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Jennifer E. Tirrell was orphaned by the age of three and kinship-adopted. Her writing
often includes the natural beauty around her. She uses creation, and the Word of God, to
point both adults and children to the Creator. Her stories are shaped by faith, confirmed
by history and centered on Truth.

When Jennifer is not writing, there is a good chance she is taking a walk or baking cookies.
She is thrilled to have received her crown of white hair and six dear grandchildren–so far!–to go with it. Jennifer and her husband, Bobby, live life to the fullest in the Coastal Carolinas.

More from Jennifer

Have you ever wondered if your ancestors prayed for the generations who would come after them—prayed for you? During the Tudor period, life was lived much closer to death than it is today. Illness, hardship and uncertainty were constant companions. Because tomorrow could never be assumed, eternity felt very near. Faith was not merely tradition; it was something tested daily. I have often thought that whatever survives testing is usually the thing most worth keeping. I felt that sense of history in a very personal way when my daughter and I visited the small chapel just outside London where my ninth great-grandmother is buried. On her stone memorial she is carved wearing a garment with a book hanging from it—The Book of Common Prayer. Seeing that image made me pause and wonder what prayers she might have spoken for the generations that followed.

Just across from the chapel stands Thornton Hall, where she once lived. When my daughter and I were welcomed inside as ninth and tenth generation Tirrell descendants and ushered into the drawing room for tea, the weight of that history felt suddenly real. Standing in that house, I couldn’t help but imagine the lives that had unfolded there centuries before. Inside the chapel, a memorial window for Jane Ingleton shows a woman wearing a mantle bearing the arms of the Tyrell family—our name later spelled with an “i”—and holding both a red and a white rose. That image captured my imagination. Jane’s Secret is a completely fictional story inspired by those moments. The historical record left only fragments, but sometimes fragments are enough to spark a story. From them grew a fast- paced suspense novel that weaves together history, faith, and the enduring power of prayer—and the possibility that blessings offered long ago may echo farther than we realize.