Straw Hats and Old Lace

It all starts with a murderWhen Lacey unexpectedly inherits the Monterossa family mansion from her grandmother, she and her friend Daisy turn it into a tea room and inn. Two months after opening the inn, an older gentleman guest is found murdered in his guestroom.The same day Max Castleton is murdered, Lacey's high school sweetheart returns to town after breaking her heart at graduation. Heath is a beautiful, broken ex-baseball player, and while she wants to hate him, her heart remembers years of friendship and can't quite close the door on him.The murder and the need to raise funds for the inn bring the pair together, along with Lacey's friends, members of the Straw Hats and Old Lace club Lacey founded in high school, a group of ladies who long for beauty, peace, and romance in their lives, a club Heath has never understood.But only if the pair leaves the past and moves into the present can the inn succeed and a murderer be brought to justice.Straw Hats and Old Lace is book one of the contemporary Christian romance and mystery series of novellas by the same name.

Precious has something to prove After losing her father, Precious is determined to show the world she's an intelligent, independent woman who can take care of herself. When she finds a man sporting a gunshot wound in her van after work, she takes him home to care for him, knowing her friends would never approve. The injured man proves to be a Chicago detective who charms her pets and tugs at Precious's heartstrings, and she keeps him long after she should go for help. Dean can't remember being shot. Nor does he know what he's doing in Coon Valley, nowhere near his Chicago home. All he knows is Precious is in danger because of him, and he can't survive without her help. He's not sure how to handle the conundrum, although falling for the spitfire woman probably isn't his best plan. Book four of Straw Hats and Old Lace, a series of contemporary Christian romance and mystery novellas. Jill Penrod wrote her first novel in high school. It was a space opera (she watched Star Wars A LOT), and it was not great literature. But she persevered, graduating college with top honors in writing. Since then, she's published more than thirty novels. She writes in several genres including Christian teen romance, sweet romance, Christian fantasy stories, and non-fiction. None of them are space operas. Jill lives in Kentucky with her husband and youngest son. She has three adult children out there doing adult things like work and marriage. When she isn't writing, she gardens and spoils her long-haired Chihuahua Sparrow, along with a few other cats and dogs. Recently she fulfilled her dream of moving to the country, although it has yet to be seen if this city mouse can become a country mouse or not.