Before “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot”, the fertile farmlands and fruit orchards between the Santa Cruz mountains and the Diablo range were known simply as the Valley of Heart’s Delight.  This is where I grew up and have lived most of my life, the exceptions being attending and graduating from UCLA and a few years in Texas where I vowed, “bury me not on the lone prairie”.

I started my writing career in the sixth grade when I wrote my first short story, “Tomboy”, followed by girlish attempts at poetry.  In high school, I joined the newspaper staff and was appointed News Editor, which gave me full responsibility for the front page of our paper, The Epitaph.  I assigned stories to the reporters, determined their length according to the layout I designed with each issue, and did an actual paste up by cutting up the long printed galleys that came to us from the linotype operator at the print shop.  Kids today have no idea where the modern computer term “cut and paste” originated.  Our paper was awarded with membership in the prestigious “Quill and Scroll” society and I took first place in the annual Ridder Scholarship contest when I was a senior.

The main character in Never Let Her Go, Carmen Beckwith, is loosely based on some of my experiences, specifically graduating from college with a degree in English which did not open doors of opportunity when I returned to Northern California.  In the early seventies, my home had become Silicon Valley, and I was surrounded by technology companies looking for engineers, not English majors. 

My first real job was in the marketing department of a firm that made tape and disk drives and I eventually was given the chance to write advertising and brochure copy for the products.  Fortunately, I loved writing fiction since many of the operating features and capabilities were still in the minds of the designers and not in the products.  This little company in Mountain View, California became the launch pad for a three decade long and successful career that included owning and operating a nationwide computer network firm and an upscale doggie day care center.  Of all the customers I have served and dealt with in my life, dogs are hands down my favorites!

The idea to write a novel stayed in my head for years until I finally sat down, penciled out a plot line and wrote the first couple of pages.  That did not seem so hard, but summoning the discipline to do it every day was.  I was still working at the time and would get up very early in the morning before anyone else was up and sit at my kitchen computer and try to write two pages or for two hours.  Then there were lapses, when I didn’t write for weeks or months, and then I would find my writing rhythm again and immerse myself back into my imaginary world.

Writing my second book, Wrong Assumptions, was more fun because it is a murder mystery and I had to carefully plant clues for the reader without giving away too much of the plot.  All good writers are good readers and I read every Nancy Drew book ever written before I finished grade school and went on to read other great mystery novelists including one of my all time favorites, Daphne du Maurier, who wrote Rebecca , a book I love so much I read it twice. 

Promoting my books has proven to be more daunting than writing them for many reasons.  The publishing industry is undergoing tremendous change and traditional channels for distribution are no longer in place and have been replaced with new ones based on the Internet and social media.  As book stores close and libraries lose funding, we are all being forced into a digital reading experience versus the old fashioned one I prefer that does not require a battery recharge or electricity and consists of printed pages bound together that I can hold in my hand.  Bowing to this phenomenon, I have made both of my books available in Kindle format for the digital reading audience.

In addition to the many great writers who influenced me, I must also give credit for inspiration and ideas to my five sons and my nameless husband who still comments about the rear cover of Never Let Her Go that states … “Jennifer Hemmes Tynes lives in Saratoga California with her husband and beloved dachshund, Miss Peach”.   To assuage his feelings, I included the following statement in Wrong Assumptions, “Dedicated to my best friend, Bill Tynes”. 

I also want to thank and acknowledge the two wonderful artists who illustrated and designed the covers for my books, Suzanne Bauer and Kathleen Mitchell.

 Jennifer's Favorite Books

A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley

The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

East of Eden - John Steinbeck

The Sweet Hereafter - Russell Banks

The Oxbow Incident - Walter Van Tilburg Clark

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

The Incredible Journey - Sheila Burnford

The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls

The Day of the Locust - Nathaniel West 

Wise Blood - Flannery O'Conner

Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell