An Interview With Laura Jensen Walker

by Grace Topping

 

The Postmistress of Puddlington

1934, Dorset. Nothing gives postmistress Hester Smith greater joy than cycling through the idyllic village of Puddlington, delivering the mail to her neighbours. Bookish Hester has always felt privileged to witness the highs and lows a single letter can bring.

But when war comes to Puddlington’s shores five years later, Hester suddenly finds herself in the devastating position of delivering news that no one should hear. As the community is directly impacted by tragedy on the battlefield and a shocking death occurs in the village, Hester’s spirit and resolve are tested like never before.

Can she and her fellow Puddlington women, including the vicar’s wife and the bohemian lady of the manor, find the courage to face their darkest times and come through a storm that will change their lives forever?

                                                                      www.amazon.com

 

 

On August 4, Laura Jensen Walker’s 25^th book was released. But unlike many authors who write in a single genre, Laura has written in multiple genres. She joins us today at Writers Who Kill to talk about her most recent book, The Postmistress of Puddlington, and some of her other books in different genres.

 

 

Welcome back to Writers Who Kill, Laura.

 

The Postmistress of Puddlington has been called an uplifting and emotional historical novel. You’ve called it the "book of your heart." After writing 25 books, what makes this one so special to you?

A few things. I first got the inkling of an idea for this semi-epistolary novel nearly 50 years ago while stationed in England with the Air Force, when I was dreaming of someday becoming an author. (A dream I didn’t know would ever happen.) This was before the Internet and email, so our only communication with family back in the States was through letters (and the rare—and expensive—phone call.) Back then, I wanted to write a story about a young woman in the military and her adventures overseas, capturing some of them in her letters home. By the time I wrote Puddlington, however, I was in my sixties, so I made the main character—Hester, the postmistress—a middle-aged woman. However, there’s still a young woman in the military writing letters—Nora Clarke, a Wren in the Royal Navy.

 

Because I’m a rabid Anglophile who loves all things English, I’d hoped to return to my beloved England after I retired and spend the rest of my days there, but thanks to Brexit, the UK no longer has retirement visas. Instead, I watch All Creatures Great and Small and Escape to the Country on TV to get my English countryside fix.

 

Writing Puddlington was the single most joyous writing experience I’ve had in my career (so far.) Each day when I sat down to write, the words poured out of me like a fountain. Since I’m a pantser (seat-of-the-pants writer) rather than a plotter, usually when I write, I hit a roadblock partway through the book, wondering what happens next? How in the world am I going to write an entire book from this? This happens with every novel—and sometimes, more than once. But it didn’t happen with Puddlington—the story flowed easily and naturally with nothing getting in its way. It was bliss.

 

What inspired you to write a book set in England during World War II? 

 

The pandemic. I didn’t realize I had PTSD from a traumatic incident at nineteen—an assault that made me fear for my life—until lockdown when the fear of getting Covid triggered my PTSD. Now, in my sixties in 2020, it wasn’t a group of men who might kill me, it could be anyone who breathed on me. To relieve those fears, I needed to escape to my beloved England and a time when everyone banded together to do the right thing (e.g., put up blackout curtains, planted victory gardens, etc.).

 

What was your biggest challenge writing about British characters set in a town so different from your own?

 

Honestly? It wasn’t much of a challenge since I read so many novels set in England; watch countless British TV shows set in small English villages; and formerly lived in an English village myself, in a 350-year-old stone cottage. The only challenge was making sure I got the language right. Happily, I was able to check with my English friend Patricia who lives in a Dorset town, and my Scottish friend Catriona, who kindly offered to vet my manuscript for Britishisms. I was thrilled to bits when the London editor who acquired Puddlington emailed that she was impressed at how authentically English my book was. It made my day.

 

Your main character, Hester Smith, finds herself in the difficult position of delivering mail during the war that could possibly contain heartbreaking news. How does she handle that?

 

By following the British maxim: Keep Calm and Carry On. (And having an occasional cry on the beach.)

 

Since there is a shocking death in the village, would you consider that this book has a foot in the mystery genre?

 

A toe, not a foot, since it’s a teensy, tiny mystery subplot.

 

You have a number of characters in this book. Do your characters arrive fully formed, or do they gradually reveal themselves as you write?

 

They gradually reveal themselves. I knew a lot about some of the characters before I started writing (e.g., that Nora was half-American/half-British and loved to read), but then I fleshed them out more fully in the process. That’s another one of the joys of being a pantser—discovering your characters during the writing.

 

Do you have a favorite character in the book?

 

That’s a tough question, Grace! If pressed, I’d say it’s a tie between my bookish, spinster postmistress Hester, and Minerva Winterbottom, the widowed, bohemian lady of the manor. (With Wordsworth-quoting gardener Amos close behind.)

 

You’ve had several books released or soon-to-be released within a short period of time, including Death of a Flying Nightingale, The Alphabet Sleuths, and coming this fall, The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch. All in different genres. Do you find writing in one genre more difficult than another? Do you have a favorite genre?

 

No, I don’t find writing in one genre more difficult than another—maybe because all my novels are character-driven. Granted, my historical fiction books took more research than the others, but I love research! Particularly WWII England—my favorite era and place. (And as a former member of the Air Force stationed at an RAF base in Oxfordshire years ago, it was my great privilege to write about the Flying Nightingales— who were based not far from where I’d been stationed—and to shine a spotlight on this group of real-life women heroes of the RAF that history has overlooked. 

 

After writing two historicals set in wartime back-to-back, however, it was fun to make the switch to a cozy mystery, The Alphabet Sleuths, featuring four accidental senior sleuths. I began my publishing career writing stories that made people laugh; non-fiction domestic humor ala Erma Bombeck, then graduating to frothy chick-lit and cozy mystery novels. Decades ago in a creative writing class, the professor frequently picked the same two students’ works to read aloud: my essays, which made the class laugh, and those of a middle-aged woman who’d endured a lifetime of trauma, which made them cry.

 

I knew then that one day I wanted to make a reader cry. And now, with The Postmistress of Puddlington and The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch, I have. 

 

Please tell us about The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch, coming in October.

Primrose Honeychurch (the second book of my heart) is a solitary curmudgeon with sensory issues who prefers books to people. At seventy, Primrose screws up her courage to take a trip to Hay-on-Wye, the legendary Welsh “Town of Books.” Unfortunately, her literary pilgrimage just won’t follow the plot. After an accident derails her trip, Primrose finds herself staying awhile with estranged family. She senses a kindred spirit in the niece she’s getting to know, who uncannily understands the world much the same as Primrose herself does.

What began as an unwelcome detour becomes something more profound. For the first time in her life, Primrose begins to glimpse the beauty—and courage—of true human connection.

 

What is the most important thing you learned since you started writing?

 

To never give up, and to push through the fear of trying new things. My entire writing career has been one surprise after another. I never planned to write humor—it came naturally. I certainly never planned to write mysteries—I assumed you had to be a plotter to do so. I had no plans to write historical fiction either, even though I love reading it. The idea was daunting. As for women’s fiction (aka book club fiction), that was the province of authors like Ann Patchett, Elisabeth Berg, and Amy Tan. I couldn’t write women’s fiction. Could I? But the idea kept nagging at me, so I shut out all the noise, stopped comparing myself to other authors, sat my butt in the chair and wrote the story that demanded to be told.  

 

What are you working on now?

 

A cozy mystery with a musical-theater-loving accidental sleuth, and a dual timeline women’s fiction standalone set in an English bookshop in the 1950s and 1970s.

 

Thank you, Laura. Good luck in whatever genre you write in next.

 

 

Bio

Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Laura Jensen Walker writes in several genres--mysteries, historical fiction, women's fiction (book club fiction), and non-fiction. Laura is the author of a handful of lighthearted mystery novels including the #1 Amazon bestselling, Agatha-nominated. Murder Most Sweet, and The Alphabet Sleuths, which has been dubbed The Thursday Murder Club meets The Golden Girls. Laura flew a typewriter across Europe in Uncle Sam’s Air Force in her twenties and fell in love with all things English while stationed at an RAF base in the UK. Death of a Flying Nightingale, nominated for a Lefty Award, is her first historical novel. Her second WWII historical, The Postmistress of Puddlington, which will appeal to fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, releases in August 2026. Laura's women's fiction debut, The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch about a solitary, book-loving senior on a quest (releasing in fall 2026) has been called "the journey of a lifetime through wonder, laughter, and heartbreak--and many cups of tea--that's not to be missed."

Laura lives in Northern California in a wannabe-English cottage where she drinks tea and dreams of England. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.

Grace Topping is the author of the Laura Bishop Mystery Series.