Jennifer Morita

Jennifer K. Morita spent the first six months of the pandemic purging and baking with the rest of the world before giving her lifelong pipedream of being a mystery author a chance. She wrote while the California wildfires burned and her kids Zoomed through school, figuring she had nothing to lose. After signing with literary agent Lori Galvin, Jennifer’s debut novel THE GHOST OF WAIKIKI will be released by Crooked Lane Books in November 2024. THE GHOST OF WAIKIKI features Maya Wong, an unemployed reporter who returns home to Hawai’i to be a ghostwriter for a controversial land developer and stumbles into murder. Maya clashes with the detective, who happens to be her ex, and becomes a killer’s target, discovering paradise can be murder. Jennifer is a former newspaper reporter, who juggled freelance jobs with being a stay-at-home mom for several years before becoming a writer for the communications department at her local university. Her first short story, “Cranes in the Cemetery” was published in the Capitol Crimes 2021 Anthology Cemetery Plots of Northern California. She was a runner up for the Sisters in Crime Eleanor Taylor Bland Award in 2022. Jennifer serves on the board of her local Sisters in Crime chapter and is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. When she isn’t writing, reading or pushing Girl Scout cookies, she enjoys watching British mysteries, cooking and baking. Her favorite shows are “Kim’s Convenience”, “Unforgotten”, “Top Chef” and “The Great British Bake Off.” Aside from leisurely hikes with her family, Zumba and Hot Hula are the only forms of exercise she willingly participates in. Jennifer lives in California with her husband and two daughters.