Jan Edwards Books In Order

Publication Order of Bunch Courtney Investigation Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Jan Edwards is a British author that has written mystery, suspense, horror and crime novels. Jan’s name is most commonly associated with the fiction anthologies she has either edited or contributed to.

+Biography

Jan Edwards was born in Sussex to a Welsh mother and an Oxfordshire father. Even though Jan eventually left Sussex, she still considers it home and isn’t averse to using it as a setting for some of her stories.

Married to Peter Coleborn with whom she shares a home with their three cats, Jan Edwards wears many hats.

She is a writer of considerable note who might count her BA in English Literature as the achievement that officially put her on the path to publishing success. And no one can deny that the author has attained success.

After all, she has been a recipient of the Winchester Slim Volume Award. She has also been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award for short fiction.

When Jan isn’t penning fantastical stories, though, she is making effective use of her position as a Reiki Master Teacher and Meditational Healer.

Over the years, Jan Edwards has done everything from selling motorcycles and books to gardening.

+Literary Career

Jan Edwards has always been widely read. Some of her favorite authors include Jane Austen and Zane Grey. She remembers having a predilection for Enid Blyton. But she also knows she read everything, including the cornflakes packet.

The habit grew out of all the times the author was ill as a child. She needed a means of escape. Her only access to books was her older brother from whom she borrowed everything.

Jan believes that she might have grown into a fairly typical woman with fairly typical reading habits if it wasn’t for the fact that her reading list was determined by whatever her elder brothers happened to have available.

Rather than reading about unicorns and flowers, Jan Edwards had to contend with the weird comics and novels her siblings had on hand at the time.

As Jan matured, she began to lean into British Folklore. That, in turn, created a desire in her to produce horror and fantastical fiction. And that is what Jan did for a while.

Her chance at mainstream success did not come until she switched to the crime genre. The change wasn’t that unexpected for Jan who was already reading copious amounts of crime stories.

The opportunity to switch came when Jan was hired to write a story about Sherlock Holmes. The project never went anywhere but it wet Jan’s appetite and she found that she wanted to experiment with the genre.

That led her to produce ‘Winter Downs’, a straightforward mystery novel set in Sussex. The book did not establish Jan Edwards in the mystery and crime genres but it did highlight her ability to produce fiction in different fields.

Jan Edwards has admitted that writing crime is more difficult than producing horror or fantasy. With those two genres, Jan could operate by the seat of her pants, making up the rules as she went and allowing the story to surprise her along the way.

Mysteries, she has said, require a stricter approach because they are typically planted in the real world. Because crime fiction requires that one lay out a trail of clues and breadcrumbs for readers to follow, Jan Edwards has to take the time to outline her stories.

Jan had to do a lot of research for her crime novels but she enjoyed it. It would take her hours of reading to stumble upon one or two facts of significance. But the author is determined to always get her facts correct and she is happy to pour over reams of notes to achieve her goal.

Jan doesn’t have any one particular source of inspiration. Sometimes a conversation will get the gears turning in her head. Other times, she will glimpse a news headline and it will create the foundation for a story.

More often than not, the author cannot really identify the sources of her inspiration.

Unlike most writers, Jan has no writing routine. She has a disorganized personality and so she just writes whenever the opportunity presents. Though, she prefers getting her work done at night.

+Winter Downs

It’s January 1940. An invasion is coming from across the Channel and a small community on the Sussex Downs is doing what they can to prepare.

As the snowy landscape starts to bite, it soon becomes clear that a killer is on the loose.

Jonathan Frampton is the first body to drop. Bunch Courtney finds him in a woodland clearing. Some people think it was suicide. But others are whispering murder. Courtney is determined to find the truth.

But for that to happen, she must first convince Chief Inspector Wright to take her seriously.

Winter Downs is a Cozy Crime Mystery novel that Jan Edwards uses to take readers to her home of Sussex. The novel picks up with gunshots that Bunch Courtney tries to investigate only to discover the dead body of Jonathan.

The initial investigation deems the case a suicide. But a closer look casts suspicion on that conclusion. The community cannot afford to worry about Jonathan, not when they are facing the threat of war.

But worry is exactly what they do when someone else dies. The Chief Investigator in the area shows no interest in seriously investigating the murders.

So Courtney decides to get the job done herself.

+Sussex Tales

Sussex Tales is a collection of stories set in the 1960s. The book takes a hard look at rural life by exploring a serious of thought-provoking village events and curious characters. There are plenty of traditional recipes, wines, and folklore.

The stories are told using lyrical prose. They make effective use of the Sussex dialect and every tale is brought to a close with a recipe. The stories start in the spring and finish at Christmas.

They are designed to take readers into the heart of village life. And they paint a bright, charming and lovable image. The book definitely creates a sense of nostalgia for people who have lived in Sussex.

And with Jan Edwards being a Sussex girl, it could be argued that there was no one better placed to write a story about village life in Sussex.