Fellow author Leslie Sartor and I have been friends on social media for many years. Sharing an author’s new book release is always exciting, and I’m honored to feature Leslie on my blog as she just published her second book, Richer, Poorer, Dead, in her Jenna Hart Mystery Series. Read on to find out how and why Leslie became a writer. Hint: sometimes, it’s beneficial NOT to listen to your teacher.

“I started telling stories before I could write them, dictating to my mom, who wrote them down while I illustrated. Years later, a teacher told me I’d never be a writer. Mom never believed that for a second. When I threw a disappointing book at the wall and called her to rant, she said, “You should write your own.”

So I did. Bestselling books, actually.

Before the books, Mom and I ran a custom jewelry business together, and that’s where Jenna Hart’s eye for sparkle, and for the flaws hiding beneath it, comes from. Today I write cozy mysteries set in mountain towns, Christmas romances, romantic suspense, and adventures in far-off places. Every story has heart, some mystery (or a lot), and a touch of sparkle.

I drink lots of coffee and write wherever I am. Join me at lesliesartor.com.”

Why Jenna Hart Had to Tell Her Own Story

Before Jenna Hart, I wrote my books from two points of view. Hero and heroine, back and forth, each chapter handing the reader a little more than either character knew. I loved it. I still do.

Then Jenna walked into my head and refused to share.

Yes, first person is practically the house style of cozy mysteries, and I knew that going in. But convention isn’t why I chose it. I chose it because I wanted you to know Jenna the way I know her. Not from the outside, with a narrator pointing and saying, here is a woman who repairs watches and designs jewelry. From the inside: her second-guessing, her stubborn streak, the sarcasm she’s working hard to keep behind her teeth.

Jenna is a custom jeweler, and a jeweler looks at the world differently. She notices the flaw inside the stone, the setting that doesn’t quite fit, the one thing that’s slightly off in a room full of smiling people. Third person could tell you that. First person lets you do it with her. You walk through Angelcroft and see the town the way she does: the ski-resort money, the old mining-town bones, the friends she’d fight for, the newcomers she hasn’t made up her mind about yet.

The other characters get the same treatment. Detective Derek Tripp isn’t described by a neutral camera. He’s described by a woman who is still figuring out how she feels about him, and who is thoroughly annoyed that he keeps telling her to stay out of it. Her friends, her coffee shop, her opinionated cat, Obi, all arrive filtered through her affection, her suspicion, and her occasional irritation. That’s more fun than a camera, and it’s more honest. It’s how we all see the people in our lives.

First person also happens to be the best tool a mystery writer has. It keeps you and Jenna on equal footing. You know what she knows, exactly when she knows it. When she’s missing a clue, you’re missing it too. When it finally clicks, you get the click together. There’s no hopping into someone else’s head to tip the hand, and no scene that lets you get ahead of her. You’re solving it side by side.

I’ll admit it came with a price. Jenna can only be in one place at a time. If something happens while she’s out of the room, she hears about it later, if at all. That turned out to be a gift, because it forced me to make Jenna do things. She has to go, ask, poke around, and get herself into trouble. A narrator who sits at home waiting for news makes a dull book, and Jenna is incapable of sitting at home waiting for news. Her friends know it. Her detective knows it. Obi has certainly given up hoping.

There’s one more thing a series in first person gives you: you get to watch her change. In each book Jenna carries what she’s been through into the next one, and because you’re inside her head, you feel it. She isn’t a puzzle-solving machine. She’s a person with a past, a business to run, and a heart that keeps getting her into things.

So what do I hope readers take away? That they’ve spent time with a friend, not just solved a puzzle. That Angelcroft feels like a place they could visit, with a latte from Higher Grounds in hand. And that they close the book wanting to know what Jenna will do next, and maybe a little worried about her.

Richer Poorer Dead, the second Jenna Hart Mystery, takes her to a mountaintop wedding where nobody expected deadly. I hope you’ll come along. She’d love the company, even if she’d never say so.

Leslie is giving away 2 eBooks and 2 paperbacks (domestic mailing only). Winners will be selected randomly from readers who comment. 

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