Welcome to Penelope Cress, author of the Reverend Jessamy Ward Mystery Series!
Penelope Cress lives on an island off the coast of Kent, England, with her four children and an elderly Jack Russell Terrier. A lover of murder mystery and cups of tea (served with a stack of digestive biscuits), she writes quaint cosy mysteries and other feel-good stories from a corner table in the vintage tea shop on the high street. Penelope loves nostalgia and all things retro. Her taste in music is also very last century.
Website – www.penelopecress.com
Twitter - @PenelopeCress
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PenelopeCressWriter
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/penelopecresswriter
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/penelope5046
What would you say are your strengths
as an author?
When I was younger, I trained to be an actress. I
learnt about various methods for getting into a role and I think that helps
with my writing. Readers say that they love my characters, even the setting is
a character. I see them in my mind like a movie. I spend most of my prep time
on the characters - their quirks, their motivations. And then let them loose.
They live their story. I just take notes.
How often do you write, and do you
write using a strict routine?
I try to write every day. I find that when I leave
it for a few days, those days become weeks and often months and then it becomes
a terrifying prospect to return to. Once I start again, I wonder what the issue
was as I love writing! I am part of a writers’ group than runs online sprints
three times a day across all time zones and I aim to join at least one of them
each day. Most days I manage two online sprints and edit etc. outside of those
times. I am always trying to be more disciplined because when I am I get better
results.
Five years from now, where do you see
yourself as a writer?
In five years, I want to be able to give up the day
job and be more mobile, earning enough from my books to travel and write as I
go.
If you could offer once piece of advice
to a novice writer, what would it be?
Get out of your own way! I spent years writing my
first book. The whole Wesberrey series was heavily inspired by my mother. I
wanted to publish it so, hopefully, I could start to earn enough money to
reduce my day job hours and spend more time with her as she was not well. I
wasted so much time. Even when I had the first book finished, I didn’t show
her. I wanted it to be perfect. Sadly, she took very ill suddenly and died ten days
later. I eventually published on what would have been her 80th
birthday six months later. I didn’t earn enough money to give up the day job,
but the worse bit is that my mother never got to see my work in print. As they
say, time waits for no man. It will never be perfect – just do it!
What would you consider to be the best
compliment a reader could give your book?
I didn’t want it to end.
What are you working on now?
I
am increasing my workload as I am writing two books. The fifth book in the
Wesberrey series, Consecrated Crime is underway, and I have outlined a second
series and have begun to plot the first book. I am also working on a short
story for an upcoming anthology.
HOLY HOMICIDE
Despite her cat allergy and her mother’s warnings of doom and disaster,
Reverend Jessamy Ward is excited to return to the Isle of Wesberrey to take up
her promotion as parish priest of St. Bridget’s Abbey.
Tourists know Wesberrey is famous for three things: there are no cars,
there are lots of cats, and there is a legendary fertility well. Shortly after
Jess’s arrival, it will be famous for something else - murder!
Can Jess root out the killer or will the unearthing of her own family’s
mystical pagan history threaten to destroy her new life?
Holy Homicide is the first book in the exciting new
Reverend Jessamy Ward Mystery Series by Penelope Cress.
Escape to a new mystery. Buy Holy Homicide to explore the often quirky and
sometimes seedy secrets on the Isle of Wesberrey today!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085298YK2
DIVINE DEATH
Things appear to be
settling down in the island parish of St. Bridget's, and Rev Jess Ward is
enjoying the relative peace in the lead up to Pentecost. So, maybe it's unwise
to invite in the local archaeological society to dig up the old well?
What will the dig
beneath the floor of the baptismal font uncover?
Spring is a time of
fresh starts and new beginnings. Is that romance we smell in the air?
Life is skipping
along until a sudden death takes the spring out of Jess’s step.
Old rivalries,
deception and ambition are all viable motives for violence, but could it be a
crime of passion, or even self-defence?
In a mystery that
appears to involve some of her closest family and friends, Jess turns to her
ancient past to help solve this latest tragedy.
Divine Death is the
fourth book in the Isle of Wesberrey Series.
Find out more about
the island's history as the latest mystery unfolds. Buy Divine Death now!
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