Please join us for a Q&A with Jaleigh Johnson, the author of several works of fiction including the First Impressions selection, The Reimagining of Thornwood House. Jaleigh will be here to take your questions from June 9 through June 11. Please stop by!
Please join me in welcoming Jaleigh Johnson to the BookBrowse Community Forum.
Jaleigh lives and writes in the wilds of the Midwest. Her middle grade debut novel The Mark of the Dragonfly is a New York Times bestseller. Her other books from Delacorte Press include The Secrets of Solace, The Quest to the Uncharted Lands, and The Door to the Lost. Her cozy fantasy debut is The Reimagining of Thornwood House, which was a recent BookBrowse First Impressions selection. She has also written fiction for Dungeons and Dragons, Marvel, and Assassin’s Creed. Johnson is an avid gamer and lifelong geek. Visit her online at www.jaleighjohnson.com.
Please use this space to ask Jaleigh questions about her work. As a reminder, to reply to an existing comment, click the grey Reply on the right side under the comment. To ask a new question, click the blue Reply button a little lower down.
Jaleigh: Thank you so much for agreeing to chat with us. Please tell us a little about yourself.
Thank you so much, Kim, I’m happy to be here! A little bit more about me, in addition to being a writer, I’m an avid gamer and huge geek. I love tabletop roleplaying games, boardgames, card games, video games - you name it, I will try it! I also love traveling, gardening, cooking, and baking, and if you can’t find me doing any of those things, I’ll be out on my back porch with a book and a cup of good coffee until the sun goes down.
Looking forward to chatting with everyone!
Hi Jaleigh! Happy book launch day! Do you do anything special to celebrate?
I thoroughly enjoyed The Reimagining of Thornwood House. You mentioned in the Acknowledgements that this book was special to you (“I wanted this book badly. I’ve wanted them all, but this one burned inside me…”). Can you share a bit more about that?
Granted, my reading in your genre is limited, but I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a book that had a sentient house before. Where did the idea come from?
Thank you so much! Release day is kind of a whirlwind, I’ve been on Instagram posting and talking about the book and replying to messages and texts, things like that. I’ll try to get some writing done this afternoon, and then tonight I’ll be going out for dinner with my family to celebrate!
I do have a couple of bookstore signings coming up later this month to celebrate the release as well. I’ll be at Bobzbay Books in Bloomington, IL on June 20th, and at Reads by the River in Waterford, WI for their Cocktails and Conversation (ticketed) event on June 23rd. So if anyone is in the area and wants to stop by, all are welcome!
Writing this book, it felt like there were a lot of things I needed to say, even if I wasn’t saying them directly, about grief, about change, about finding your place in the world and the times you need to reimagine your own life. But often when I envision a story in my head, what ends up on the page can only be so close to what I pictured in my mind. That’s just the nature of writing, for me. The reason I wanted this book to be out in the world so much is because I felt like the book that I ended up writing was as close to the book in my head as I’ve ever come, and that was an amazing feeling.
I also just wanted to put something hopeful out into the world, for my family, for my friends, because sometimes the world can feel very heavy and uncertain, and there’s so much in life that’s out of our control. But I can make this thing, this book, and even though it’s a very small thing in the grand scheme, it still feels important.
And I’m so happy that you enjoyed reading the book! 
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I definitely think you accomplished that goal. The book left me smiling for days and I really felt like it was the feel-good story I needed at the moment. It was a wonderful escape & I was sorry when it was over.
I’ve heard the term “cozy mystery” before, but never “cozy fantasy.” Were you familiar with the phrase, and do you think it’s appropriate for your work? Do your other novels fit in the “cozy” genre?
Honestly, it started when I decided I wanted to write a book that involved renovating a house. I quickly realized that I’d done too much home renovation and repair in my real life. I’m over it, lol. The last thing I wanted to do was write about it in detail for an entire book. That’s where being a fantasy writer comes in handy, because it not only gave me a solution to that problem (bring magic into it!) but it also gave me the opportunity to explore the house’s needs by making it a character in its own right. I got to explore how it would reimagine itself and what it would value, while also seeing to the needs of Evie and Ruby. It also resulted in that trio of characters being an absolute joy to write. I never imagined how the bonds between Evie, Ruby, and the house would grow and evolve.
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Greetings Jaleigh! As a former children’s librarian, I learned to love middle grade fantasy. It was always so fresh and hopeful. I’ve never really made the transition to adult fantasy because it is usually too dark and chaotic. Does that make sense? But I think your cozy fantasy might be what I am looking for! I have it on order at the library and will look forward to reading it.
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One of the characters is named “Ruby Keeler.” Was that a deliberate reference to the actress, or was it coincidental?
You mention that the book was a “joy to write,” but what parts of it were challenging for you? Was there a scene you struggled with?
I’m so glad you felt that way!
Like you, I was familiar with cozy mysteries, but I didn’t know the term “cozy fantasy” until a few years ago. All I knew was that, around the time of the pandemic in 2020, I was really needing some hopeful, quieter stories, where the stakes weren’t world-shaking and things felt more personal. I do think THE REIMAGINING OF THORNWOOD HOUSE fits the cozy genre. As for my other novels, it depends. Some of them, particularly the early D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) ones I wrote for Wizards of the Coast publishing, are darker and definitely NOT cozy, however, some of the later D&D books - like The Road to Neverwinter and The Fallbacks series - I’ve heard described as cozy, and I’ve also heard from parents who shared them with their older children. I also think that my middle grade books, even though they’re targeted at a young audience, can be equally enjoyable for adults, but then again, I’m biased!
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Hi there! Let me just say, I’m a BIG fan of librarians, especially when they love middle grade fantasy. My heart! 
I understand what you mean. I sought out cozy fantasy during the pandemic (at the time, I didn’t know the term, I was just calling them “quieter” stories) because I needed the opposite of dark and chaotic, so I asked around for a lot of recommendations. I hope that THORNWOOD is what you’re looking for! Can I also suggest, if you haven’t read them already, THE SPELLSHOP by Sarah Beth Durst, or (if you don’t mind a dash, a touch, a smidgeon of sci-fi) Becky Chamber’s A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT. Both books warmed my heart in the best ways.
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I didn’t know there was an actress with that same name, lol! Pure coincidence!
Thank you. I will look for those titles. The other day I came across a new genre (or a new name, at least) called “healing” fiction. The article was referring to all the “feel good” novels that have come out since the pandemic.
There is a need for them!