‘The Bell Tolls at Traeger Hall’ Author Q&A with Jamie Jo Wright

Jaime Jo Wright is a three-time Christy Award finalist and the author of thirteen novels, including Christy Award–winner and ECPA bestseller The Vanishing at Castle Moreau, Christy Award and Daphne du Maurier Award–winner The House on Foster Hill, and Carol Award-winner The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond. Jaime has also written two Publishers Weekly bestselling novellas. She lives in Wisconsin with her family and fabulous felines. Learn more at JaimeWrightBooks.com.

FF: Can you please provide a brief summary of your novel, The Bell Tolls at Traeger Hall?
In 1890, the ominous tolling of the bell announces that death has come to Traeger Hall, leaving orphaned Waverly Pembrooke to piece together the puzzle behind her uncle’s and aunt’s murders. Bound by the terms of her uncle’s eccentric will, Waverly finds herself alone in a manor shrouded by death and questioning her uncle’s paranoid motivations. A madness hovers over Traeger Hall, and Waverly—as well as the people of nearby Newton Creek—are ill-prepared for the woe that has descended on the property.

In present-day Newton Creek, the whispers of a curse still cling to the century-old time capsule of Traeger Hall. When Jennie Phillips takes possession of the estate after the death of her parents, she is intent on solving the century-old mystery of the Traeger murders. Yet a modern cold case suggests that untimely deaths and mysterious occurrences still form the cornerstone of the manor. And as thorny truths surface, Jennie realizes the dark legacy threatens not only the town and the Traeger descendants . . . but also, chillingly, Jennie herself.

FF: What inspired the creation of Traeger Hall and the ominous bell that the story so prominently features?
Traeger Hall was inspired by a historical true crime cold case from England that occurred on November 1, 1909. George Harry Storrs was a leading businessman in Cheshire, England who became convinced that someone intended to kill him. After he was proven correct when an attempt was made but failed, he installed a bell to be rung to alert distant authorities in the event of another attempt on his life. The evening of his gruesome stabbing, the bell was rung, but the authorities were too late to save him. His murder and the subsequent trials of suspects that ended in acquittal have remained a mystery to this day.

FF: Your novels often feature dual timelines. What challenges and opportunities does this structure present for you as a writer?
The challenges are the rather obvious ones of making sure the mystery loops and threads through both timelines in a way that the story would not survive without both timelines. That is a prerequisite for me as an author. Both timelines must rely on the other, because I really don’t want a reader to be satisfied with reading a story in one time period and skipping the other.

As for opportunities, oh, they are immense! One look or listen into historical cold cases, hauntings, and tragic events will show how much they still impact our current day, whether we realize it or not. Being able to show the various ways that impact takes place is what I love most.

FF: How do you balance supernatural elements with realistic human emotions and motivations in your stories?
I believe we are all created with a part of us that longs to understand the unexplained, the unseen, and most specifically, the spiritual. So I also think it’s unrealistic to separate the two—supernatural and the spiritual—as we search for understanding our Creator, why we were created, who is God to us, and the elements of right, wrong, grace, and forgiveness. Along with that is the additional layer to our humanity of brokenness, raw emotion, hardships, trauma, mental and physical health, and so on. In the same way all of these elements are intertwined within us, I try to do that in my stories, and then bring them to a point where hope—even just a pinprick of light—can be found at the end. A hope that points us to our Creator, to a grace that is greater than ourselves.

FF: The novel explores themes of generational trauma and inherited curses. What drew you to these themes?
Biblically speaking, it’s a fact that generational sins visit upon the children and the children’s children. In other words, the consequences of our choices—good or bad—create a ripple effect into the future long after we’re dead. I wanted to explore that in this novel, in a stark way that really stuns us into questioning whether the decisions we’re making today will positively or negatively affect our grandchildren and our grandchildren’s children. It’s a whole other way of looking at life when you consider the well-loved quote from The Gladiator—“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”

FF: Your books often feature historic houses with secrets. What fascinates you about these settings?
The secrets, of course! Old houses and settings remind me a little of finding the unidentified remains of a person and trying to unravel who they were, what happened, and how did they get to the condition they’re in when they’re found. It sounds gruesome, but I think that’s what intrigues
us all about these mysteries.

FF: What kind of research went into creating both the 1890s and present-day versions of Newton Creek?
Newton Creek was based loosely on two different communities I’ve frequented as a child. The creek, the mill, the historic homes, and the rural community are really a conglomeration of many Wisconsin areas. As for research, I really did pull mostly from my own experiences.

FF: How do your faith perspectives influence the way you write about darker themes like murder, trauma, and potentially supernatural occurrences?
My faith is what has sustained me entirely through my own trauma and spiritual experiences. I believe in the triune God, and I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God in the flesh with a specific purpose to pave the way for grace, forgiveness, and hope to be introduced to our broken lives. I realize not all my readers believe this, and I hint toward it in my stories but don’t overtly include it so as not to overwhelm. But I do believe that hope is the only way we can maneuver through any of these experiences, and so I infuse my stories with what I believe to be true and in a way that I anticipate brings that hope to the reader.

FF: What do you hope readers take away from The Bell Tolls at Traeger Hall?
A fascination with studying historical cold cases, for one. I mean, why not continue to bring closure to those stories that never saw justice? I also really wanted my readers to be entertained by this story—I even infused more of my innate sense of sarcastic banter in this one and hope it offsets the rather gruesome tale of murder and woe. In the end, I would love the reader to know a sense of rightness can be brought to an ending that isn’t the one we may have wished for. That justice will come—even if only by the hand of a right and good God.

FF: What are you working on next?
I’m working on a super exciting novel set twenty years after the Civil War and I’m venturing to Pennsylvania for this novel. I had to write about a bookshop, and it was begging for a haunted Civil War-era manor, a vengeful Civil War ghost, and a story that has so many doors to open and close that the reader will get lost in it along with its characters. The title is The Bookshop of 99 Doors, and it comes out in April 2026.