She was a medieval scholar at a conference in London when the whole thing got canceled, leaving her alone in a hotel room with no agenda, no family obligations, and—as it turned out—just enough unscheduled time to accidentally start a book. She opened her laptop and started writing. No outline. No plan. Just a story that seemed to already know where it wanted to go.
That week in London became the first third of The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton—a dual timeline murder mystery that moves between Tudor England and a modern-day researcher who stumbles onto a centuries-old secret. It publishes April 14, 2026 through St. Martin's Press, and the way Jennifer got there is worth talking about.
She Didn't Outline. And It Worked.
Jennifer describes her writing process as play. Not the Instagram version of writing (candles, coffee, new aesthetic journal) but actual play. Following a thread because it was interesting. Writing a scene because she wanted to see what happened. Letting the story be surprising to her while she was writing it.
Don't worry. This isn't a "just start writing" sermon. Jennifer is a medieval scholar with serious academic chops, and those skills absolutely helped to shape the book. Critical thinking, research, the ability to construct an argument and then tear it apart—none of that goes away just because there's no outline. It just shows up differently. Her background wasn't a detour on the way to becoming a novelist. It was the qualification that made her one.
Three Years. That's the Part Nobody Talks About.
The hotel room story is a good one. But what came after? Three years of work.
Her agent—an introduction made possible by a friend who knew someone—helped her reshape the manuscript through months of revision. Her publisher at St. Martin's Press took it from there. The spontaneous, serendipitous beginning was real, but so was the long stretch of unglamorous work that followed. Revisions. More revisions. Waiting. The slow, unromantic middle that exists between "I started a book in a London hotel" and "my book is on shelves."
First-time authors hear the origin story and expect the rest to feel the same way—inspired, effortless, fast. It almost never does. Jennifer's story is a good reminder that the magic of how something starts doesn't have to carry all the way through for the thing to be worth finishing. You're allowed to grind it out; in fact, most people do.
What Stayed With Me
"Writing is thinking."
Jennifer said that during our conversation and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Every draft teaches you something. Every page you delete still did its job. The process isn't just the vehicle for getting to the finished book; it's also doing something to you while you're in it.
She's already working on her second novel, more slowly this time, which feels exactly right. Some things take the time they take.
CONNECT WITH JENNIFER
WEBSITE: https://jennifer-brown.com/
INSTAGRAM: @jennifernbrownwrites
