Changing Genres with Laura Jensen Walker

A few years ago, Laura Jensen Walker and I discovered that we both have roots in Racine, Wisconsin’s Danish community. In fact, we were born in the same hospital, St. Luke’s–but not at the same time! Our friendship was sealed when we discovered a common passion for Danish Kringle and the British Isles. What more could one ask for?

Laura and I finally met in person last year at Left Coast Crime, and I had the privilege of reading an ARC of her latest novel, Death of a Flying Nightingale. The novel is a departure for her. Welcome to Miss Demeanors, Laura!

 

And now for something completely different! Changing genres.

Thank you to Connie and the Miss Demeanors crew for having me back to talk about my historical debut, Death of a Flying Nightingale—a huge departure for me.

My authorial career began a lifetime ago with the publication of my first humor book, Dated Jekyll, Married Hyde. I never set out to write “funny,” it just came naturally. Years before when I was living in Cleveland, I took an English class at a community college. The instructor regularly read aloud the essays of two of his students: mine and those of a middle-aged woman who’d endured a lot of trauma and loss in her life.

My essays always made the class laugh, hers made them cry.

Someday, I vowed, I’m going to make a reader cry. (Early readers have told me that Death of a Flying Nightingale has done that. Yay!)

After Dated Jekyll, Married Hyde, nine other non-fiction humor books followed in short order. After that, I moved to fiction—my passion—and wrote seven frothy chick-lit novels. I took a writing sabbatical for several years, returning to the publishing world in 2020 with my first cozy mystery, the Agatha-nominated Murder Most Sweet. Two more fun and light cozies followed.

Then the pandemic happened.

Frightened and anxious, in particular because of the added risk of my age, some health issues, and my husband being immunocompromised, I retreated in lockdown. Needing a safe place, I escaped to World War II England where a country pulled together and everyone did the right thing. I began penning my first historical novel—a semi-epistolary tale of women on the home front; a book I’d longed to write since I was stationed at an RAF base in England in the late 1970s. (Long before anyone heard of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.)

That historical was a complete departure from anything I’d written before. It wasn’t funny and light (though it has its moments), required extensive research, was not written in first person like my other novels, and had multiple points of view.

Multiple points of view. Yikes! How do you even do that?

I figured it out though, and do you know what? I loved every moment of writing that book. The words simply flowed. It was the single most joyous writing experience I’ve ever had. (Possibly because it was set in my beloved England where I hoped to live again one day, during my favorite period in history, and featured a cast of strong, resourceful women, including a bibliophile postmistress who loved Dickens and Jane Eyre.)

My then-agent loved that book and began pitching it to publishers. Sadly, it was rejected again and again. So, I began work on my second historical, another WWII novel set in England; this one inspired by a group of real-life heroes history had forgotten.

This book was much harder to write; the journalist in me kept fighting with the novelist. As an Air Force veteran I was determined to honor these courageous, overlooked WWII women—the Flying Nightingales—who’d served on an RAF base in England not far from where I’d been stationed all those years ago. Determined to be as accurate as possible, initially my journalist side got caught up in the historical minutia—often at the expense of the story—until a dear editor friend gently reminded me, “this is a novel, Laura; story is king.”

And so, I rewrote the book (more than once) to ensure I told a good story. Part of that story includes real-life anecdotes from a 106-year-old former nursing orderly named Edith, thought to be the last living Flying Nightingale, whom I had the great privilege of “meeting” and interviewing over email.

The honor of my life.

I hope you enjoy this fictionalized tale of these real-life women heroes.

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Three very different young women serve as air ambulance “nurses,” bravely flying into WWII combat zones and risking their lives to evacuate the wounded: Irish Maeve joined the RAF after her fiancé was killed, streetwise Etta fled London’s slums in search of a better life, and farm girl Bety enlisted to prevent the wounded from dying like her brother.

Newspapers have given these women a romantic nickname, “The Flying Nightingales.” Not that there’s anything romantic about what they do. The horrific injuries they encounter daily take their toll, so when one of the Nightingales is found dead, they wonder: Was it an accident? Suicide? Or something else? After another nursing orderly dies mysteriously, it becomes clear that someone is killing the Nightingales.

Inspired by true events, this book, my historical fiction debut, is a tribute to a group of overlooked WWII heroes who kept calm and carried on while the fighting raged about them. These courageous women proudly did their bit for King and country and found solace and camaraderie in the lasting friendships forged in war.

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Laura Jensen Walker is the award-winning author of several books including the bestselling, Agatha-nominated Murder Most Sweet. Captivated by the tales of an overlooked group of WWII RAF women—the Flying Nightingales—Air Force veteran Laura knew she had to tell their story. Death of a Flying Nightingale is her historical debut. You can find her at https://laurajensenwalker.com.