Meet Barbara – Author, Mah Jongg Enthusiast and Breast Cancer Survivor
Barbara Barrett started reading mysteries when she was pregnant with her first child to keep her mind off things like her changing body and food cravings. When she’d devoured as many Agatha Christies as she could find, she branched out to English village cozies and Ellery Queen.
Later, to avoid a midlife crisis, she began writing fiction at night when she wasn’t at her day job in human resources for Iowa State Government. After releasing eleven full-length romance novels and two novellas, she returned to the cozy mystery genre, using one of her retirement pastimes, the game of mah jongg, as her inspiration. There are now eleven books in her Mah Jongg Mysteries series with at least one more on the way. The first five were issued in digital box form in 2022. Not only has the game of Mah Jongg been a great social outlet, it has also helped keep her mind active when not writing.
Appearances
Malice Domestic, IT’S MS MARPLE, THANK YOU: Senior Sleuths in Modern Mysteries Panel, April 24, 2026, Bethesda North Marriott, 1:00-1:50 p.m. EDT
Des Moines Book Festival, Franklin Event Center, 4801 Franklin Avenue, Des Moines, IA, Saturday, May 2, 2026, booksigning, 11:15 – 12:45; Panel on cozy mysteries, 3:00-3:50 p.m. CDT
Her second series, the Nailed It Home Reno Mysteries, was launched in 2022. There are now seven books in this series.
Though not an interior designer, that occupation has always fascinated Barbara. Her father was a carpenter and her husband has his own woodworking business. Exposure to their work got her interested in watching numerous home improvement shows on HGTV.
The series features Rowena Summerfield, a retired homicide investigator who teams up with her daughter, Valerie Kowalski, to start their own home renovation business. After struggling to keep afloat the first few years, they are now building a solid reputation even though every so often Ro’s former partner prevails upon her to help him solve his latest murder case. Ro and Val are an amalgam of several HGTV hosts. Barbara used that combination of personality traits for Ro and turned her into a female sleuth who rehabs older houses.
Her most recent cozy mystery series is the Unscripted Detective. It is her homage to “Murder, She Wrote” and Angela Lansbury. When the protagonist, Marla Dane, finds herself replaced in her lead role of a TV PI after six successful years, she returns home to Minnesota to stay with her sister and lick her wounds as she decides where to go next with her career. In the meantime, the locals, though they know she was only playing a part, keep pulling her in to solve local homicides. There are currently three books in this series. The plan is to return to them once she finishes the even dozen Mah Jongg Mysteries.
Barbara is a member of Sisters in Crime Worldwide, Sinc-Iowa. Twin Cities Sisters in Crime and Florida STAR Fiction Writers.
She is married to the man she met her senior year of college. They have two grown children, eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
Now retired, she is a Iowa, although she spends much of her time near family in Minnesota. She earned her B.A. degree in History from the University of Iowa and her Master’s Degree in History from Drake University. She is also proud to say she is a twenty-three year breast cancer survivor.
When not in front of her laptop creating her next story, she plays mah jongg, watches TV detective shows and enjoys lunches with friends.
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