Tuesday, September 10 is release day for Laura Jensen Walker’s Nightingale Mystery, Death of a Flying Nightingale. It’s my pleasure to welcome her to the blog for Sunday Spotlight. She can introduce herself and her new book. Thank you, Laura!

Tell us about Laura Jensen Walker before you became a writer.

I joined the Air Force after high school and was fortunate to fly a typewriter
around Europe as a clerk typist for five years. By the time I was twenty-three, I’d seen
the Mona Lisa and the Eiffel Tower; drank ouzo in Athens; sang “Don’t Rain on my
Parade” on the ferry from Dover to Calais; flew a glider over the English countryside;
Volksmarched in Germany and wept at the ovens of Dachau; saw the ladies in the
window in Amsterdam’s Red Light district, and skied—okay snowplowed—in the Alps.

While stationed at an RAF base in Oxfordshire, I fell head over heels for England
and became a rabid, tea-drinking Anglophile. Thanks to the G.I. Bill I (eventually)
majored in journalism and became a newspaper reporter and columnist. Diagnosed with
breast cancer at 35 and facing my own mortality, I decided to at last pursue my lifelong
dream of becoming an author. In 1997, my first book, Dated Jekyll, Married Hyde. was
published. Nine other non-fiction humor books followed in short order including Thanks
for the Mammogram and Mentalpause and other Midlife Laughs. After penning
seventeen books in twelve years, though (including several chick-lit novels) I was burned
out and took a writing sabbatical—not sure if I ever wanted to write another book again.

Needing a job with a steady paycheck I worked for the State of California for
eleven years. Happily, my writing passion returned and I began writing mysteries with
the Agatha-nominated cozy Murder Most Sweet, debuting in 2020.

Tell us about Death of a Flying Nightingale and the research you put into this story.

Here’s the description of the book:

Three very different young women serve as air ambulance “nurses” bravely flying
into WWII combat zones risking their lives to evacuate the wounded: Irish Maeve joined
the RAF after her fiancé was killed, streetwise Etta fled London’s slums in search of a
better life, and farm girl Bety enlisted to prevent the wounded from dying like her
brother.

Newspapers have given these woman a romantic nickname, “The Flying
Nightingales.” Not that there’s anything romantic about what they do. The horrific
injuries they encounter on a daily basis take their toll, so when one of the Nightingales is
found dead, they wonder: Was it an accident? Suicide? Or something else? After another
nursing orderly dies mysteriously, they think, someone’s killing Nightingales.

The friends grapple with their loss all while keeping a stiff upper lip and
continuing to care for casualties as they’re being strafed by the Luftwaffe.

Inspired by true events, this book, my historical fiction debut, is a tribute to a
group of overlooked WWII heroes who kept calm and carried on, while the fighting
raged about them. These courageous women proudly did their bit for King and country
and found solace and camaraderie in the lasting friendships forged in war.

I first heard of the Flying Nightingales during the pandemic while watching an
episode of Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages. English actress Penelope visited the
Cotswolds village of Down Ampney and interviewed an elderly woman named Lillian
West who thought she might be the last of the “Flying Nightingales.” Only seventeen
when she volunteered to become a nursing orderly with the Royal Air Force, Lilian
shared how she received just six weeks of training before going to combat zones to
rescue the wounded and care for their horrific injuries on the flights home to England.
Dubbed “The Flying Nightingales,” by the media these air ambulance “nurses” bravely
flew into combat zones risking their lives to evacuate the wounded.

Hearing Lilian’s story, I said, “Why have I never heard of these women? This
needs to be a book!”

I promptly Googled Flying Nightingales and found some newspaper articles that
recounted how three nursing orderlies flew to Normandy a week after D-Day—the first
women to officially be sent to an active war zone by the British government—to evacuate
the wounded. These brave women cared for men with terrible injuries on their flights
back to England, and newspapers dubbed them the “Flying Nightingales.”

Further research uncovered a slim non-fiction book, A Nightingale Flew (Real
Stories of WAAF Nursing Orderlies), by K. Holliday. I ordered that book from the UK
and devoured it. In her book, Kara (Holliday) Neave, who served in the RAF as an air
traffic controller and continues to take part in WWII reenactor events today, interviewed
several Flying Nightingales and included their stories. After contacting Kara I discovered
she’d set up a Flying Nightingales Facebook page.

As I scrolled through the Facebook posts I was saddened to learn that Lilian, the
first Nightingale I’d “met” through TV and hoped to interview, had died the year before,
as had another one of the nursing orderlies profiled in Kara’s book. It appeared that all
the Flying Nightingales were gone. Until . . . I discovered another post from a woman
named Colleen who said that her mother, a Nightingale who’d been stationed at RAF
Down Ampney, was alive and living in Australia!

Thrilled, I contacted Colleen and told her I was writing a novel about the Flying
Nightingales and would love to interview her mum. Edith (Lord) Joyce—106 years old at
the time—agreed to “talk” to me and for the next several months I corresponded with this
wonderful woman via email through Colleen. I asked Edith countless questions about the
daily life of a Nightingale—what they wore, ate, where they slept, what it was like
treating the men on board the planes, and so much more. Edith graciously answered my
questions and as a bonus, Colleen sent me snippets of her mum’s reminiscences of being
a WAAF in WWII that she had written down over the years.

What a treasure.

In addition to corresponding with Edith, I also kept in touch with Kara Neave in
England, who answered my myriad questions about the Flying Nightingales. Kara
generously provided me with photos and details from the UK that I wasn’t privy to in
America. (Due to the pandemic, I couldn’t travel to England and do in-person research.)

Kara kindly introduced me to another UK resource: Vince Povey, who created a
Facebook page about RAF Blakehill Farm, one of the three RAF bases the Nightingales
flew from in the Cotswolds area. Vince generously provided me with hard-to-find details
of the Dakota flights and aircrews, as well as information about RAF Blakehill and RAF
Down Ampney, and the Flying Nightingales in general.

Kara, Vince, Colleen, and especially Colleen’s mum, Edith—the last living
Nightingale, as far as we know—were a gold mine of information. I’m grateful for their
help. The book wouldn’t be what it is without them.

I also discovered the reminiscences of a Flying Nightingale named Anne Mettam
included in a chapter of the 2002 book Through Eyes of Blue (Personal Memories of the
RAF from 1918) which I also ordered from the UK.

As an Anglophile who especially loves historical fiction set in WWII England, it
was a joy to do this research into the Flying Nightingales and to write about these
courageous women that history has forgotten.

Five recommended books for people to get a feeling for your reading taste:

84 Charing Cross Road – Every bibliophile should read this. (And the movie with
Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft is lovely.)

Code Name Verity – This young adult historical fiction focuses on the friendship between
two young British women in World War II and doesn’t read like YA. Shortlisted for the Carnegie
Medal, it’s a beautiful tale of friendship that makes me weep every time I read it.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – This universally beloved epistolary
novel set immediately after WWII in London and on the Isle of Guernsey is my book of choice
from the past two decades. Another one for book lovers.

Coming Home – I read this coming-of-age saga set in Cornwall once a year—it’s my go-
to comfort read. At 728 pages, this book is meant to be read slowly and savored with a nice cup
of tea. Rosamunde Pilcher brings each character vividly to life as only she could.

This last choice was tough. I almost picked The Rose Code, a fabulous WWII novel about
three female codebreakers at Bletchley Park—and my favorite Kate Quinn book—but since I
already had three WWII novels, I decided to mix it up.

Instead, I chose The Jane Austen Society, a debut novel by Natalie Jenner that became an
international bestseller. I echo what Pam Jenoff, NYT bestselling author of The Lost Girls of
Paris, said, “A charming and memorable debut, which reminds us of the universal language of
literature and the power of books to unite and heal.”

What author is your favorite and why?

An impossible question—so many authors and so many categories! How to pick
just one? Over the years, my answers have changed. For mysteries, once upon a time I
would have said Anne Perry and Elizabeth George. Perennial favorites continue to be
Laurie R. King, Jacqueline Winspear, Susan Elia MacNeal, Julia Spencer-Fleming, and
Deborah Crombie. Then there’s my pal, Catriona McPherson, who leaves me laughing
and in awe of her descriptive prowess.

Since I have to be ruthless though, I’ve narrowed it down to a two-way tie:

Louise Penny – I love Armand Gamache and the psychological richness and
complexity Louise weaves throughout her books. I also love Three Pines and the rich,
quirky cast of characters she has created.

Jenny Colgan – I consider this Scottish author to be a modern-day Rosamunde
Pilcher. Back in the day, I turned up my nose at the idea of reading “romance” novels.
Not. My. Thing. Now, though, Jenny Colgan’s books are my go-to, feel-good reads. The
past several years have been rough—so much ugliness, violence, and hatred.. As
someone who’s suffered from PTSD—that resurfaced during the pandemic—for my
mental health and well-being, I cannot do evil, disturbing, and ultra-violent.

Whenever the news gets to be too much, I pick up a Jenny Colgan book and
escape to a charming (usually Scottish or Cornish) town where a young woman is making
her mark. Whether it be at the Little Beach Street Bakery, the Christmas Bookshop, the
School by the Sea, or the Bookshop on the Corner, I’m transported to a delightful village
in the UK where people fall in love, read books, eat yummy treats, and make life better
overall for those around them.

What could be better than that?

Bio:

Laura Jensen Walker is the award-winning author of more than twenty books including the
bestselling, Agatha-nominated Murder Most Sweet. Flying a typewriter across Europe in the Air
Force in her twenties she fell in love with all things English at an RAF base in the UK.
Captivated by the tales of an overlooked group of WWII RAF women—the Flying
Nightingales—Laura knew she had to tell their story. Death of a Flying Nightingale is her
historical debut. Laura lives in Northern California with her Renaissance-man husband and two
rescue terriers where she drinks tea and dreams of England.

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Laura Jensen Walker’s website is https://laurajensenwalker.com/.

Death of a Flying Nightingale is available in a Kindle edition at the present time.