Writers Read: Laura Jensen Walker

Monday, October 19, 2026

Laura Jensen Walker

Laura Jensen Walker is the award-winning author of several books, including The Alphabet Sleuths, the Lefty-nominated Death of a Flying Nightingale, and the Amazon bestselling, Agatha-nominated Murder Most Sweet.

Growing up in Racine, Wisconsin, a young Walker dreamed of seeing the world and becoming a writer. She enlisted in the US Air Force after high school and flew a typewriter across Europe as a clerk typist. While in the UK, she fell head over heels for all things English and became a confirmed tea-drinking Anglophile.

At age forty, cancer compelled Walker to finally publish her first book. Then, in her sixties, she discovered she was neurodivergent, spurring her to write a novel about a book-loving, neurodivergent senior with unusual quirks and sensory issues: The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch.

These days, Walker lives in Northern California with her Renaissance-man husband and two rescue terriers, sipping tea (Yorkshire Gold) and dreaming of visiting Hay-on-Wye one day.

Recently I asked Walker about what shwas reading. The author's reply:

I’m currently reading the second volume of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion—a series of novellas set in London in 1883. Charming and witty with a great cast of characters, they’re a perfect tonic—and escape—from the daily insanity of our country today.

Emma, determined to take back possession of her rightful home from her awful Cousin Archibald, chronicles the ins and outs of her frustrating, albeit hilarious life with plenty of humor. Archibald relegates Emma to the garret—actually a portion of the garret since he’s walled off ten feet of the house, and rented it to a tenant. Emma, who dubs the man on the other side of the garret wall “the Tenant,” begins exchanging notes with him on scraps of paper slid through a crack between the boards.

The journals, written by Beth Brower, are a combination of Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, and P.G. Wodehouse. An absolute delight.

I recently finished An Artful Dodge, by the brilliant Karen Odden. If you’re looking for impeccably researched historical fiction, mesmerizing characters you’ll fall in love with, and a compelling story you can’t put down, look no further. This was a fascinating dive into Victorian London and a ring of women thieves, Kit Jimeson is my favorite new heroine. Fingers crossed her journey continues.

My latest contemporary read was the fabulous Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth, which I read in one day. Grumpy, eighty-one-year-old Elsie minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and whispers start flying. That’s when we learn Elsie hasn’t always been Elsie: she was Mad Mabel Waller—Australia’s youngest convicted murderer.

I fell in love with this cranky curmudgeon who’s kept her secret buried for decades. This twisty tale was full of heart, humor and depth. Just when I thought I’d figured it out, the story went in another direction, occasionally bringing me to tears. Elsie/Mabel is a unique and compelling character I won’t soon forget.