JILL CHURCHILL

Jill Churchill (real name Janice Young Brooks), born on January 11,1943, in Kansas City, Missouri, is an American author, winner of the Agatha and Macavity Mystery Readers Awards, and nominated for an Anthony for her best-selling "JANE JEFFRY MYSTERY SERIES". She lives as Jane does, in a midwestern suburb. She says writing this series and the "GRACE AND FAVOR MYSTERY SERIES" is the best treat she can have without a knife and fork.

Under her real name, Janice Young Brooks, and various pseudonyms, she's written historical novels, a gothic novel, and a history textbook as well as many articles for newspapers and magazines. When she's not writing, she's avidly doing genealogy which she says is a lot like mysteries with all the red herrings, clues, speculations, and surprises.

She gardens enthusiastically, needlepoints superbly, and plays a mean game of gin against the computer. She has a son and daughter and two granddaughters, Rose Louise and Emma.

JANE JEFFRY MYSTERY SERIES

This mystery series was introduced in 1989 and features JANE JEFFRY, a widow with three children, living in suburban Chicago. With her neighbour and best friend Shelley Nowack, she gets caught up in murder cases. These often include Mel Van Dyne, a police detective introduced in the first novel, and with whom she becomes romantically involved later on. The novel titles are puns on literary works and reflect her cozy domestic life which she leads between crime-solving capers.

In my opinion, the stories are interesting, the humour entertaining, language clean, and writing both refined and delightful. The atmosphere is pleasant and the characters appealing. The romance element is enough to add to the pleasure but doesn't overwhelm the mysteries, which are finely plotted, provide both mental stimulation as well as fun during the detecting phase, and conclude satisfactorily. 

Definitely a wonderful series of "Cozy Murder Mystery" genre...!

The following are the books in this series:

1) Grime and Punishment

With three kids to raise on her own, Jane Jeffry sometimes needs a hand with the housework. But many of her complaining neighbours believe that the Happy Helper cleaning lady they all share wouldn't know a dustball if she was choking on it. That hardly seems reason enough, however, to do the disreputable domestic in.

So when the charwoman in question is discovered strangled to death with a vacuum cleaner cord, Jane decides to dig up the real dirt--if the tenacious single mom can find any time to spare between her PTA meetings and car-pooling duties. But despite her busy schedule, Jane is determined to tidy up the whole murderous mess--even if it means provoking a killer who may live as close as next door.


2) A Farewell to Yarns
3) A Quiche Before Dying
4) The Class Menagerie
5) A Knife to Remember
6) From Here to Paternity
7) Silence of the Hams
8) War and Peas

(Books Not Yet Read)

9) Fear of Frying
10) The Merchant of Menace
11) A Groom with a View
12) Mulch Ado About Nothing
13) The House of Seven Mabels
14) Bell, Book, and Scandal
15) A Midsummer Night’s Scream
16) The Accidental Florist

GRACE AND FAVOR MYSTERY SERIES

In 1999, Jill Churchill began a new mystery series set during the Great Depression, which features siblings Robert and Lily Brewster who live in New York. They've inherited a house from their great-uncle, which they run as a guest house to earn money.

The following are the books in this series:

1) Anything Goes

THEY HAVE INHERITED A LOVELY UPSTATE MANSION...

The crash of 1929 has ended the party for high-living New Yorkers Lily Brewster and her brother Robert and takes them from the upper echelons of the idle rich and deposits them to the lowly depths of the disillusioned poor. However, rescue arrives in the form of their recently deceased great-uncle Horatio who bequeaths to them Grace and Favor "Cottage" which is really a great sprawling mansion. And there's a fortune to go with it, but only if they reside there for ten years.

AND AN INCONVENIENT CORPSE

With no other alternative, the spirited Manhattanites move to a quiet and quaint Hudson River community and try to fit in. But they soon find out that great-uncle Horatio didn't die peacefully. He was murdered while on an elaborate sailing party on the Hudson River aboard his yacht--and Lily and Robert are suspects. But when another corpse appears in the kitchen of the mansion, the siblings are determined to clear themselves. Without a clue how to begin, Lily and Robert start snooping, unaware that their savvy sleuthing could make them the killer's next targets.


(Books Not Yet Read)

2) In the Still of the Night
3) Someone to Watch Over Me
4) Love for Sale   
5) It Had to Be You   
6) Who's Sorry Now?  
7) Smokes Gets In Your Eyes