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Susan Moore Jordan

Goodreads Author

Born

in Oklahoma City, The United States

Website

http://www.susanmoorejordan.com

Twitter

susanmoorejordan

Genre

Fiction, Music, History

Member Since

February 2014

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After a lifetime as a musician--performer, teacher, musical theater director--Susan Moore Jordan wrote and published her first novel in 2013 at the age of seventy-five, and she hasn't stopped since.
Her first novel, How I Grew Up, was released in 2013. Two additional novels followed: Eli's Heart in 2014 and You Are My Song in 2015, completing "The Carousel Trilogy." A fourth novel, Jamie's Children, was released in July, 2016.
Memories of Jake, the first book in "The Cameron Saga," was followed by Man with No Yesterdays. Set in the Vietnam War era, the books follow the impact of military service and its aftermath on two brothers. In April, 2020, Man with No Yesterdays was named a Finalist in the 2019 Wishing Shelf Book Awards; and in Septem After a lifetime as a musician--performer, teacher, musical theater director--Susan Moore Jordan wrote and published her first novel in 2013 at the age of seventy-five, and she hasn't stopped since.
Her first novel, How I Grew Up, was released in 2013. Two additional novels followed: Eli's Heart in 2014 and You Are My Song in 2015, completing "The Carousel Trilogy." A fourth novel, Jamie's Children, was released in July, 2016.
Memories of Jake, the first book in "The Cameron Saga," was followed by Man with No Yesterdays. Set in the Vietnam War era, the books follow the impact of military service and its aftermath on two brothers. In April, 2020, Man with No Yesterdays was named a Finalist in the 2019 Wishing Shelf Book Awards; and in September, 2020, the book was named a Semi-Finalist in The Kindle Book Awards.
In May, 2018, Susan Jordan added the genre "cozy mystery" to her novels when she released The Case of the Slain Soprano. In November of 2018 the second book in the "Augusta McKee Mysteries" was released: The Case of the Disappearing Director. More books followed: The Case of the Toxic Tenor, The Case of the Purloined Professor. The Case of the Chrysanthemum Murders, The Case of The Unearthed Evidence, The Case of the 'Carousel' Killer, The Case of the Bogus Beatle, amd in 2023, The Case of the Casanova Cantor. Both The Case of the Slain Soprano and The Case of the Disappearing Director were named Finalists in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards in 2018 and 2019. The Case of the Slain Soprano was also a Semi-Finalist in the 2019 Kindle Book Awards.
Jordan attended the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and moved to the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania in 1971 with her husband and three children.
Beginning in 1984, Jordan directed some eighty local community and high school musical theater productions. She retired from directing in 2015 after over thirty years and wrote about her adventures in "More Fog, Please": Thirty-One Years Directing Community and High School Musicals, released in November, 2015.
All of her books are available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Paperback copies of Jordan's books can be purchased locally at the Pocono Cinema and Community Center in East Stroudsburg whenever the theater is open.
All of Jordan's books are "music-centric" (in the words of one reviewer), and readers comment on the strength of the element of music included in her work. Jordan sees writing as another way to share the music she loves, which she considers "the most powerful force in the universe."
Articles by Susan Moore Jordan have appeared in Musical America and The Guardian, and on August 2, 2019, she appeared on Hour Three of "The Today Show" as a Super Senior.
For more information, please visit her website at www.susanmoorejordan.com and her Amazon author page at http://ow.ly/XCjYX

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I've read two of your historical novels, Memories of Jake and Man With No Yesterdays, and one of your cozy mysteries, The Case of the Slain Soprano, which is again set sometime in the past. What inspires you to write books set in the 20th century, rather than today?

Susan Moore Jordan Hi Kelly,

Thanks so much for reading my books! Yes, all of them are set in the twentieth century, with Man with No Yesterdays ending in the early 1990s…moreHi Kelly,

Thanks so much for reading my books! Yes, all of them are set in the twentieth century, with Man with No Yesterdays ending in the early 1990s, which is as close to the twenty-first century as I've come over the course of nine novels.

One big reason for using that time period I'm sure is because my first book, How I Grew Up, was the result of a challenge by a friend to write a book. It was 2013, and I faced the first summer in over twenty years with no musical theater production to direct, and I was looking for some way to fill my time. I've always loved to read and had done a little creative writing in the past, mostly short stories, for my own amusement, but the idea of writing an entire book was pretty daunting. But she reminded me of an event from my teenage years and further challenged me to write the book in the first person. That convinced me to try, even though at first I likened the project to climbing Mt. Everest.

I figured it would be a "one and done" thing ... but to my delight, another book idea grew from the first, and another, and another, until I had written three novels that became an unplanned trilogy. Then I wrote a sequel to the third book in the trilogy, and after that recalled a couple of little boys from How I Grew Up who would have been in their late teens just as the Vietnam War was heating up. The Cameron books that you read came from that inspiration.

I think reading some Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie mysteries inspired me to try my hand at cozy mystery. I knew I wanted a female protagonist, so I gave her some attributes I was comfortable with (singer, voice teacher, stage director) and placed her in a city I love, Cincinnati, at a time when I lived in that city, the 1960s. To date Augusta McKee and her homicide detective beau, Malcolm Mitchell, have taken me on three adventures with a fourth well under way.

It's a time period I feel comfortable in and I've learned a lot from setting my books in the last century because of the different genres, and stories that have often required quite a bit of research.(less)

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Hi Susan, In your novel, A Man With No Yesterdays, your character, Jake Cameron lost his memories after a terrible helicopter crash during the Vietnam War. Not only did he lose his memories, but also his identity. My heart broke for him. What level and type of research did you have to do to write such an in-depth, accurate, and compelling novel such as this?

Susan Moore Jordan For the book which precedes Man With No Yesterdays -- Memories of Jake -- I had done considerable research about the Vietnam War and the difficulty of…moreFor the book which precedes Man With No Yesterdays -- Memories of Jake -- I had done considerable research about the Vietnam War and the difficulty of the years that followed for the people who fought in that war. I had also been fortunate enough to connect with some Vietnam veterans, and I learned that many were reluctant to discuss their experiences; indeed, some preferred to think about them as little as possible.

What if a man had been a respected member of the military as a Green Beret, and a Traumatic Brain Injury left him without that memory, so that rather than trying to forget, he was desperate to remember? That was Jake's burden. I learned through research about brain injuries and memory loss that it is definitely something that can happen -- a person can lose their autobiographical memory without losing their general knowledge and their ability to function in the world. It's unusual, but it's possible. Some brain injuries can affect only certain areas of the brain and the result can be such a condition.

I found a book about a man named Scott Bolzan to whom this actually happened. In "My Life, Deleted," Bolzan's fairly minor injury apparently affected only that part of his brain -- his episodic, or autobiographical, memories. At first his doctors thought his memory would return quickly, but it did not, and he had to find friends and relatives to help him recreate his life from childhood through his adult life: marriage and children. Eventually he recovered a few fleeting memories of his early childhood.

I challenged myself when writing Man With No Yesterdays by writing in the first person, and tried to put myself in Jake's mind as he struggled to discover who he had been, and when it was evident it was unlikely he would recover that person, to find a way to understand who he had become and build a new life for himself. It was helpful to make Jake's odyssey a physical journey as well as an emotional and spiritual one.
I included more research on the Vietnam War and had a consultant who assisted me with a scene about Jake's final mission, the mission which resulted in his injury and memory loss. I took Jake to the Northwest where he met other veterans, some who had not been able to re-assimilate into life past their war experience.

Along the way Jake met many people who helped him, and he began to understand who this new Jake Cameron was and what his life could become. It was fascinating to make this journey with him. Thank you for asking about the book. In many ways, it's my favorite.(less)

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Susan Moore Jordan’s books

Average rating: 4.41 · 476 ratings · 121 reviews · 21 distinct works • Similar authors

	Man with No Yesterdays 4.54 avg rating — 69 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Case of the Slain Soprano (Augusta McKee #1) 4.31 avg rating — 51 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Case of the Chrysanthemum Murders (Augusta McKee #5) 4.50 avg rating — 44 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Case of the Disappearing Director (Augusta McKee #2) 4.41 avg rating — 39 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Case of the Bogus Beatle (Augusta McKee Mysteries #8) by Susan Moore Jordan (Goodreads Author), Taylor Kooten (Illustrator) 4.41 avg rating — 32 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Case of the Toxic Tenor (Augusta McKee #3) by Susan Moore Jordan (Goodreads Author), Taylor Van Kooten (Illustrator) 4.31 avg rating — 32 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Case of the Purloined Professor (Augusta McKee #4) 4.25 avg rating — 28 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	You Are My Song (The Carousel Trilogy #3) 4.50 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2015 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	How I Grew Up (The Carousel Trilogy #1) 4.35 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 2013 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Case of the Unearthed Evidence (Augusta McKee Mysteries Book 6) by Susan Moore Jordan (Goodreads Author), Taylor Van Kooten (Illustrator), Stephen Kramer (Introduction) 4.45 avg rating — 22 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Susan Moore Jordan's Blog

"A LIFETIME IS NOT ENOUGH FOR MUSIC"

The second book I wrote, Eli’sHeart, is a love story and more. Krissy Porter and Eli Levin meet as youngteens when Eli, who is a piano prodigy, visits his older sister in Krissy’stown in Tennessee in the summer of 1953. They become good friends and are onthe verge of romance, but their relationship is ended by Eli’s over-protectivefamily. They find their way back to each other while college studen

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Susan Jordan rated a book it was amazing WHO KILLED KAREN? (THE SABER SQUAD MYSTERY Book 2) by Sahar Abdulaziz (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
In recent years I’ve become an avid reader (and fan) of author Sahar Abdulaziz’s works. It seems she’s written a little of just about everything…thrillers, intense psychological tales, heart-warming stories of “Unlikely Friends” (see what I did there ...more
Jul 31, 2025 07:08AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of WHO KILLED KAREN? by Sahar Abdulaziz. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — WHO KILLED KAREN? by Sahar Abdulaziz <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Susan Jordan has read FERTS (FERTS #1) by Grace Hudson (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Quotes by Susan Moore Jordan (?)

“Augusta counted herself among those fortunate souls on the planet whose passion had become their profession. Music was as necessary to her as breathing, and it filled all of her days, and helping young singers understand how to make their voices soar fulfilled her as nothing else could.”
― Susan Moore Jordan, The Case of the Disappearing Director

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“Singing again was what Jamie had needed. It was hard to explain to anyone, but he felt a sense of joy when he sang, a sense of being connected to everything good and beautiful in the world … no, in the universe. He knew he was able to produce sounds people liked to hear, and those sounds made him aware he could share the joy that sometimes was almost overwhelming to him, the joy that had to find this expression, this love, this beauty.”
― Susan Moore Jordan, You Are My Song

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“It's more than music: It's light. It's love. It's life." - (Niall Logan)”
― Susan Moore Jordan, Jamie's Children

tags: inspirational

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Susan’s Quotes

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”
― Sergei Rachmaninov

tags: life, music

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“I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing and I cannot acquire the new. I have made an intense effort to feel the musical manner of today, but it will not come to me.”
― Sergei Rachmaninoff

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“There is to truer truth attainable to man than comes of music.”
― Robert Browning

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“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the destiny of the artist.”
― Robert Schumann

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“It's more than music: It's light. It's love. It's life." - (Niall Logan)”
― Susan Moore Jordan, Jamie's Children