with Jean Moynahan
We are delighted to welcome author Jean Moynahan to Omnimystery News today.
Jean's new mystery novel is The Black Fountain Goddess (Twilight Times Books; May 2014 ebook format; trade paperback available July 15th) and we recently had the chance to talk with Jean about her work.
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Omnimystery News: The Black Fountain Goddess is your second mystery after The Illuminated Vineyard. Both are stand-alones. Do you prefer writing books without recurring characters?
Photo provided courtesy of
Jean Moynahan
Jean Moynahan: I am a little humbled by inexperience, but I haven't been attracted to the idea (so far!) of having a series or recurring characters. Having said that, I must say that some of my favorite mystery and thriller writers do write series, so I certainly understand the attraction as a reader. However, one mystery writer whom I admire a great deal but who has not written a series was asked in an interview about why she hadn't as stories with recurring characters seem to be ubiquitous. She responded that she liked the idea of devoting everything she had to characters in one story — then moving on. That struck a chord with me. I know what she meant.
OMN: Tell us a little more about your two mystery novels. Do either fall into one of the genres subcategories (like cozy, paranormal, police procedural, and the like)?
JM: Although my first two books were romances, I really like to think of myself as a mystery writer (that is what I read, mainly). One lesson I learned when I first set out to write a book was that a common pitfall for aspiring writers (from a publisher's standpoint) was not writing for a target audience or within a specific genre. Not to put too fine a point on it, it can become a problem of marketing. Of course, there are many writers who are quite comfortable in an established category such as cozy, procedural, or paranormal. But in both of the mysteries I have written, I wanted to do something that didn't necessarily fall into a well-defined category.
For example, in my first mystery, The Illuminated Vineyard, I used references to a favorite poet, the French Symbolist Rimbaud, to tie together characters and clues, but the mystery itself is neither a police procedural nor an amateur-detective/cozy story. It is simply about a woman who finds herself caught up in a murder that has roots in her own past. In my second mystery, The Black Fountain Goddess, I wanted to explore a life-long fascination with ancient religions with a touch of the paranormal without making the book dependent on the supernatural per se.
Both books are certainly mysteries in that murders occur and the whodunit structure is key, but each is also different in tone, approach, and type of characters. Actually, I like the idea of "cross-over"! The disadvantage is that finding a publisher may prove challenging.
OMN: Give us a summary of The Black Fountain Goddess in a tweet.
JM: Man finds that ancestor was executed for brutal crime. Now beautiful woman linked to similar murder. Connection: Black Fountain Goddess.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
JM: I wrote a rather long essay about a year ago for inclusion in an anthology about the writing process, but here is a short version. Personally, I can't imagine starting to write a story without some idea of the narrative arc: what is going to happen to whom, when, how, and why. On the other hand, long before I set out to write a novel, I knew that many authors insisted that too much outlining and planning can choke the life out of a work-in-progress. So, from my very first book, I tried to let characters take the lead, as it were, and be open to unexpected possibilities in a story's development. One strategy that works for me is to put characters in a scene, and then stand aside and let them interact. Sometimes surprising things happen! I end up feeling like a spectator to an actors' studio improv exercise. Rather fun, actually.
Although I didn't write full-fledged biographies of characters for The Black Fountain Goddess, because the story crosses three or four generations of a family with sometimes hidden and complex interconnections, I did write a genealogy complete with births, deaths, and marriages. It was indispensable.
OMN: Tell us more about the cover for The Black Fountain Goddess. And how did it come to be titled?
JM: As a reader, I am often attracted to a book simply by its cover although I rarely reject one based on a cover. For The Black Fountain Goddess, I knew that designing a cover would be tricky because it is based mainly in a small college town in contemporary Oregon, but with important if brief flashbacks to the Middle East and an ancient goddess cult. So, the design had to convey that with a suggestion of what is explained as the story develops. (Hint: the night sky is important.) I have absolutely no talent in artistic design, but fortunately, the artist who did the cover, Deirdre Wait, was able to render what I wanted as a striking visual image.
As for the title, I struggled with that for a while. At one point I called it The Goddess of the Black Fountain but it kept reminding me of The Creature from the Black Lagoon — definitely not the tone I was aiming for. Phrasing is everything and sometimes one just has to work at it.
OMN: You mentioned that you mainly read mysteries. Are there any other areas you like to explore?
JM: I have always loved history, so I read a fair amount but randomly. It might be about ancient Egypt one week, and the War of the Roses the next. I love mysteries, but it seems that more than ever, "mystery" as a genre covers an incredible array of sub-categories. I will read just about any type, including historical mysteries, supernatural suspense, and police procedurals as well as broad categories such as Nordic crime — and some that defy description. One of my favorite activities as a reader is just to browse — library shelves, book reviews, web sites, book ads, anything that grabs my attention for some reason and makes me think, "Hmm, that looks interesting." Sometimes the books don't live up to expectations, but often I discover some wonderful new writer to look for in the future, and that is a true pleasure.
In addition to reading mysteries of all sorts, I love a good, creepy, leave-the-lights-on-all-night horror story. (I actually did that one time in college after reading an H.P. Lovecraft story!) I don't enjoy really gory or graphic stories, but I do like something that, to paraphrase Coleridge, makes me willingly suspend disbelief while scaring me silly.
OMN: What's next for you?
JM: I have at least one story started and look forward to working on it this summer.
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Jean Moynahan was born in Oregon but raised in Arizona. Before finishing her university studies, she served two years in Germany with the Army Signal Corps, an experience that years later would provide the basis for her first published book, the romance novel Captain of Hearts. Jean completed a master's degree in English literature at Arizona State University and has been a teacher ever since, specifically an adjunct college instructor in writing and literature at a community college in Oregon for over twenty years. She has published a second romance, Painted Heart, and a mystery, The Illuminated Vineyard.
Jean lives with her husband in Oregon's beautiful Willamette Valley.
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The Black Fountain Goddess
Jean Moynahan
A Mystery
While studying anthropology in Arizona, graduate student Jacob Colt is shocked to discover that his great-grandfather was hanged for a ritualistic murder in rural Oregon nearly a hundred years earlier. Angered that the truth has been kept from him, Jacob returns to his hometown in Oregon and begins searching for the truth behind the crime, but almost immediately a grisly murder occurs at the small college where his father is a professor.
As Jacob learns more disturbing details about his family’s leadership in an ancient goddess cult, he finds that the two murders, separated by decades, may both be rooted in the cult’s worship of a sacred object. Complicating his investigation is his involvement with three young women involved in the current murder investigation, all of whom he finds attractive — and all of whom have their own secrets. Ultimately, he knows he must unravel the most complex and dangerous mystery of all: who is the Black Fountain Goddess?
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