Jessica Brimer is an American mystery author from Tennessee, known for her cosy series, A Messy Bookshop Mysteries, and for her 2025 psychological suspense novel, Secrets to be Feared.
Jessica Brimer grew up fascinated by mystery stories and wrote her first tale at the age of seven. She later spent years developing her craft, joining writing groups, studying the genre and preparing the manuscripts that led to her publication.
Brimer spoke openly about struggling with grammar as a student and about teachers who discouraged her. She said she had written privately for years, unsure whether she could become an author. A turning point came when she finished a long manuscript “for fun” and realised she had both passion and discipline. With support from her family, she continued writing, completed several novels, and began submitting her work.
Her debut cosy mystery, A Binding Chance, grew out of her time working in a Christian bookstore. She built her fictional world around a cluttered shop, a nosy cat, and a protagonist shaped by a law-enforcement upbringing. In interviews, she explained that she chose cosies because she loved “trying to solve the puzzle before the reveal” and admired the warmth and humour that define the genre.
Secrets to be Feared (2025) marks her move into darker suspense. The novel links a violent event in Michigan in 1968 to a series of murders in 2023. It opens with a birthday adventure that turns into horror when a group of children encounter a man dragging a body through the woods. Bound by fear, they keep the secret for fifty-five years until one of them breaks the silence.
The contemporary narrative follows nineteen-year-old Nerissa Feldpausch, who moves in with her grandmother in Hastings. When Gran leaves on vacation, a threat appears on the doorstep, warning her to leave the state or die. Soon, members of Gran’s high-school class begin to disappear or turn up murdered.
Nerissa becomes convinced that the long-vanished Slasher has returned, and she undertakes a search for a figure who may no longer exist under any traceable name. Instead of building the future she imagined, she becomes entangled in a past filled with betrayal, fear and buried promises.
Jessica Brimer lives in Tennessee with her husband and two children and often jokes that if she is not writing, she is reading or experimenting with essential oils.
Photo credit: FB @JessicaBrimerAuthor
Jessica Brimer grew up fascinated by mystery stories and wrote her first tale at the age of seven. She later spent years developing her craft, joining writing groups, studying the genre and preparing the manuscripts that led to her publication.
Brimer spoke openly about struggling with grammar as a student and about teachers who discouraged her. She said she had written privately for years, unsure whether she could become an author. A turning point came when she finished a long manuscript “for fun” and realised she had both passion and discipline. With support from her family, she continued writing, completed several novels, and began submitting her work.
Her debut cosy mystery, A Binding Chance, grew out of her time working in a Christian bookstore. She built her fictional world around a cluttered shop, a nosy cat, and a protagonist shaped by a law-enforcement upbringing. In interviews, she explained that she chose cosies because she loved “trying to solve the puzzle before the reveal” and admired the warmth and humour that define the genre.
Secrets to be Feared (2025) marks her move into darker suspense. The novel links a violent event in Michigan in 1968 to a series of murders in 2023. It opens with a birthday adventure that turns into horror when a group of children encounter a man dragging a body through the woods. Bound by fear, they keep the secret for fifty-five years until one of them breaks the silence.
The contemporary narrative follows nineteen-year-old Nerissa Feldpausch, who moves in with her grandmother in Hastings. When Gran leaves on vacation, a threat appears on the doorstep, warning her to leave the state or die. Soon, members of Gran’s high-school class begin to disappear or turn up murdered.
Nerissa becomes convinced that the long-vanished Slasher has returned, and she undertakes a search for a figure who may no longer exist under any traceable name. Instead of building the future she imagined, she becomes entangled in a past filled with betrayal, fear and buried promises.
Jessica Brimer lives in Tennessee with her husband and two children and often jokes that if she is not writing, she is reading or experimenting with essential oils.
Photo credit: FB @JessicaBrimerAuthor
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