Janet Skeslien Charles's specialty: Fearless travel & turning poorly paid jobs into bestselling novels."

 

HALLIE EPHRON: One of the great pleasures of the teaching I get to do is the talented authors I meet.

When I was teaching a week-long class this summer on mystery writing in Paris for WICE (Where Internationals Connect In English), I got to hang out with fantastic writer and all-around delightful person, Janet Skeslien Charles.

She's the New York Times international bestselling author of The Paris Library, as well as Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade, The Parisian Chapter, and Moonlight in Odessa.

Janet grew up in Montana but now she's living in Paris, speaks fluent French, and writes and teaches in English. It was so much fun getting to hang out with her, and I never got to ask her how, on earth, has she done something that I could never imagine doing: traveling widely, living abroad, and learning to think and breathe (and write!) in another language?

First thing I'm dying to know: How did a girl from Montana end up writing living in Paris and writing a HUGE international bestseller??

JANET SKESLIEN CHARLES: It was wonderful to spend time with you, Hallie! Thank you for your kind words.

I became interested in France because as a child my neighbor was a war bride from Normandy. In 1998, I got a job teaching English in France and meant to live there for a school year, but ended up staying in Paris… for 25 years!

In 2010, I was writing a novel set in Ukraine at home in my apartment. Unfortunately, my building underwent massive construction, so to escape the hammering, I got a job at the American Library in Paris.

On my first day at work, I knew the place was a novel.

I researched the librarians who defied the Nazis in order to hand-deliver books to Jewish readers.

After painful rejections from my first agent and the publisher of my debut novel, I queried 75 agents and was accepted by Heather Jackson. After ten looong years, The Paris Library was finally published and became a New York Times bestseller. The follow-up book The Parisian Chapter was finally published in 2025, after fifteen years.

I mention this in case fellow writers are reading this. Keep writing! Keep going!

HALLIE: And how does that [spirit of adventure?] imbue your characters and your storytelling?

JANET: At heart, I’m interested in journeys and the way that we react to changes in circumstances, whether it be marriage, divorce, widowhood, a new job, getting fired, having children, not having children, becoming an empty nester, breaking up with a friend, having cancer or Covid, or moving to a new country.

My debut, Moonlight in Odessa, is about the booming business of email-order brides. Several of my Ukrainian friends – talented, motivated, intelligent women – married foreigners to escape poverty.

In my second novel The Paris Library, a librarian who has made a terrible mistake flees France by marrying a G.I.

Though the books are set in different countries and eras, the themes and plight of the main characters – one an email-order bride, the other a war bride – are essentially the same. I describe people out of their elements as they deal with loss of the familiar or loss of loved ones. At some point in our lives, most of us usually have to start over.

My books are about and for people who struggle.

HALLIE: I'm fascinated to hear about the travel and research you did to write that debut novel, Moonlight in Odessa.

JANET: Growing up in small-town Montana during the Cold War, I was a voracious reader of books, magazines, and newspapers.

As a teen, I noticed that color photographs taken in France or England featured young people having fun on the beach or dancing, while photos taken in the Soviet Union featured old women in headscarves waiting in line for bread. These pictures were always in black and white.

I knew those images didn’t tell the whole story, and so I wanted to see for myself. I took Russian classes at the University of Montana with the intention of working in the (then) Soviet Union.

At this time, I translated letters from lonely Montanan men to Russian and Ukrainian women, who the men had found through catalogues. International Matchmaking Organizations: A Report to Congress (1999) notes that, “Mail-order marriage is not a new phenomenon—it is an inseparable part of North American history and the settlement of the United States.” My home state was in part populated by mail-order brides in the 1800s and early 1900s.

I interviewed dozens of women, women who took a chance on love and moved across the world to marry someone they didn’t know very well. I’m interested in war brides and email order brides because of their courage and grit.

HALLIE: Your novels tend to be set in the historical past. How have you chosen the backdrops for your stories? Or have they chosen you?

JANET: I feel lucky to stumble onto the stories. When I was thinking about working in the former Soviet Union, I opened an atlas and pointed to a spot, which is how I ended up in Odessa. (After Montanan winters, I aimed for someplace warm.)

Odessans are incredible people, and I wanted to write about the city and its people, through the experiences of one woman. That novel was interrupted by construction on my apartment building. The hammering drove me out of my comfort zone and into a job that led to other stories.

So there’s an element of chance, and element of making the best of things, and paying sharp attention and asking questions.

HALLIE: I love the way you described your own special approach to writing: "If I have a specialty in writing, it is taking poorly paid jobs and turning them into novels." Tell us more, please!

Janet: Oh my goodness! My first professional job was teaching English in Odessa, Ukraine.

Thanks to a fellowship from the Soros Foundation, I received an airline ticket, travel insurance, and a $100 monthly stipend. The contract stipulated that I earn 120% of a head teacher’s salary. Fresh out of college, I would earn the same amount as an experienced teacher. Not bad!

Imagine my surprise at receiving my first pay and learning that my monthly salary was $25.

Young and inexperienced, I didn’t know which questions to ask. Despite the very low wages, I loved my job and my time in Odessa.

At the library, my contract was for minimum wage and fifteen hours a week. My colleagues and I all worked overtime. The boss promised “comp time” that never materialized.

I wish I’d had better boundaries. I’m proud of today’s generation, who are standing up for themselves on the job. Still, it worked out because I published a library trilogy about real-life American librarians who worked in France during world wars.

Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade features Jessie Carson, a Pittsburgh librarian who joined the American Committee for Devasted France. This all-woman aid organization worked just forty miles from the Front and helped civilians who had lost their homes and livelihoods.

Jessie Carson created the first children’s libraries in France during World War I. After the war, she founded libraries in Paris and Northern France. She paved the way for an international library school, which French authorities dubbed “The Wild West Library School.” It was housed in the library where I worked.

HALLIE: Can you tell us a little about of your newest book and the spark that got you hooked writing it?

JANET: My latest novel is The Parisian Chapter, which is set during dark moments in the City of Light in the 1990s. I took copious notes while working at the American Library in Paris as the programs manager. My coworkers, trustees, and library members fascinated me. When people from different walks of life cross paths – it creates friction.

In the novel, the main character Lily meets an extraordinary cast of characters—including her favorite writer, struggling students, haughty trustees, and devoted volunteers—each with their own stories...and agendas.

My favorite review of the book calls it “The Devil Wears Prada, set in a library.”

The novel is an ode to libraries. It’s for anyone who's ever chased a dream, lost a friend, or found a place that feels like home - even if it's across the world.

HALLIE: Where should readers be looking for you to hear firsthand about you and your storytelling?

JANET: The Parisian Chapter came out in May, and I’m excited that my debut Moonlight in Odessa is being re-issued on December 1st.

My favorite place to connect with readers is my website jskesliencharles.com or my Substack newsletter, where I write about the women who inspire me, books I love, and life in Montana and Paris. My favorite post is about the similarities of writing and wheat farming (my parents’ profession). A Golden Harvest - by Janet Skeslien Charles https://jskesliencharles.substack.com/p/a-golden-harvest

Thank you so much for having me on Jungle Red Writers! 

HALLIE: THANK YOU!!

Janet will be hanging out here at Jungle Red today, checking in possibly from Paris... so please, share your reactions and questions... please, pile on! 

Looking forward to the spin-offs?

HALLIE EPHRON: There’s never been a better time for finding TV shows/movies that ably channel Agatha Christie’s or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective novels. I’m slowly working my way (again) through SHERLOCK (with Benedict Cumberbatch and the sublime pair, Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington.) And looking forward to watching Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence novels (there were 5).

But, thinking outside the box… what other oldies would you like to see revisited? Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason? Dick Francis’s jockey Sid Halley? Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey? Margery Allingham's Albert Campion? Sara Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski??

My #1 pick, and we should be seeing it soon at the movie theatres (supposedly February of 2028!): a revival of Jessica Fletcher of Murder She Wrote with Jamie Lee Curtis (count me a JLC fangirl) picking up where Angela Lansbury left off.

When I was writing the Dr. Peter Zak mysteries, I was definitely channeling Dr. Kildare -- even though he was not really a “sleuth” he was a doctor.

Is there a classic sleuth or literary or pop culture personality that influenced a sleuth you created?? Or have you always truly started from scratch?

LUCY BURDETTE: I’d be okay never seeing another Murder She Wrote, except…I adore Jamie Lee Curtis! I was more in the camp of Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames as a kid, rather than classics. I wonder if The Pitt would be considered a modern day Cherry Ames:)?

RHYS BOWEN: when I look back at the oldies like Perry Mason, I feel what they were lacking was the complex character and humanity of the sleuth. Everyone seemed a bit cardboard. I like Benedict Cumberbatch’s interpretation of Sherlock as it’s a real person. 

I really feel we’ve overdone incarnations of Miss Marple when Joan Hickson was so perfect, although I confess St Mary Mead was the inspiration for my Welsh Llanfsir ( which means St Mary’s)

There are so many good sleuth around now. I don’t think we should keep rehashing the past— how about a Duncan and Gemma or Claire and Russ?

JENN McKINLAY: I’m in the camp of I like the Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot in my mind better than any screen adaptation, although Hickson is stellar. As for Jamie Lee Curtis, I love her, I just hope they keep the iconic tv theme music. I see her being more slapstick than Angela Lansbury, who did have excellent comedic timing. 

I second what Rhys observed–why not use some amateur sleuth novels from this century? We are 26 years in, after all. I did hear that Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jessie Q Sutanto is being adapted and I am excited for that one.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Count me as third for more contemporary cozies on TV/streaming. One of my gripes with Acorn and Britbox is that their original stuff tends to be much more hard edged. Which is why I’m also excited about the Tommy and Tuppence remake. Did anyone else watch the first 12 minutes on YouTube? I was hooked.

In the same vein, I can’t be the only one who’d love to see a Nick and Nora reboot. Whether done again set in the 1930s, or a modern-day version, those books are well overdue for a remake.

I’d also be fascinated to see a remake of Earl Derr Biggers Charlie Chan mysteries. Biggers intent was to great an admirable and heroic Chinese character in a time when American culture was full on “Yellow Peril.” 

For his time, he did pretty well, but the stereotypes really didn’t age well, not to mention all the white actors in yellow face. Wouldn’t those stories be great with an all-Asian cast and all the racist stuff washed out?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, I would always do with another Morse, although the original was perfectly perfect. And I think Magpie Murders (and etc. ) blends old and new wonderfully well. 

I’m terrified that there might be a Kinsey Millhone series, because we all know Sue Grafton did not want that. And thinking about it, I don’t either. It just–can’t work. And Julia, you have me musing over NIck and Nora. I first thought, ooh, genius. Then I thought–nope, leave them alone in our hearts and minds. 

Rachel Eckstrom Courage took The Golden Girls and made them amateur sleuths in a cozy mystery series–it is so wonderful! But would it have worked the other way? Well…maybe….

My final thing–many of those old series, which we loved at the time, were all about men telling women what to do. Hmm.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I was actually never a big Murder She Wrote fan (ouch) but I’d be willing to give Jamie Lee Curtis a go.

I’m a little over the Christie adaptations, although I do want to see what they’ve done with Tommy and Tuppence. They were always my faves of the Christie sleuths and it’s nice that they were not, as Hank says above, about men telling women what to do. I think Tuppence was always the brains of that duo! 

And maybe because I loved the detecting couple, those stories planted somewhere in my subconscious the germ of what became Duncan and Gemma. 

Thanks for the shout out, Rhys! You know I’d love to see them adapted, and also Julia’s Russ and Clare!

Speaking of Christie-related TV, it occurred to me that Amanda Chapman’s MRS. CHRISTIE IN THE MYSTERY GUILD LIBRARY and its upcoming sequel, MRS. CHRISTIE AND THE MYSTERY IN THE MEWS would make fabulous TV with the glamorous present day New York setting and Agatha Christie’s ghost (possibly!)

HALLIE: What great ideas!? Hollywood, are you listening??

What spin-offs and inspired-bys are you looking forward to or have been enjoying lately?? And what makes a character so intriguing that writers can hang mystery plots on their backs? Is there a niche sleuth/personality that hasn't yet been "taken"?

Huddle up, Reds and Readers!

JENN McKINLAY: And just like that another football season has arrived. This year my three men are in a fantasy football league together so the personal investment in each game is extra high. 

It's gonna be a looooong season, my friends.

When I think about football, I feel as if it has always existed on the periphery of my life. I was in marching band in high school, so I lived Friday night lights but in a band uniform. The game was happening but I was in the percussion section so we were dialed into whatever our squad leader told us to play to hype the crowd. Watching the game was of secondary or even tertiary (if my high school crush was around) interest to me. Plus, our marching band was the east coast champion and our football team...meh, not so good. And yet..."Go, Vikings!"

When I started chaperoning the Hooligans (also percussion members in band) at their Friday night games, I started watching the play on the field between fetching water, stopping nosebleeds, and emergency uniform repairs. Their high school team won the state championship every year and were very exciting to watch, so you could say I came  late to appreciating the game of football. "Go, Sabercats!"

It was during these football years, that I wrote Fondant Fumble, which features two football players who buy a cupcake franchise. I know it sounds like fiction but the idea is actually based on two professional football players who did just that. Read original post: HERE

Now when it comes to team allegiance, I was born in New England so naturally, I was a Patriot's fan. When I moved to Arizona, I slowly shifted my loyalty to the Arizona Cardinals--mostly, because Larry Fitzgerald became my favorite player (retired 2020), notably because of his game on the field but even more for his community work off the field with the Larry Fitzgerald Foundation. FITZ!!!

As you can see, I pick my team allegiance by residence. I believe in rooting for the home team. The Hub grew up in Arizona and while he's a Cards fan, too, his original team was the Dallas Cowboys because AZ didn't have a team when he was a kid. This makes sense to me. We have room in our hearts for more then one "home" team. 

Now the Hooligans, however, have gone rogue. Inexplicably, they are Chicago Bears fans. Huh?! I mean I like the Bears and all, but they're not the home team! Don't get me wrong, the dudes cheer for the Cards, too, but after a trip to Chicago they decided Da Bears were their primary team. How? Why? Make this make sense to me!

So, let's talk about it. 

Reds and Readers, do you pick your favorite team by geographic proximity or some other reason? Who is/are your favorite team(s)--doesn't have to be football--and why?