Jan’s Backstory

When I was eleven, I spent the summer with my grandmother in her hundred-year-old mansion in a historic Los Angeles neighborhood. She wasn’t wealthy, she took in boarders to make ends meet, but to me the house felt like a castle, and I felt like a princess in it.

The staircase had panels I was convinced concealed a secret nook, a door with a frosted glass window on the landing that was always locked, and a once-elegant conservatory that looked like an ideal place for a murder. That summer, I read every Nancy Drew book I could find.

A few years later, my dad built a cottage in a no-frills Michigan beach town. I spent many weekends there over the years and eventually wrote portions of Misery Cove in that very cottage, drawing inspiration from the town’s faded charm and creepy cemeteries. Both the mansion and cottage helped shape my love of atmosphere-rich stories full of buried truths.

When I’m not writing, I’m probably reading a good mystery, working on a jigsaw puzzle, golfing, travelling with my husband Tom, or walking past the historic mansion near my home—which may just appear in a future novel.