Author Jinny Alexander is currently on tour with her hugely entertaining new mystery, A Diet of Death. We can all relate to that title, can’t we? Jinny is also a very generous person, which is why she’s offered up some writerly advice in this guest post. In addition, she’s awarding a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter. Keep reading to learn all about the book, the author, the helpful advice, and how to enter the raffle.
Inspiration from a quiet life. Or: Get a metaphorical dog.
One of the questions I’m asked most by readers and writers alike is where my inspiration comes from. They are particularly curious about this when they realise I live a very quiet life. Some would call it boring. I live in a small village, in a house surrounded by trees and fields and not many people. As fast as neighbours cut trees or spray ‘weeds’, my own couple of acres grows wilder and taller, like the thorns around Sleeping Beauty’s castle – my silent rebellion and barrier against the destruction of nature around me. I try not to use my car too much either, but I’ve two lively dogs who insist on at least one good walk a day, and this, dear reader, is how the inspiration for my stories creeps into my uneventful country life.
Two things usually happen when I walk the dogs:
1. I meet people. Other dog walkers, gardeners, neighbours tidying their gardens (and secretly or not secretly wondering when I might tidy mine – spoiler alert: I probably won’t), fishermen, farmers, people out for a stroll. Once, last summer, a man stopped his van to welcome me to the village and chatted for about thirty minutes while I teetered precariously on the edge of the ditch at the roadside with two impatient dogs threatening to tip me in. Luckily, I was rescued by a car approaching on this one-lane road, so the van-driving neighbour had to move on. As he drove away, I called after him that I’ve lived here almost twenty years and our sons were in school together. He’ll be in my next cozy mystery, for sure. As a baddie, no doubt. I also recently made a TikTok video about how a hedge – yes, a hedge – has inspired my third Jess O’Malley mystery (the one I’m working on now). It only takes one farmer-neighbour to rip out miles of beautiful native hedgerows along the sides of his fields, and I’ve my next murder victim right there. To be honest, I’ve already killed off this neighbour in Book 2, but I’ll happily recreate him as a new character just so I can kill him again. Characters and ideas are everywhere, even in a quiet village.
2. As I walk the country lanes, or acres of boglands, or farm tracks, I can free my mind from other things, which lets ideas flow in. If I’m at a tricky plot point, I do just as many of my cozy mystery protagonist does – I pull on my walking boots, gather up my dogs’ leads, and walk. I’ve solved dilemmas; freed up writer’s blocks; developed new ideas, and changed entire storylines while out walking. The novel I recently finished writing began as a very different story from how it ended up, and the change came when a very unexpected character strolled into my head during a dog walk. She not only changed the entire story; she made it so much better!
So, when people ask for writing tips, I usually reply ‘Get a dog’. Of course, not everyone is in the position to get a dog, and not everyone wants a dog, but I bet everyone out there could find a metaphorical dog to walk. One well-known writer I know of uses embroidery as her ‘dog to walk’. She spends hours bent over her latest needlework, stitching ideas amongst the threads. A long, hot bubble bath is another ‘dog walk’. Anywhere that you can free your mind and let thoughts drift. Anywhere that you can give characters and ideas time to grow. Ideas are everywhere. You just have to make time and space to let them in.
Ballyfortnum Get Slim group–putting the die in diet.
In the close-knit Irish Village of Ballyfortnum, getting slim might just get you dead. Mystery-lover Jess O’Malley is distraught when her elderly friend dies, but that’s not all–he’s the third of the local slimming group to die this year and it’s only February. Is something amiss in the Get Slim group?
Jess, aided by her sidekick Fletcher, her boisterous Labrador, must convince local policeman Marcus that there may be a murderer at large in the village. If she doesn’t solve the mystery, will another of the dieters end up dead? Or worse–if she doesn’t stop asking awkward questions, will Jess become the next victim?
Except from A Diet of Death
Jess shuddered, remembering how, on the Wednesday of that week, she had bumped into Breda in the refrigerator aisle of one of the supermarkets in Lambskillen. They chatted for a while in front of the fish section, each clasping a warming bag of prawns while discussing the merits of various shellfish. Breda had never had mussels before, she’d said, peering dubiously into the fridge.
“Nor any shellfish, sure I haven’t,” she’d told Jess, brimming over with the enthusiasm of one discovering new tastes. She gestured back towards the fridge. “Nor octopus … sounds suckery—however would you cook it?”
There was a whole section of seafood recipes in the newest Get Slim magazine that she was going to try out, Breda said, managing to sound both wary and excited. Adding a jar of tartare sauce to her basket, Breda moved on.
Jess returned her own lukewarm bag of prawns to the fridge, and selected instead a bag of battered onion rings from the freezer below, tossed them into her trolley, and wheeled off into the wine aisle. She waved at Breda across the car park as they loaded their shopping into their respective car boots.
Three days later, as she’d considered the news Mrs Dunne had shared, wondered if Angela had been trying out the same recipe. Food poisoning, Mrs Dunne had reckoned. Dodgy prawns? Jess shudder as she relived the moment she’d decided to choose unhealthy—but delicious—battered onion rings instead of the nakedness of wrinkled prawns, put off by the thought of accidentally purchasing something healthy that Kate might construe as a sign to try to persuade Jess to join Get Slim.
About the Author
Jinny was first published in Horse and Pony magazine at the age of ten. She’s striving to achieve equal accolade now she’s (allegedly) a grown up. Jinny has had some publishing success with short story and flash competitions and secured a publishing deal in December 2020 for her first three novels. The first of these, Dear Isobel, was released in March 2022. A Diet of Death is Jinny’s second novel and the first in her Cosy Mystery series. Jinny is currently studying an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Hull, UK.
Jinny also teaches English as a foreign language to people all over the world. Her home for now is in rural Ireland, which she shares with her husband and far too many animals. Her two children have grown and flown, but return across the Irish Sea when they can. She quite likes to shut the door on them all and write.
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Thanks for hosting!
Thank you so much! Love Jinny x
Thank YOU for making time for this, Jinny.
Thank you for sharing your guest post, bio and book details, I have enjoyed reading about you and your work and I am looking forward to reading Diet of Death
Thank you! I hope you enjoy it = please do share what you think of it!
Great excerpt and giveaway. 🙂
Great guest post
Thank you! I enjoyed writing it too 🙂
Love, Jinny x
nice cover
Thank you! It’s by Donna Rogers at https://www.dlrcoverdesigns.com/about
I really like the cover and think the book looks good.
Oooh, thank you! I’m pretty pleased with it too!!
Love, Jinny x