Special Guest – Jane Jensen – Author of Kingdom Come – #Giveaway too!

Today I am so excited to welcome Jane Jensen to Escape With Dollycas! 

HOME AGAIN: BACK TO LANCASTER COUNTY

By Jane Jensen

 

My new release, “Kingdom Come”, is a murder mystery set in the Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Detective Elizabeth Harris is the protagonist and, in many ways, her story is my story.

In the book, Elizabeth grew up in Quarryville Pennsylvania, a small town in Lancaster County. As a teen, she wanted desperately to leave her small town life, and she succeeded. She went to college in New York City and stayed there. She became a New York cop, got her Criminal Justice degree, and finally ended up a detective. But that’s all before the novel begins. At the start of “Kingdom Come”, Elizabeth is a new transplant back to Lancaster County. Like me.

I grew up in small town Pennsylvania and moved to California for my first job right out of college. I lived on the West Coast for the next twenty-odd years, both in California and Seattle. In 2010 my husband and I bought a farm in Lancaster County and moved back. My feelings about this place, and the transition home, form the bedrock of “Kingdom Come”.

Can you go home again? And is the simple life of the past really as idyllic as you imagine?

These are some of the themes of the book. Elizabeth is burnt out as a New York cop, sick of the violence, and suffering from PTSD. She also had a horrendous personal loss when her husband was murdered in a random shooting. She dreams that by moving back to Lancaster County, she will find a place without the senseless violence of the city, a place where she can remember the good in the world, in people. She craves peace and quiet. But as a new detective for the Lancaster Bureau of Police, she’s about to encounter one of the most disturbing cases of her career—and learn that there can be snakes in the grass even in paradise.

My own experience of moving back to Lancaster County has been equally fraught with good and bad (though not as dramatically or fatally as Elizabeth’s). This is a place where my childhood memories walk out of my head and into real life. For example, I remember my mother and aunts wearing silky polyester dresses, often in floral patterns, and having short permed hair. This is not something you’d ever see on the West Coast, but here at the local farmer’s markets, you will see older women still in that same mode—and that’s not even the Amish women. The Amish and Mennonites are heavily populated in this area and they harken back even further, to the 1800’s. I carry my smart phone and check my messages next to a lady in a bonnet selling homemade canned peaches. Time seems to have stopped here, and, honestly, I love that. It’s like being a time traveler in a way.

I have always been drawn to old things—old barns, antique furniture, old cobblestone roads. One of my favorite places to travel is the British countryside, where you can still walk through sheep herds on the hills and sit in a stone-walled pub that’s three hundred years old. This part of me adores Lancaster County, where I ride over covered bridges and see men plowing fields with horses on the bike ride loop I take from my own home. Hell, parts of the farmhouse we live in dates from 1732.

But. But. The past has its own problems, doesn’t it? Dark secrets can lurk there, as Elizabeth finds out.  For myself, I’ve had to make peace with the fact that most of my neighbors have religious and political beliefs far more conservative than my own, that women’s rights and animal rights are in rather prehistoric states in many places here, and that I can face more dismissal and sexism as a female than I ever did on the West Coast.

There are many little incidents and encounters that we’ve experienced since returning that have ended up in “Kingdom Come”. And the descriptions of the barns, fields, farmhouses, and streams in the story are based on our farm too. Will Elizabeth come to regret her decision to return, or will the good out-weigh the bad in the end?

I’ll give you a hint: We have no plans to move.

I’ve included some photos from our own Lancaster odyssey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~Jane Jensen

Kingdom Come:
An Elizabeth Harris Mystery
1st in Series
A Berkley Prime Crime Mystery (January 5, 2016)
An Imprint of Penguin Ransom House LLC
Mystery/Amish & Mennonite Fiction/Women Sleuths
Setting – Pennsylvania
Trade Paperback: 304 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0425282892
E-Book ASIN: B00W2ZKVUK

 

 

Amish country in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has always been a place of quiet beauty—until a shocking murder shatters the peace, and leaves a troubled detective picking up the pieces…

After her husband is murdered, Detective Elizabeth Harris turns in her NYPD badge and moves back home, hoping that a quiet life in remote Pennsylvania Dutch country will help her overcome the dark memories of her ten years in New York. But when a beautiful, scantily clad “English” girl is found dead in the barn of a prominent Amish family, Elizabeth knows that she’s uncovered an evil that could shake the community to its core.

Elizabeth’s boss is convinced this was the work of an “English,” as outsiders are called in Lancaster County. But Elizabeth isn’t so sure. All she’s missing is an actual lead—until another body is found: this time, a missing Amish girl. Now Elizabeth must track down a killer with deep ties to a community that always protects its own—no matter how deadly the cost…

 

About the Author

Jane Jensen is a novelist and game designer. Best known for her computer game series, Gabriel Knight, and her novel, Dante’s Equation, Jensen has published seventeen games and four thriller novels. She also publishes romance as Eli Easton. She lives with her husband, Robert Holmes, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Thanks to the people at Penguin I have 2 copies to give away!
Contest is open to anyone over 18 years old
with a US or Canadian mailing address.

Duplicate entries will be deleted. Void where prohibited.

You do not have to be a follower to enter but I hope you will find
something you like here and become a follower.

Followers Will Receive 2 Bonus Entries For Each Way They Follow.
Plus 2 Bonus Entries For Liking My Facebook Fan Page.

This year I am trying to build my Twitter following so for this giveaway 4 Bonus Entries will be awarded by following me on Twitter. @dollycas

Leave a comment for Jane for 5 Bonus Entries.

Pin this giveaway to Pinterest for 3 Bonus Entries.

If you publicize the giveaway on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere you will receive
5 Bonus Entries For Each Link.

Contest Will End January 28, 2016 at 11:59 PM CST
Winner Will Be Chosen By Random.org
Winner Will Be Notified By Email
and Will Be Posted Here In The Sidebar.

Click Here For Entry Form

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”