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Publication Order of Grace & Favor Books
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Jill Churchill is the pen name used by one of the highly reputed authors from The United States named Janice Young Brooks for writing her historical romance and cozy mystery books. She is particularly renowned by writing the Grace & Favor and the Jane Jeffry book series. Author Churchill studied at the Kansas University and obtained her degree. Following this, she went on to study at the Missouri-Kansas City University and joined work as a teacher. Author Churchill continued with this profession for many years. For certain period of time, she even worked as a reviewer of books for the Kansas Star. In her career as a writer, author Churchill has won both the Macavity and Agatha awards. Currently, she enjoys her time living with her two children and grandchildren in her house in Kansas. She has been divorced by her husband long back. In her spare time, author Churchill likes to practice gardening, playing gin, and needlepointing. Churchill began her writing career in the year 1975 with the release of her first book titled Ozark Legacy. She had written this book under the pen name Amanda Singer. After the success of this book, author Churchill began writing under her original name. After some time in her prosperous writing career, she collaborated with Jean Brooks-Janowiak and adopted the pseudonym Valerie Vayle for writing a few of the romance books. She made her debut as Churchill in the year 1989 for writing cozy mystery books and the first book that she wrote under this name was titled as Grime and Punishment. This book marked the beginning of the popular Jane Jeffry series.
Author Churchill was born as Janice Brooks on January 11, 1943, in Kansas City, Missouri, The United States. She completed her graduation in the year 1965 and then passed from university before taking up the job of teaching at an elementary school. Before starting to write her mystery books, author Churchill used to write only historical and romance novels. In the first book of her mystery series, Churchill has introduced a widow named Jane Jeffry having 3 children and living in the suburban region of Chicago. Over the course of the series, it is seen that Jane Jeffry keeps getting stuck in murder cases along with her best friend and neighbor named Shelley Nowack. And every now and then, she has to come across a police detective named Mel Van Dyne. Author Churchill has chosen the titles of the novels as puns on the literary works, which reflect the cozy domestic life of Jane Jeffry. Her life does not seem to be relaxing as she often gets busy in solving the crime and murder cases in the city. In the year 1999, author Churchill started a new mystery series, which is set at the time of the Great Depression. This series features the lead characters in the form of siblings named Lily and Robert Brewster. They live in New York and inherit their great-uncle’s house. In order to earn for their living, the Brewster siblings starting running the house as a guest house. Author Churchill says that writing her two mystery series is her best treat without a fork and knife. Apart writing historical, romance, mystery, and gothic books, she also writes articles in magazines and newspapers. Whenever she is not writing, she likes to do genealogy, which seems very much like mysteries because it has surprises, speculations, and clues. And apart from spending time with her family, she likes to play with her pet cat named Max. Author Churchill has been included in the list of the Top Women Mystery Writers in the year 2007.
The Jane Jeffry series written by Jill Churchill consists of a total of 16 books, which were released between the years 1989 and 2016. All the books in this series feature the main character as Jane Jeffry, who is depicted as an amateur sleuth and suburban housewife living in Chicago, Illinois. The first book of this series was published under the title ‘Grime and Punishment’. It was released by the Avon publication in the year 1989. The main characters introduced in this book by author Churchill include Shelley Nowack, Jane Jeffry, and Mel Van Dyne. At the start of the book, it is shown that Jane Jeffry finds it very difficult to raise her three children as a widow and manage the housework at the same time. Therefore, she needs help very often. Along with all her neighbors, Jane shares a cleaning lady, who looks after the household chores. But, the neighbors often complain that Jane makes the lady do too much work. Later, when the cleaner is found dead, strangled with the cord of a vacuum cleaner, everything falls on Jane’s shoulders. Now, she has to carry extra load of investigating about the real reason behind the death of that woman. Already she has her plate full with her duties of car pooling and looking after her kids as a single mother. But, in spite of having a busy schedule, Jane Jeffry seems determined to clean the murderous mess and find out the real killer. She is assisted in her attempt by her friend and neighbor Shelley Nowack. However, she needs to be extra careful as the killer is one among her next door neighbors and he or she can attempt to kill her too.
One of the other books of the series is titled as ‘From Here to Paternity’. It was published in 1995 by the Avon Books and the plot is set in Denver, Colorado. At the start of the book, author Churchill has shown that Jane and Mel travel to Denver to enjoy with their best friend Shelley Nowack at a ski resort. Both Shelley and Jane bring their children to the resort and in spite of that they look forward to have a relaxing time. However, all their hopes are dashed when Jane comes across a real dead man hidden under a snowman. Soon after, the women begin to investigate the matter and think of a long list of suspects in and around the slopes. One of them is a political leader who leads a team of genealogists. The other suspects, according to Jane Jeffrey, include a crimson clad mysterious skier, always keeping an eye on the case from far away, and a former stockbroker who seems to be hiding from the investors. A Native American tribe is also in the list of suspects on whom Jane keeps a close watch. Now, in order to get to the bottom of the mystery and solve the murder case, Jane, Mel, and Shelley have to assume certain things and find out who was on the trip with a malicious intent.
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4 Responses to “Jill Churchill”
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Any issues with the book list you are seeing? Or is there an author or series we don’t have? Let me know!
very much like the the grace and favor series, have found thru second hand stores, library, and ebay all except…grace under pressure…where did it go? library shows it as the first book in the series…
love them, grew up roaming ny state…with siblings who remember the ’30’s, all to well.
hope I can find the missing book to this series..
marilyn
I can’t find any evidence of that book ever existing. Anything Goes is the first novel in the Grace & Favor series.
Dear Ms. Churchill, I’ve read about all your books. I have seven or 8 of them. Thank you for writing. Hi, how are you? I guess you stopped writing back in 2007. In 2017 a website call “Stop you’re killing me,” I have gone to since 2000. They said you had a book in the Grace a Favor series called “Smoke gets in your eyes.” In fact I printed your page and have in here. So what happened with that book. I would like to read it. Thank you. Bye. Yours, Neal
I can’t confirm this but I saw someone saying on Goodreads it wasn’t released due to a dispute with the publisher. Either way it has never been released.