A New Cozy Mystery Series

No more vague posting: I have a two-book deal!

I’m thrilled to tell you the secret I’ve held onto for the last two months—we just announced last Thursday that I signed a two-book deal with Grace Layer at Dutton Books for the start of a cozy mystery series set in the fictional town of Blue Oak, Texas—where the queso is hot, the margs are cold, and the bodies could be anywhere.

(I have so much fun writing lines like that, you have NO idea!)

I’ve told several people in my real life about the books and we keep having the same conversations, which go something like this:

1. I’m sorry, you’re…what? You’re right, it is quite a pivot from deeply reported, years-long writing about displacement, genocide, and systemic injustice. The truth is, my nonfiction books have taken a toll on me physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. I love that work and am so, so proud of both After the Last Border and We Were Illegal. But as my sister says, “why not write something that doesn’t require you to go to therapy?”

2. So, murder mysteries? Specifically, cozy mysteries! Or sleuth mysteries, or whatever you want to call them. If you don’t know, cozies are an entire sub-genre of mysteries, different from thrillers because they often involve quirky characters and funny situations. Think Only Murders in the Building or Murder She Wrote; recent books I’ve loved in the genre are The Thursday Murder Club, The Maid, Arsenic and Adobo, and Finley Donovan series, among many, many others. Over the last seven years, cozy mysteries (and rom-coms) are the only things I can read at night. My brain needs a light, loving universe where any threat to the community is eradicated, where the tropes are predictable even if the writers are creative within their forms, and where everything ends up OK. I—giant nerd that I am—also looked into the history of mysteries that are not noir or thrillers, and they got their start in the UK between the world wars (with Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and others). Cozy mysteries often get more popular during times of economic and political unrest because readers seek comfort and escape through predictability—cozies have been doing really, really well in our turbulent political times.

3. What’s this mystery about? Leonora “Leo” Holloway is a failed E.M. Forster literary scholar (which is how A Room with a View became A Zoom with a View). After finally admitting defeat on the academic market, Leo returns to her fictional hometown town of Blue Oak, Texas, a small town outside of Austin trying to keep things hippy-dippy-weird as Austin succumbs to tech bros from California. Leo’s mom, Karina, is the over-hairsprayed, overly loud owner of the “Hair Today, Dye Tomorrow” salon in downtown Blue Oak; Leo has a contentious relationship with her mother and wouldn’t move back if she had literally any other option. Karina’s best friend, Kay (the local queen of Blue Oak real estate, and mother of Leo’s tornadic best friend, Emily) offers to let Leo live in their family pool house and work for her real estate company as a photographer while Leo figures out her academic career. Reluctantly, Leo accepts.

   But on Leo’s first night home, things in Blue Oak explode when the rival real estate agent, Charles “Chaz” Nickolson, starts a fight with Kay. He’s a former high school quarterback who views himself as a “quadruple threat”—a social media influencer, internet reverend, Crossfit gym owner, and real estate agent, and he is gunning for Kay’s business with a competing Facebook page. Known for his cheesy inspirational sayings (“Chaz Your Dreams!!”), Chaz has an entire snark subreddit of people devoted to chronicling his every problematic move—especially his scandalous breakup with yoga influencer, Bodhi Bruce, who left cultural appropriation in the mirror years ago and never looked back; and his new relationship with uber-blonde, gum-smacking social climber, Kymber. When a dead body shows up in an unlikely place (and yes, the murder involves a Zoom meeting!), Sheriff Mike Quackenbush accuses someone Leo loves of murder, she realizes she knows some information that might change everything, but she has to act fast.

   Jake Nguyen (hottie younger brother of a high school friend) is the sharp, exhausted detective trying to work faster than his inept boss, Quackenbush; sometimes that means working with Leo, often against her, but the attraction between the two of them is evident from the beginning. At the same time, Mack Garner (Leo’s high school boyfriend, the one who got away) has grown into a hardworking, extremely good-looking owner of the nearby inn who doesn’t try to hide the fact that he thinks about Leo all the time—though he is hiding a secret about his past with the murder victim. Meanwhile, Leo’s mother, Karina, has her own secrets that seem to multiply by the day. As Leo’s fears and frustrations grow, she does what she knows best: she researches. After all, literary scholarship is just solving a mystery of a different kind. Are the local Facebook pages good sources of information, or red herrings? Are the snark subredditors producing clues or thwarting the police? Can she trust Jake? Or Mack? Her mother? Herself?

   As Leo solves the murder, she finds out more about her hometown, her past, and herself than she ever anticipated—and changes the trajectory of her life forever.

4. These books are…funny? I mean, I really, really hope so! It’s definitely fun! I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed writing this book, especially naming the punny businesses in town (like the bar/bookstore, “Top Shelf,” or the mysterious pie shop, “I Spie”) and Chaz’s influencer friends (my personal favorite: “Abacus, because I make it count, baby!”). I cackled often while writing alone (and often scared my dog). Also, I loved, loved, loved playing up the love triangle between Leo, Jake, and Mack. Romantasy might be having a moment, but long live romystery!!

5. And you wrote these books while you were working on Illegal? Publishing is very start and stop. Once I turned in a full manuscript of We Were Illegal, I would get edits back from my editor, Emily, at Viking, and then have weeks to make revisions. I’d then send the next round off to her, and she took the time she needed to edit (while still working on her other books). In my off times last year, while Emily had Illegal, I worked on this novel. Well, until the end, when things got nuts.

6. What does your agent think about this? This is the question that only writers ask, but it’s probably the most important question: She’s excited! We’ve been prepping for this for a while. My agent is Mackenzie Brady Watson, who we all call MBW, and none of this would exist without her. She’s known I wanted to do this for years, because I tell her (probably way too early) when I’m excited about the projects in my head. She’s mostly a nonfiction agent. When I said I wanted to write cozy mysteries, many agents might have laughed or sent me elsewhere. Not Mackenzie. She started reading in the genre and connecting with editors; she’s been prepping for this submission process for most of last year. She is warm and efficient, my best first reader and editor, the sharpest critic (in the most discerning way that makes me trust her implicitly), and a consummate, constant cheerleader. She also works so collaboratively with everyone at her agency, Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, the nicest sharks in New York. Her co-agent, Aemilia Phillips, read a draft of this mystery too and gave it really strong critiques that made it much better. I’m so, so grateful to both of them, and everyone else at SKLA who have been cheering this on along the way.

7. When did you sell the books? OK, so admittedly, this part of the story is a little wild (and the part I’ve been dying to write about since it took up so much of my time this year!). After working on the novel on and off, I finished up a draft this past March. With We Were Illegal launching on June 19, we knew we were up against a pretty massive deadline—with book launch, the kids out of school, and my summer residency at Wilkes, I wouldn’t be able to do much writing in June or July, and the election this fall makes everything feel dicey. MBW asked me if I wanted to try to finish this up and get it on submission before Illegal came out. I gulped, talked to Jonathan, and agreed to try. What followed next are some of the most intense weeks of my career in publishing.

   MBW got me edits back on my first draft within two weeks, in early April. Two weeks after that, I turned a massive revision back to her. She read it again and sent me notes; I revised it deeply and sent it back. She sent it to Aemilia, who read it with fresh eyes and gave me excellent suggestions. I made revisions again—at nights, over the weekends, early in the mornings—and turned in a final version to both of them. While they did a final pass, I wrote up a marketing plan and a series plan. And then, in late May—two weeks before Illegal launched!—MBW sent A Zoom with a View to the editors on her list.

   Working with MBW at that pace might sound stressful, but it was absolute and pure joy. I can’t explain it—there’s something about having a partner in a creative project like this who truly and absolutely understands it, who can work at the same pace, who is there in every way, that was utterly delightful. I stretched myself as a writer every day, pushed further and faster under her guidance. We were working at the top of our games together; it was dazzling and energizing and I’ve never experienced anything like it. And yes, I know how lucky I am to have an agent like Mackenzie—I will never stop pinching myself, or singing her praises to everyone who asks. (Is this a love letter to my agent? I’m fine with that!)

   Just to finish (and this part is probably only important to other writers, but I always like to know): it was on submission for two months before my first editorial conversations were scheduled. There are probably several reasons for this—publishing is in a weird, weird place right now. The summer months are hard because people are traveling; the book just didn’t connect with some editors. But there were editors writing MBW with enthusiasm and asking for more time—a higher-up was out of town, or marketing wanted to check some things, etc. Finally, in the middle of July, we started taking editorial calls. One editor gave me what I thought were absolutely brilliant critiques and ideas to make the book stronger; I love what I call “Swedish Massage Edits.” We had other conversations with editors who were effusive and enthusiastic and who we liked so much; I truly had no idea where the book would land. We finally set an auction date, and while I was in the middle of a trip (the week after my book tour ended!), MBW kept me posted as the offers came in.

   On a Friday morning in late July, it became clear: the editor whose vision for the book I loved made the best offer for a two-book deal. I was thrilled to finally sign with Grace Layer at Dutton Books. I cannot wait to begin this process with her!

8. What’s next? We start revising Zoom soon, and I’m writing the second book in the series—which is already outlined and planned—with a draft due by next March. The second book will be set in the world of Irish Dance, which is truly the perfect setting for a cozy mystery: high sparkle, high drama, high steps. The title’s a pun on Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce, and I’m not sure if my former professors will laugh or be horrified that my PhD in literature has led to this career, but I’m having an absolute blast. A Zoom with a View will come out in spring of 2026, Finnegan sometime after that and then we’ll see what comes next! I could never have anticipated this turn in my career, so who knows where any of this will lead, but I’m so deeply grateful to everyone who has helped bring Leo and her quirky community in Blue Oak into the world!