A Poetic Puzzle: An imaginative and immersive literary mystery
“This is a cozy mystery for those who love the printed word, one that cleverly plays with the relationship between author and reader and the division between literature and real life.
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
An imaginative and immersive literary mystery.”
Joanne McLaughlin featured on A Bookish Moment
Sarah E. Burr chats with Joanne McLaughlin about her multifaceted writing background and the development of “A Poetic Puzzle: A Mystery in 32 Pieces.”
Review – A Poetic Puzzle by Joanne McLaughlin – StoreyBook Reviews
Published originally on: https://storeybookreviews.com/2025/07/review-a-poetic-puzzle/
This is not your typical mystery! But don’t let that deter you from reading this novel.
Mimi has been blessed, or perhaps cursed, to share the same name as the famous poet Mary Irene Jones (MIJ). Mimi is a poet as well. But when she receives some of the other MIJ’s works and MIJ goes missing, she sets off to uncover what happened to her. Is she dead? Did she disappear? What is the answer?
Because this is a different type of mystery, it took me a little while to sort out the players and grasp the story. However, once I did, I enjoyed trying to figure out what happened to MIJ, and if she would be found dead or alive. There is much to her life that is revealed in this novel.
There is a sweet romance brewing between Mimi and Detective Mike Quinn. I like how they work well together, and he doesn’t mind her trying to help solve the mystery. This isn’t always the case in other books. They also are not rushing into anything when it comes to their attraction for one another.
There are a few despicable characters, primarily the lawyer for MIJ. He seems to rush several things that wouldn’t make sense in a normal situation. He might just be one of the sleazy attorneys.
Lastly, if you enjoy poetry, several poems are included. While poetry isn’t something I usually read, I enjoyed the selections included in this book.
This is an enjoyable read, and we give it 4 paws up.
A Day In My Life ~ M. Irene “Mimi” Jones by Joanne McLaughlin
Published originally on dru’s book musings
https://drusbookmusing.com/m-irene-jones/
“Can you take on a fourth rabbit?” The manager sounded frantic. “It’s only for a week, at the Easter premium. Call me back, Mimi.”
I called, poised to negotiate. Usually, I’d just accept what the agency offered, but an overdue health insurance premium and a hefty heating bill demanded bigger bucks per bunny. Plus, I smelled vacation-bound clients desperate for a pet sitter.
“How about an extra fifty dollars over the premium? Easter doesn’t just sneak up on people. This rabbit was an impulse buy someone now regrets.”
She was thinking about it, I could tell. I had counted silently to seventeen before she said, “Deal. I’ll text you the details and email you the contract. Sign it ASAP, you’re due there at dinnertime tonight.”
Whose dinnertime, mine or the bunny’s, she didn’t say.
I did the math. Between the fatter pet-sitting fee and my meager adjunct professor’s pay at the college, I’d be able to write those checks. Time to cue the applause from Philadelphia Gas Works and my thus-far patient insurance company.
Oops, scratch that, no time after all. I was running behind schedule, and I could not be late for my “Poetry as Protest” class. The English Department chair would be stationed in the back row today, observing. Sharon Bernstein had two courses unassigned for the fall semester. Two was the maximum the college’s part-timers could teach, and I wanted them. Shouting, “Pick me!” wouldn’t work, and bribes were obviously out of the question. I needed to be on my game.
I grabbed my bag and my laptop and flew out the door, humming Pete Seeger’s labor anthem “Talking Union” as I exceeded the speed limit en route to the faculty parking lot. Fortunately, I made it to our bucolic suburban campus in under twenty-five minutes. Unfortunately, I arrived just as Sharon did.
I did not relish walking with her, but I couldn’t avoid it.
“How’s that dissertation coming? For that matter, can I expect to see new poems by M. Irene Jones published any time soon?” Sharon leveled her “Why am I asking these questions again?” glare at me.
“A few poetry journals are looking at pieces I sent last month. But the dissertation isn’t done, no.” Sharon knew this. I’d copied her on the submissions, and Lord knew the heavenly hosts would join me in hallelujahs once I completed work on my Ph.D. in English literature.
“Too many gerbils to tend to?”
“Guinea pigs and rabbits. No gerbils currently.”
My response was not to her liking, or so it seemed. Sharon stopped at the English Department building. My students awaited on the other side of the quad.
“Sorry, Mimi, but I’ve been summoned to a meeting with the Mary Irene Jones Poetry Contest judges. Your world-famous namesake is gracing us with her video presence. Mustn’t miss that rare honor.”
Was I relieved that I alone would brave twenty juniors and seniors prepared to be bored? You bet.
I jogged to the classroom and set my laptop to projector mode. Black-and-white photos of women working in an early twentieth-century textile mill appeared, slideshow style. From an old-school boombox I kept nearby came the 1982 strains of Huey Lewis and the News singing “Working for a Living.”
Exactly two minutes and thirty-eight seconds later, the music stopped, but the photos continued to move across the projection screen.
“Let’s talk about bad jobs you’ve had—busing tables, babysitting, washing cars, anything you were paid for. Which protest lyrics would you write?”
What would my song say, I wondered? Struggling poet plus pet sitter equaled…what?
A Poetic Puzzle
Genre: Romantic Mystery
Release: February 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Amazon Kindle | Amazon Print
About the Author
Joanne McLaughlin writes sharp mysteries, sexy vampire tales, and sweeter short fiction. She is the author of five novels: “A Poetic Puzzle: A Mystery in 32 Pieces” (Celestial Echo Press); the crime thriller “Chasing Ashes” (Celestial Echo Press); and the Vampires of the Court of Cruelty trilogy “Never Before Noon,” “Never Until Now,” and “Never More Human.” Among her published short stories are “Peppina’s Sweetheart” and “Grass and Granite” (both available for Kindle); “The Strangeness of the Story,” part of the anthology “Behind the Revolving Door, Volume 1,” and “Way, Way Out of the Building,” part of the anthology “Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, Volume 1.”
Joanne shares her top reads of 2025
Check out Book DNA to learn Joanne’s favorites from 2025: https://bookdna.com/bboy/2025/f/joanne-mclaughlin. (And if you missed the list from 2024, you can check that out here!)
Joanne McLaughlin guest blogger on Ladies of Mystery
June 7, 2025
On June 7, 2025, Joanne McLaughlin was featured as guest blogger on Ladies of Mystery, a group blog promoting the mystery genre. Check out the interview at:
https://ladiesofmystery.com/2025/06/07/guest-blogger-joanne-mclaughlin/
Joanne McLaughlin featured on Mystery Tribune
Ain’t Missing You: Horror Flash Fiction By Joanne McLaughlin
In Joanne McLaughlin’s Ain’t Missing You, Megan finds her onetime husband waiting for her outside the garage–yet again.…
Read at: https://mysterytribune.com/aint-missing-you-horror-flash-fiction-by-joanne-mclaughlin/
Joanne McLaughlin featured on The Above the Bar podcast
Shawn Murphy of The Above the Bar Podcast chats with Joanne McLaughlin about transitioning from journalism to fiction writing and crafting engaging narratives.
Joanne McLaughlin featured on The Indy Author Podcast
Matty Dalrymple of The Indy Author Podcast talks with Joanne McLaughlin about the journey of gaining confidence as an author and the benefits of participating in panel discussions at conferences. Joanne shares her experiences transitioning from being a behind-the-scenes editor and public relations instructor to stepping into the spotlight as an author on panels. Read more at: https://www.theindyauthor.com/274—elevating-your-presence-with-panel-appearances.html
Want to know Joanne McLaughlin’s Top 3 Books of 2024?
Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers Interviews
Author Joanne McLaughlin
Anastasia Pollack of Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers sit down for a chat with mystery, science fiction, and horror author Joanne McLaughlin who assures us that her vampires are more darkly romantic than scary.
https://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com/2025/01/an-interview-with-mystery-sci-fi-and.html
An Interview with Joanne McLaughlin
Joanne McLaughlin in the media
Shalom!
Today’s interview is with Joanne McLaughlin.
1. What is the name of the story?
“Way, Way Out of the Building”
2. What was your motivation in writing it? Does it have special meaning?
When I was approached to contribute to Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, I had a moment of insecurity. What could I possibly write? So I dug around my home office for a file of short stories I had written way back in time—OK, it was the 1990s—to see if I could find inspiration there. Much to my surprise, I did, in the printout of a never-published story about a nine-year-old boy and his odd hobby. Reading it again got my creative juices flowing.
“Way, Way Out of the Building” resulted, an altogether different story. If it has special meaning at all, it’s this: Life moves us, in just about every way you can define those words.
3. Bio
I am primarily a novelist, with four books published, a fifth just under contract, and a sixth in progress. For many years, my day job was journalist—as a reporter early on, then as an editor involved in coverage ranging from fashion to financial markets, community events to congressional races, urban planning to public health (including “Half/Vaxxed,” a public-media podcast about the strange rollout of COVID vaccines in Philadelphia).
4. What draws you to write short stories?
A prompt or a straight line that I just can’t resist.
5. When did you write your first story, unpublished and then published?
My first short stories materialized when I was in elementary school, tales about superheroes mostly. In high school, I wrote “The Sodfather” and “The Munificent Eggplant Comes to Town,” both sadly rejected by the school’s literary journal. To this day, I cannot explain their agricultural themes; I am a city girl, born and bred.
About a half-dozen unpublished short stories from the 1990s, written when I was attending workshops with the Rittenhouse Writers’ Group in Philadelphia, remain in that previously mentioned file in my home office. I was just learning how to write fiction back then, learning how to loosen my journalistic, “just-the-facts” bounds and create worlds and captivating characters to inhabit them. Eventually, I started writing novels instead.
6. Where have you previously been published?
My latest novel, the mystery Chasing Ashes, came out in November 2023, published by Celestial Echo Press. Kirkus Reviews proclaimed, “Get it.”
When my first novel, Never Before Noon, was in the traditional submissions pipeline about nine years ago, I flirted with self-publishing. Two of my well-received short stories, “Peppina’s Sweetheart” and “Grass and Granite,” are available via KDP on Amazon. That 2015 experience was good practice for when the small press that published Never Before Noon eventually folded. I ultimately self-published the later installments of my vampire trilogy, Never Until Now and Never More Human, and re-published Book One via KDP.
My short story “Ida’s Tears” was published in 2023 in the Creatures, Crime and Creativity 10th Anniversary Anthology.
7. Do you want your readers to know anything specific about you?
The music business often plays a role in my work, certainly in “Way, Way Out of the Building” and in my vampire trilogy. That’s because I used to be vice president of Never Before Noon Artists Management, doing publicity and recording company outreach for my late husband’s company. Blues star Shemekia Copeland sang at our wedding, as did her late father, blues legend Johnny “Clyde” Copeland.
8. What is one piece of advice you would give to new writers?
Don’t hesitate, don’t second-guess yourself—just write. Get your ideas down and build those bits and pieces of plot and characters into a story you can then bounce off other writers.
9. Optional-what do you do in real life?
I’m an editor-for-hire, a wannabe decorator, a fair-weather walker, an old-movie fan, and a genre-hopping reader (romance this week, sci-fi the next, and so on).
10. Where can your readers find you?
My website is joannemclaughlin.net.
I’m also at:
https://facebook.com/joannemclaugh
www.instagram.com/joannemclaugh
@joannemclaugh on X
‘Chasing Ashes’ in the media
“McLaughlin’s novel triumphs in its ability to make us care deeply about the people chasing the truth—and the ashes of their past.”
Book Review: Chasing Ashes by Joanne McLaughlin – Thriller Magazine
Interview with Joanne McLaughlin – Thriller Magazine
“A thrilling tale of crime and detective work with rapidly increasing stakes. … Those who enjoy mysteries with a side of relationship drama will tear through this novel.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
A Cozy Conversation with Author Joanne McLaughlin
… The path to her latest book is a story in its own right
DIANNA SINOVIC
Moonrise Prospectus
FEB 19, 2024
Welcome to the latest issue of Moonrise Prospectus. For this week, I caught up with Philadelphia-area author Joanne McLaughlin to chat about her most recent novel, her WIP, and all those sexy vampire stories.
Chasing Ashes was released last fall. It’s your first foray into crime/mystery/thriller. How did this book develop?
That’s a story that spreads over a few decades—sort of like Chasing Ashes itself. I wrote a mystery novel in my late twenties, when I was living in Ohio. I had an agent, but the manuscript wasn’t selling. And life intervened: She had a second child, I moved back to Philadelphia and got pregnant almost immediately, and we parted ways. Some Ohio friends brought my manuscript to me about a year later on a trip East.
Slow forward (ha-ha-ha) about a half-dozen years. I took the manuscript out of the box, read it, and decided I hated the plot but liked some of the characters. I wrote four chapters of that new iteration before I realized that my problem was I was thinking like a journalist, too dispassionate and just-the-facts, not like a novelist, not getting inside my characters’ heads enough. So, I went to many Rittenhouse Writers’ Group workshops in Philadelphia to learn the art of fiction writing. I spent the next few years writing short stories (with no luck at getting them published in those pre-Internet literary journal days), got divorced, raised my son, and got married a second time. My husband became ill and died in 2011, after which I wrote the vampire novels over the next five years. It wasn’t until early 2018, after I left my job as a Business editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, that I hauled the first two stories involving Laura Cunningham, Nick Fabrizzio and Kate McDonald out of the box again and started writing the book that became Chasing Ashes. Whew.
That’s a story in itself! It seems something at the core of that book continued to call to you. What was it about the characters that wouldn’t leave you alone?
Even after the manuscript sat in a box under my desk for more than 20 years, the characters were still interesting to me: an impulsive young woman, her friend who wonders WTF is going on, and the cop who’s had a relationship with both of them. I liked that dynamic. And I thought, what if I make Kate the victim and everything spins around that? It unrolled from there.
You’ve also written three vampire novels (The Vampires of the Court of Cruelty trilogy). What prompted you to make the switch from sexy vampires to mystery?
I guess you could say I switched from mystery to vampires and back again. But the vampire books–Never Before Noon, Never Until Now, and Never More Human–each have elements of murder and/or suspense to them. I jumped into writing the vampire books after my husband died because they were a great release from my tumultuous real life, a dysfunctional family of legendary prog rockers with an overindulged grown daughter–and then Mom and Dad just decide one day to tell her they’re vampires.
I found my voice while writing those vampire books. Reweaving the thread of my earlier efforts into Chasing Ashes wasn’t easy, but I felt more comfortable with character and plotting than I had way back when.
AUTHOR CHAT: Joanne McLaughlin talks about her latest novel, Chasing Ashes, out now!
CHASING ASHES
An often engaging investigative-journalist mystery.
BY JOANNE MCLAUGHLIN ‧ RELEASE DATE: NOV. 1, 2023
In McLaughlin’s novel, an intrepid reporter won’t rest until she uncovers the truth about her best friend’s disappearance.
In 1992, a Pennsylvania university makes headlines when a fire ravages the on-campus halfway house known as The Challenge, apparently killing 12 people—including Andrew Michaels, The Challenge’s charismatic leader. That same night, student reporter Kate McDonald vanished without a trace while looking into The Challenge and its possible connection to a recent murder; 24 years later, Kate’s best friend, Laura Cunningham, is still seeking answers.
Now a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, she’s published Bloodstrains, a book about The Challenge, Kate’s disappearance, and the flawed investigation that followed. After Laura’s book galvanizes a new generation of student journalists to reexamine the case, new details emerge that could finally lead to a breakthrough.
Teaming up with her ex-husband, Nick Fabrizzio, a detective who worked on the original investigation, Laura unravels a decades-old mystery, navigates her own family strife, and confronts old demons and new danger as she continues in her quest to learn what happened to Kate—and maybe even find her.
Told through the perspectives of Laura and Nick, McLaughlin’s narrative jumps back and forth between 1992 and 2016, weaving a thrilling tale of crime and detective work with rapidly increasing stakes.
Laura is a sympathetic protagonist whose mission for the truth is not only compelling but also echoes real-life cases of people seeking justice for loved ones and solving cold cases. Nick is a detective who refreshingly leans into compassion and shows an eagerness to correct his past mistakes. The missing-person plot provides an intriguing portrayal of investigative journalism that doesn’t shy away from the less exciting aspects of the job, such as the tediousness of going through public records. Despite occasional choppy dialogue and a few moments that will challenge readers’ suspension of disbelief, those who enjoy mysteries with a side of relationship drama will tear through this novel.
An often engaging investigative-journalist mystery.
A Day In My Life ~ Laura Cunningham by Joanne McLaughlin
Published originally on dru’s book musings
https://drusbookmusing.com/laura-cunningham/
Dec 4, 2023 | A Day In My Life
Speech, first chapter printed out, stashed in purse. Check.
Raincoat to wear over blazer. Flats to walk across campus. Check.
Suitcase stowed in trunk of Volvo. Travel mug, phone, charger in console. Yep.
E-ZPass thingy repositioned. Headlights on. Morning radio jocks prattling away before dawn on the classic rock station, anything that will keep me awake as the boring turnpike miles stretch ahead of me.
Off I go.
I’m driving to the university where I lost a best friend back in 1992. It’s been twenty-four years since the Challenge Fire sparked, killing twelve people at the far reaches of the campus. Twenty-four years since student reporter Kate McDonald disappeared, her body never found among the fire victims.
I’m used to operating behind a byline, “Laura Cunningham, Staff Writer,” digging out political corruption for a big Philadelphia newspaper. But today, I’m an author in the spotlight, front and center at the launch of Bloodstrains, the book I’ve written about the fire that demands that the flawed and incomplete 1990s investigation be reopened and questions finally answered. Chief among them: What happened to Kate that terrible day in March 1992? And did the founder of The Challenge, a residential counseling facility, really die in the blaze?
Only at the insistence of my publisher’s marketing team am I returning to the scene of the horrific event that’s haunted me all these years. True crime’s always a hit with readers, they say, though I’m skeptical about the always part. You’re here to right wrongs, they say; that much I agree with.
What they don’t know about me: I have stage fright. I’m already nauseated, and I haven’t even gotten onto the highway for the three hour-plus drive to Central Pennsylvania. Hope I don’t have to pull over to throw up.
Hope no one notices the bags under my eyes. I haven’t slept more than three hours a night since my last pregnancy. Drew is eight now, my budding soccer star. He’ll be crushed if his dad doesn’t make it back from Manhattan in time for his game this weekend. Frankly, if not for Drew, I’m not sure I’d care whether David, my husband, comes home from his job at The New Yorker and the woman he’s sleeping with in NYC. Thank goodness for David’s mom, who’s picking Drew up from school today and keeping him and his big brother overnight. Last night, I arranged with my neighbor to have Drew for a sleepover with her son. My fifteen-year-old basketball whiz, Damian, slept at the house of a high school buddy. I’ve never met the kid, let alone his family. It was easier than trying to track down my first husband, Nick, Damian’s dad.
More points off my Mother of the Year nomination.
As I merge into turnpike traffic, I dictate a text to my mother-in-law, reminding her that she should fetch Drew at school at 3:30, and that Damian has basketball practice and should be home by 5. Read him the riot act if he’s late, I tell her.
I’ll text Damian later. That is, if I survive this drive, and the book launch, and the crowd. But the people who buy Bloodstrains might somehow realize they have information we all overlooked. I have to pull myself together and make my case for taking a fresh look at the Challenge Fire.
As the sun peeks out, the radio plays Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven. Seems like I heard the song constantly the days after I last saw Kate.
Seems appropriate this day especially.
Author Joanne McLaughlin featured on Galactic Terrors Podcast
Books by Joanne McLaughlin
Murder in Act One: A Mimi Jones Mystery
Poetry professor Mimi Jones stands as best woman when her ex-husband remarries, an honor that comes with the dubious delight of seeing her former in-laws. Mimi expects snide comments about her and her plus one, Philly detective Mike Quinn, from Daniel’s parents and famous playwright sister. But a wedding reception that serves up plagiarism claims, accusations of infidelity, and flying bullets, followed days later by murder? That’s a hangover nobody wants…
A Poetic Puzzle: A Mystery in 32 Pieces
Internationally acclaimed poet Mary Irene Jones has vanished—calls and texts unacknowledged, bank accounts emptied, car abandoned. But before she disappeared, she mailed never-published manuscripts to a lesser-known namesake poet, M. Irene “Mimi” Jones. Are the manuscripts clues only Mimi can decipher? And what about the handsome Philadelphia cop assigned to the case? He seems as intrigued by Mimi as by the missing celebrity poet. Talk about a person of interest.
Chasing Ashes
In 1992, shortly before a tragic fire on their college campus, Laura Cunningham saw her best friend, Kate McDonald, for the last time. The fire’s 20th anniversary elicits Laura’s guilt and ignites her passion to learn what actually happened to Kate. Now a journalist, Laura teams up with her hot detective ex-husband to pursue cold leads in hopes of sparking interest in the decades-old mystery of what happened that day.
THE VAMPIRES OF THE COURT OF CRUELTY TRILOGY
Never Before Noon
All Chloe Hart’s nightmares end like this: She is lured home to the seat of the Court of Cruelty, ruled by her parents, rock legends Sebastian and Emilie de la Coeur. But this is no dream. After 13 years away, Chloe learns they are vampires, and have been since before she was born. She has his dark hair, her green eyes and artistic ways. Yet no fangs, no blood thirst, no trouble with the rays of the rising sun. Is that just for now, or forever?Is Chloe a vampire too?
Never Until Now
Chloe Hart can’t escape her birthright. Not the celebrity spotlight cast on her as the daughter of the much-mourned Sebastian and Emilie de la Coeur, rock monarchs of the Court of Cruelty. Certainly not the horror her father has unleashed in the months since her parents faked their suicides. If she stands loyal to them and her vampire heritage, does Chloe relinquish her humanity? Does she betray everyone she cherishes?
Never More Human
Sweeping away the financial mess her father left behind is a breeze compared to navigating the emotional storm her mother unleashes. Duty to family? Chloe Hart, daughter of rock legends/vampires Sebastian and Emilie de la Coeur, has had just about enough.