A FEW DAYS AGO, I nabbed Jess Lourey’s The Taken Ones from the LUCKY DAY shelves at my local library. This is a section where new books are placed and, if you’re lucky to get a new release, then lucky you. Already I want to stay up late reading this Minnesota author’s latest thriller. Just as I did when I read The Quarry Girls, a fictional crime story set in 1997 in St. Cloud and winner of the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards in genre fiction.
My familiarity with Lourey’s writing stretches back many years to my time as a freelance writer with Minnesota Moments, a magazine no longer in publication. Back then I reviewed Minnesota-authored books for the magazine, including books in Lourey’s Murder by Month romcom series set in Battle Lake, a real Minnesota community where she lived at the time. I still remember the name of the main character, Mira James, in books like May Day and June Bug.
But since I’m an appreciator of intense mysteries, I’m more drawn to Lourey’s suspenseful crime titles. That’s my go-to genre, reaching as far back as the Nancy Drew detective series.
All of that aside, Lourey will be at Buckham Memorial Library in Faribault at 6 pm Thursday, November 2, as part of Moving Words: Writers Across Minnesota series. Authors John Lee Clark and Nicole Kronzer will join her. How lucky we are to have three talented, award-winning, multi-genre authors here to talk about their craft.
While Clark and Kronzer are unknown to me, their online bios reveal two gifted writers. Clark, a DeafBlind poet, essayist and actor, won the 2023 Minnesota Book Award in poetry for his How to Communicate: Poems. It seems particularly fitting that he is coming to Faribault, home to the Minnesota State Academies for the Deaf and the Blind.
And Kronzer, a high school English teacher and former professional actress, writes young adult novels. In 2021, Unscripted was a Minnesota Book Awards finalist in young adult literature. Her second book, The Roof Over Our Heads, published in January.
I’ve already requested Clark’s poetry book and Kronzer’s Unscripted from the library. If those books were on the Lucky Day shelves, I missed them.
Now, time to take a break from writing to resume reading The Taken Ones. For it is also by reading that writers learn and grow their craft. And Lourey has that covered, too, in Rewrite Your Life: Discover Your Truth Through the Healing Power of Fiction, a book to first read then use as a writing guide.
© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
I love the idea of the ‘lucky day’ shelves and you are indeed lucky for having grabbed one that sounds so intriguing. you seem to have such an immense array of homegrown writers in Minnesota, and you are also so lucky for that. you are so right about reading and writing going together. I think the more you read, the more you learn about writing
You’re right about Minnesota having lots of homegrown writers. The talent in this state is vast. Reading definitely is important for anyone who writes. We can learn so much via reading the work of others.
Love, love when you share new authors with your readers 🙂 I have read Jess Lourey’s books and have a few MN writers that I read. Sometimes it is the story and sometimes I can relate to the MN location the story is set in. I can do that with places out west as well as now living in Florida too. I am like you in that I love Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie, (my mom did not like my cousin introducing me to King and Koontz – oh well!), etc. Happy Reading – Enjoy!
Glad you appreciate Minnesota writers and mysteries as much as me. I’m happy to share with you.
I am very jealous that you get to see Jess. I did an early review of this one and I think it is her best one to date. She is one of my favorite authors — this latest series she has written of true crime are really fabulous in my opinion.
I’m pausing right now from reading The Taken Ones to approve your comment and reply. Minnesota libraries do a great job of bringing authors into our communities.