Books
Detective Quinn, Pet Whisperer—coming soon!
The House the Fool Built—coming soon!
CJ Penland
Author
Growing up, CJ Penland was rarely without a book. The best ones weren’t simply read once and shelved; they became old friends, revisited again and again. That lifelong love of story found its way into a growing pile of notebooks full of ideas, snippets of dialogue, and half-finished adventures, all waiting patiently for their time to be published.
After retiring from homeschooling her four kids, the time had come. Years spent homeschooling gave her a front-row seat to how kids think, solve problems, and see the world—and to the wonderfully unexpected logic that only kids can produce. It’s no surprise, then, that her stories are full of capable kids who ask good questions, notice details, and tackle problems with imagination and determination.
She especially enjoys writing kidlit that prompts adults to say things like “even though this is a children’s book, I was completely invested” and “I was surprised by how much I was drawn in”—comments from beta readers of her first middle grade novel, Detective Quinn, Pet Whisperer.
She writes picture books, early readers, and middle grade, and is even sporadically tackling the somewhat daunting world of young adult fiction. She’s also sketching out an adult cozy mystery series, set in the fictional town of Clarence, Texas, which is mostly an excuse to air her family’s only semi-grubby but mildly hysterical laundry.
And when she’s not writing, you’ll usually find her living out her mantra: Read. Reread. Repeat.