives.