Victoria author Jean Paetkau is killing it with her new murder mystery

Things started to look up when Jean Paetkau began to look up.

“I spent 10 years not looking at the sky,” the author of Blood on the Breakwater, a murder mystery set in James Bay, tells Capital Daily.

“It was only last year that I started taking photos of sunrises and sunsets.”

Perhaps it’s no coincidence then that Paetkau’s first novel begins up in the Victoria sky with the sun’s “leisurely descent toward the ocean’s horizon, infusing the clouds with pinks and purples, heralding the end of day.”

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Paetkau’s main character—a radio journalist, single mother of two named Helene—is walking along the Breakwater, taking photos, when all hell breaks loose. Unlike Helene—whose gritty discovery that fall evening would change the course of her life, her best friend’s aversion to intimacy, and the landscape of Canada’s art world—Paetkau’s relationship with the Breakwater has been more life- giving.

It’s on the Breakwater in real life, where Paetkau has found a base of support. Armed with her Canon Rebel camera, she visits the 762-metre sea wave barrier everyday—“It’s almost an addiction,” she says—to “snapture” the sunset on film, then shares the photographs on her social media channels.

“That’s what has made my book a success,” she says. "It's all built on those photos of sunsets I took on the Breakwater, and posted online.”

Self-publishing has its moments, and its wonders

Paetkau calls that level of success “unusual” because she’s traversing territory most self-published authors never see.

Blood on the Breakwater was an Amazon bestseller for all of October and hit number one in the Canadian Detectives genre. As of this writing, sales online and at Victoria bookstores have exceeded 1,200 copies in two months, impressive for a traditionally published author—-even more so for a self-published one.

Part of that success, Paetkau says, stems from her novel’s many ties to this community—James Bay. The cherry blossoms, the Empress, dog-leash stories—it’s a very Victoria book.

“People like to buy local, that’s what made my book a success,” she says. “For me [my book] is very place-based and people respond to that, they love it.”

Paetkau began writing Blood last March and in keeping with her writing rhythm, completed it for fall. As a self-published author, Paetkau has had to do without the backing, editing and promotion of a big-name publishing house, whose stable of writers remains eligible for local book award competitions, such as the Victoria Book Prize, while the self-published are not.

Self-published authors, Paetkau says, can be seen as “second-class” writers. However, Paetkau prefers to fashion a silk purse from a sow’s ear, so the Edmonton-born artist looks at it this way: She may have to lug a box of books into Munro’s or Bolen’s, but as a self-publishing writer, she has more control over those books from content to jacket, and because even writers need to eat and to feed their children, she gets to keep upward of 75% of sales profits, as opposed to say, 5-20%.

In return for more control, Paetkau and other self-publishers have to do all the heavy lifting—Paetkau sold an “unheard of” 69 copies of her book herself at the James Bay Farmers Market one recent Saturday—and the single mother of two confidently leans on her ‘Ye-shall-be-judged-by your-work’ Mennonite background to get ‘er done.

She’s especially thrilled to have fulfilled her teenage dream of writing a murder mystery, having been a voracious reader as a child.

"I grew up reading the classics,” says Paetkau, whose parents were academics and professionals (Dad a biochemist, Mom a doctor). "Then I went out into the real world and realized nobody wanted to talk about Jane Eyre.”

Secondary plot involves storied local artist named Amelia Grayson

Paetkau’s upbringing and familiarity with academia is seen in Blood on the Breakwater, where a secondary plot involves Victoria’s art-world elite, aspiring sycophants and the shocking discovery of in-absentia art from the city’s most celebrated painter, whose bizarre disappearance had all the town’s tongues wagging more than a century earlier.

It’s there Paetkau relies on her knowledge of Eyre-era classics and what she cerebrally collected on her way to her history degree to paint a picture of the mysterious, Emily Carr-esque Ameila Grayson, whose story is revealed through dusty letters written in the 1880s.

Paetkau is a self-described “radio girl” who works full-time at CBC Radio, arranging her writing schedule around those many hours and those she adores spending with her children, Haley and Jacob.

"From five to six [in the morning] I write, then make lunches, then it’s off to work,” she says, purposefully. "I like to write from November to March and then I edit, and I like to put out my books in September," which aligns with fall book fairs and a bit later, the start of the holiday gift-decision and gift-giving seasons, she tells Capital Daily.

Paetkau wrote a lot during the pandemic

While Blood is Paetkau’s first foray into the murder mystery genre, she has written three children’s books: Rumpa and the Snufflewort, The Bumwuzzle Rescue, and The Snufflewort Haunting. Each was written since the start of the pandemic, with the imaginations and artistic contributions of her children, who drew the pictures.

“It was a book created by the three of us, a reflection of the loving and collaborative culture of our home.”

More Blood on the Breakwater to come

Paetkau says down the road, she’d like to create a picture book, with Haley and Jacob again, as its illustrators. But first, Paetkau is working on a sequel, Blood on the Breakwater, Part 2. “People are begging me for another, so you gotta build on that momentum,” Paetkau tells Capital Daily.

Paetkau is keeping most details about the sequel a secret for now. To not do so would “break the code of writing," she says. She confirmed there is a working title, but that, too, she is keeping to herself.

The sequel, she does reveal, will be more fictional, may have fewer personal references, but “will feature some other much-loved landmarks in Victoria.”

Asked whether her main character Helene will develop a love interest, Paetkau gives that a hard no.

"I've had a lot of requests for that,” she says, emphasizing she has little interest in wading into the oft-swam cliched waters of the woman looking for love. Too often, female characters are pigeonholed into pedestrian damsels in distress awaiting Prince Charming’s aid, she says.

"It's boring and I think it's life-limiting,” Paetkau says, channeling memories from her childhood reading. "I very much believe that from a young age, women are taught that love will bring them all the happiness they need in life—and that's a patent lie, one I fell for because I read all those classic novels."

‍ Blood on the Breakwater is available at Munro’s Books, Bolen Books, Volume One in Duncan and Amazon.ca.

‍ Jean Paetkau will appear at the Read Locally Book Fair, First Metropolitan Church, 932 Balmoral, on Sat. Nov. 4th from 10am to 3pm.