Lynn Emery’s paranormal mysteries conjure La. lore and love
7th October 2024 · 0 Comments
By Candace J. Semien
Contributing Writer
(Special from Jozef Syndicate) — From her dual-screen workstation, novelist Lynn Emery conjures a continuous flow of stories with dynamic, supernatural characters, mysterious conundrums, and deep Louisiana lore.
Her first story idea came when she was ten years old watching television and reading “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” by Agatha Christie. “I just knew that I loved that book and I wanted to write murder mysteries,” she admits.
At 69, her writing is just as energetic.
Since 1995, the Baton Rouge native has written across mystery, supernatural, horror, and romance genres. She has published more than 35 romance novels and paranormal mysteries that reveal a remarkable, enduring imagination. And, she has more stories to come.
“I don’t experience writer’s block. I’m too curious. There’s so much for me to write about,” she says confidently.
Her first novel, “Night Magic,” was published by Kensington Publishing and later recognized for Excellence in Romance Fiction by Romantic Times magazine. And, this year, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association named “Blood Bayou” their self-publishing Horror e-Book of the Year.
However, “Blood Bayou,” which was published in 2023, is not her most recent novel nor is it the end of the seven-book LaShaun Rousselle Mystery series.
While momentum grew surrounding “Blood Bayou,” Emery published “Dead End,” which is the sixth book of her Joliet Sisters Psychic Detectives Mystery Series.
If you’re keeping count, that is two mystery series with 13 books between them.
The former clinical social worker has also published a futuristic sci-fi trilogy, a cozy mystery Tripple Troubble Series, a five-book romantic mystery Louisiana Love Series: City Girls and twelve romantic suspense novels. All of them feature Black, female sleuths and protagonists with Creole, Louisiana lineage.
Now, Emery is heading into her third decade in book publishing by writing mysteries to add to four of her mystery series, while revisiting the original book inspired by her 10-year-old self.
10-Year-old Reader Turned Writer
Emery remembers being ten years old, sneaking to read the books her mother brought home from her job as a maid for a wealthy white family who often discarded books.
“I was reading murder mysteries,” Emery laughs, admitting “I reading stuff she probably didn’t think I should be reading.”
She would maneuver through the adult books by looking up words in an old dictionary. “And I was learning! I read The Agony and the Ecstasy (by Irving Stone and The Show Boat by Edna Ferber) I didn’t understand half of what I was reading but…I learned so much.”
Television also sparked her desire not only to write murder mysteries but to include female characters as heroines and villains.
“I didn’t like that women were always shown as weak, and, in the critical moment, they’re running. They’re crying. And they’re wearing heels in the woods. And they trip!” She says with a laugh. “And I thought, even at 10 years old, I thought that was the stupidest thing. I’m going to write my own!”
She started writing. “I had it all plotted out and had written the first scenes,” Emery recalls.
Her interest in novel writing grew while she wrote poems and plays for church. After graduating from Baton Rouge Magnet High School, she attended LSU, majored in psychology, and later worked as a licensed clinical social worker. All the while, she uncovered stories, plots, characters, conflicts, and themes almost everywhere.
“I have an insatiable curiosity,” she quipped. “I remember and gather information that may seem useless at the time and then I put it together.”
As a young child, an elderly Creole babysitter would tell Emery stories about spells and conjures, while other adults admonished voodoo curses, ghost stories, and demon legends.
Emery would go on to weave these elements along with Louisiana culture, history, and politics into her novels. She would also draw on her time working at a psychiatric ward where patients often spoke of possessions that Emery knew were rooted in Louisiana lore.
She pulled together those experiences, other legends, and Louisiana culture to create plots and conflicts. For background, she honored the characters as they appeared to her.
For example, the main character in “Dead End” first “appeared” to Emery dead and dressed as a clown. “I kept asking myself why is he a clown…then, it became clear. He is a rich guy attending a Mardi-Gras-themed party in uptown New Orleans,” says Emery.
Another idea came as a vivid dream of a female investigator who flew to Madrid, Spain, to track a serial killer in futuristic 2084. In the Dr. Zen Mystery series, the forensic sociologist Dr. Zenobia Batiste becomes a high-level Department of Justice investigator on assignment to solve murders in space. This required Emery to conduct extensive research into space travel, mining, colonization, and nutrition.
Emery’s work and experiences in a Louisiana psych ward spun the psychotic twins of the Joliet Sisters Psychic Detectives series. Because of their psychic abilities and having been mistakenly diagnosed as having childhood schizophrenia, private detectives Charmaine and Jessi Joliet pursue supernatural secrets among the living and dead in New Orleans.
Parallel Life of Publishing
Emery wrote novels while working full-time in child welfare, at a state-operated psychiatric center, and later as a manager of substance abuse programs – until retiring in 2016..
But her life in publishing started from an elevator conversation with a woman who noticed her carrying a copy of Writers Digest magazine 30 years ago. On that brief ride, the woman invited Emery to join a local writers’ group at the Jones Creek Library. As the sole Black participant, she pleaded with Emery, “Please don’t let me keep going to these meetings by myself.”
Turns out it was the local Romance Writers of America chapter. Emery was not interested in writing romance. Her late husband, artist and fine arts director Jean Paul Hubbard would read advanced copies of Emery’s novels and quip at how quickly he would find a murder within the story.
But a speaker at the RWA chapter meeting encouraged her to write romantic suspense – a genre she had never heard of. “She told me romance readers are very voracious and the market is huge”.
Emery says the speaker challenged the chapter members to write the first scene of a character arriving someplace. “And that became the first scene of ‘Night Magic’.”
Labeled romance suspense, “Night Magic” introduces attorney Savannah St. Julien who has been trying to avoid emotional entanglements but gets caught up with Paul Honorè in a legal battle that leads to a voodoo curse and murder. Turned out, “Romance was the easiest genre for me to sell into, so I wrote,” Emery says. Later, Avon Books contracted Emery to write six romance novels which were brought by Harper Collins.
Her success in traditional publishing continued.
In 1999, she was in “complete shock” when her second novel After All was made into a B.E.T. movie featuring Holly Robinson Peete, Kellie Shanygne Williams, and David Bryan Woodside.
In 2004, Emery won three coveted RSJ Emma Awards. She was chosen Author of the Year for “Kiss Lonely Goodbye,” and won an award for best hero from Romance Slam Jam, the only conference that celebrated Black romance authors and events at that time. In 2005, “Good Woman Blues” was recommended and nominated for best multicultural mainstream fiction by Romantic Times magazine.
In all, she published 19 stand-alone romance novels for Kensington, Avon Books, Penguin, and Harper Collins. Her titles have won and been nominated for several awards.
That still wasn’t impactful enough for Emery to stick to writing romance.
The trajectory of her career shifted 18 years ago when Emery decided to stop writing romance, and her publisher at that time didn’t want mysteries. She admitted. “I know how hard it is for African-American authors, Black authors, to sell to traditional publishing, but I wasn’t sad about it…I figured, well, I had a nice time. I had fun. So, I just said thanks, but no thanks,” she says. “I’ll just write whatever I want to write.”
And she has.
In 2006, Emery stepped into self-publishing at the impetus of change.
Although self-publishing wasn’t a viable market at the time and authors had no way of selling directly to bookstores and mass markets, Emery wrote what she desired and leaned into her full-time job for financial stability.
A member of Novelist Inc., Emery attended a mystery writers’ conference. She and two authors sat in a workshop and were introduced to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and a new e-reader called the Kindle.
“I was thinking, ‘this is going to be great!” she says.
While there, she learned how orphaned authors – mostly romance – were purchasing and regaining the publishing rights of their backlist, and beginning to self-publish. She took note and started requesting rights from previous publishers to reclaim her novels.
Since then, she has published 16 books under her independent imprint Lazy River Publishing, with many more to come. Her books are distributed everywhere books are sold and on her website www.lynnemery.com.
This article originally published in the October 7, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
