What is the title of your latest release?
A ZOOM WITH A VIEW
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A cozy murder mystery filled with hometown drama, social media influencers, an over-the-top mother, and two very attractive local men, A Zoom with a View will make you want to move to Blue Oak - if only the Fourth of July festivities didn’t end with a dead body.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I always knew I wanted to write a book set in the kind of place I live, where people from all backgrounds create a quirky, weird, loving community together. I created a small town, Blue Oak, that looks like the Texas I know; it’s a place with great food, sweet tea so strong you can stand a spoon up in it, and a wide welcome for everyone exactly as they are.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Absolutely. We’d talk about our favorite writers and compare literary trivia; eventually we’d be close enough friends that I’d suggest she reconsider those bangs.
What are three words that describe your hero?
Inquisitive, self-contained, intrepid.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
Many of the characters in this book are the kind of health and wellness influencers that anyone who has been to Austin in the last decade knows only too well. In writing one character’s back story, I ended up doing research on a specific, controversial type of jade egg sold and marketed by a lifestyle brand owned by a very famous actress. On their company website, another famous actress wrote a blog post (that was later removed) that the eggs were a “strictly-guarded secret of Chinese royalty,” among other claims; there was a lawsuit and it’s a fascinating story I knew nothing about. I also got to write the snark subreddit that made jokes about the fictional character for…marketing these particular eggs, and I’m not sure I’ve ever had so much fun in my life.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Both! I’m a fast writer, which means I tend to draft first, but sometimes I find major plot holes I need to go back and fix, and then I have to go back through the draft like a knitter unraveling yarn to count stitches. I try to leave comments to myself to come back to later, but sometimes - especially for mysteries - I have to address an underlying problem from earlier in the narrative before I can continue the story, so I have to edit before I can move on.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Smoked sage margaritas and truffle fries from my favorite little spot in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I’ve planned entire trips around those fries.
Describe your writing space/office!
I have my own office, and I love it so much; it has an old couch that is falling apart and fits me perfectly, a woven rug in bright colors, teal bookshelves, cozy lamps, and piles of books everywhere. Writing is such a hard endeavor, and I’ve often written in all kinds of wild places (including, for my nonfiction books, in the school pickup line or at night after my kids went to bed), that it’s an enormous joy to now have a little space I love where I get to write.
Who is an author you admire?
Like my protagonist, Leo, I have a PhD in literature and could never pick just one writer! I admire ground-breaking mystery writers who changed the genre for people who came after them, like Rudolph Fisher, John Rollin Ridge, Cheng Xiaoquing, Pauline E. Hopkins, and Dorothy Sayers (whose books made me love mysteries as a kid).
Is there a book that changed your life?
I read A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle as a nerdy eight-year-old and became a voracious reader after that; my parents used to ground me from books the way other kids got grounded from electronics. I still love reading more than anything in the world.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I was sitting in the car on a road trip with my family and had taken editorial meetings from parking lots all week when my agent, Mackenzie Brady Watson, called to tell me the editor whose vision I loved the most for the novel had won the auction to buy it. I was ecstatic, and trying to make sense on our phone call (even though I was sitting in a hot car staring at a dumpster!). I’ve loved working with Grace Layer at Dutton Books ever since; it’s my dream publishing house.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I’m a trash racoon reader and could never pick a favorite genre - I love it all!
What’s your favorite movie?
Notting Hill. There are some parts that have aged better than others, but it’s the one movie I never get tired of.
What is your favorite season?
Autumn.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Conversations with people I love throughout the day and ending with a delicious dinner with my family (probably involving a smoked old-fashioned).
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Slow Horses
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Tex-Mex, especially with good queso
What do you do when you have free time?
Read!
What can readers expect from you next?
I’m working on the edits for FINNEGANS’S NOT AWAKE, the sequel to A ZOOM WITH A VIEW, right now; it will come out in 2027. Leo has to solve the next murder in Blue Oak, Texas at a dramatic and zany Irish Dance competition - there will be sparkles, tiaras, wigs, clogs, and of course, a dead body where you least expect it!
A fiction debut filled with heart and humor, A Zoom with a View will make you want to move to Blue Oak—if only the annual Fourth of July festivities didn't end with a dead body.
Leo can't believe she's back in Blue Oak. Her small, quirky Texas hometown feels suffocating after trying to make it big as an English professor in New York—especially due to her strained relationship with her overly hair-sprayed mother, Karina. But with Leo’s career in academia in shambles, at least she's able to work as a photographer for her godmother's real estate business. And her best friend, Emily, is around to help her navigate through the mess—and maybe force her to reconnect with her old high school boyfriend, Mack.
But while at work, Leo makes a grisly discovery at one of her godmother's properties: the dead body of rival real estate agent and social media influencer Chaz. Even worse, Leo and Emily have been secretly running a snarky Reddit page making fun of Chaz’s cringe-inducing advice and duck-faced selfies. When someone she loves is accused of the murder, Leo finds herself flung headfirst into a dangerous investigation, teaming up with a local detective who is a lot more attractive than she remembered when they were both teenagers. Meanwhile, Karina has been acting stranger and stranger, as if all her hair hides a big secret. . . .
Mystery Woman Sleuth [ Dutton, On Sale: May 5, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9798217047444 / eISBN: 9798217047468 ]
Jess Cannon is the pseudonym of a failed academic who never made tenure but still manages to sleep great at night. She spends her days writing award-winning journalism and her nights plotting fictional murders. She lives with her family and an irascible blue heeler in Austin, Texas, where her funky community is a constant source of joy (and writing material). She has a PhD in literature from the University of Texas, teaches fiction and nonfiction at Wilkes University, and has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Teen Vogue, among others. She also co-hosts "The Beautiful and Banned" podcast with Christine Renee Miller.
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