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Jennifer Jaynes was an American #1 USA Today bestselling author of mystery and thriller books.

Born in Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, she held a bachelor’s degree in health sciences and a certificate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition from Old Dominion University.

Though passionate about writing from very early on after she read books by Stephen King, James Patterson and Dean Koontz, Jennifer went on to work as a content manager, webmaster, news publisher, medical assistant, editor, publishing consultant, and copywriter before deciding to follow her dreams of becoming a full-time thriller novelist in 2011.

That same year, she self-published her suspense debut novel, Never Smile at Strangers, which not only made it to the USA Today #1 bestseller's list, but also appeared in the Kindle Store’s Top 100 list in a number of countries like the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and Brazil.

Her books have also been translated into several languages.

She died on November 25, 2019 at the age of 47, and is survived by her husband and her twin boys.

More about Jennifer Jaynes

Genres: Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Born: 1972 / Died: 2019

United States

Website: http://www.jenniferjaynes.net/

Non Series

  • Disturbed (2017)
  • Malice (2018)

Picture Books

  • I Care About Me (2017)

Stranger

  1. Never Smile At Strangers (2011)
  2. Ugly Young Thing (2015)
  3. Don't Say a Word (2016)
  4. Don't Say a Word (2016)
  5. The Stranger Inside (2017)
Picture Books

Detailed book overview

Non Series

Disturbed

On Halloween night five years ago, Chelsea Dutton’s college roommates were viciously stabbed to death, and Chelsea was critically injured. She was found hiding in her apartment’s bathtub, barely clinging to life.

With only fragments of shattered memory, she’s been trying her best to move past the nightmares ever since. Now in Boston, she lives a somewhat reclusive life, working from home as a medical transcriptionist and bingeing on mindless television shows.

She can’t shake the fear that her attacker is out there, waiting to finish what he started, and Elizabeth, a nurse she met after the murders, is the only person she can trust.

When someone from her past reemerges, Chelsea starts receiving disturbing messages and worries that her every move is being watched. As the messages mount and her memories begin to return, she’s led to a very terrifying and lonely place. But she needn’t be afraid. She won’t be alone there for long.

Author: Jennifer Jaynes
First Release: 2017
ISBN: 978-1542046381
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Malice

Dr. Daniel Winters is living a fairy-tale life. He has a beachfront home in Malibu, a career as a respected pediatrician at a thriving Los Angeles practice, and a gorgeous new wife, Mia. For a man whose past was rife with mental illness, addiction, and thoughts of suicide, it seems too good to be true.

Then Daniel learns that a fellow pediatrician and his family were found slaughtered in their home. It’s just the first chip in the façade of Daniel’s perfect life. Little by little, everything starts to fall away. At work, his career becomes at risk when he’s asked to remain silent about a dangerous new drug. At home, Mia has gone from an affectionate newlywed to a mysterious woman carefully hiding secrets―and possibly a lover.

Then, another doctor is found dead, and as Mia’s behavior becomes increasingly suspicious, Daniel begins to wonder: Is paranoia getting the best of him…or has his fairy-tale life become a nightmare worse than he could have ever imagined?

Author: Jennifer Jaynes
First Release: 2018
ISBN: 978-1503903913
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Picture Books

I Care About Me

Using a series of fun rhymes and gorgeous illustrations, siblings Billy and Kate share all of the reasons why they are so passionate about eating delicious, wholesome real foods. Young readers will learn a valuable lesson about the importance of fueling their bodies and minds with nutritious foods.

NB: Co-authored with Elfin Morgan.

Author: Jennifer Jaynes
First Release: 2017
ISBN: 978-0984817344
Publisher: Inkbug Media

Stranger

Never Smile At Strangers

When nineteen-year-old Tiffany Perron vanishes without a trace, the residents of rural Grand Trespass, Louisiana, launch a desperate search to find her. But few clues are unearthed, and before long another young woman disappears.

As locals continue to vanish, residents begin to discover that they might not know those closest to them as well as they had thought. Lies and insecurities quickly surface, leading everyone to question one another…and their involvement in the disappearances.

Meanwhile, an unstable, twisted killer is hiding quietly in their midst. Ever since his mother’s murder four years earlier, he’s been forced to raise his disturbed teenage sister. He’s terrified of her―and of women in general―and his world revolves around his fear of and obsession over them.

Author: Jennifer Jaynes
First Release: 2011
ISBN: 978-1477821916
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Ugly Young Thing

Sixteen-year-old Allie has already experienced a lifetime of horror, having lost her mother and serial killer brother to mental illness.

Returning to her childhood home in Louisiana, Allie ends up in foster care and is placed with Miss Bitty, an eccentric but kindly older woman who shows her a new direction and brighter future.

But Allie’s new life takes a devastating turn when young women in the area start turning up dead, and she begins to see shadowy figures outside her bedroom. As Miss Bitty grows inexplicably distant, a nagging voice makes Allie wonder if death has found her yet again…or if it never really left her at all.

Author: Jennifer Jaynes
First Release: 2015
ISBN: 978-1477827352
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Don't Say a Word

Death has always stalked single mother Allie Callahan. For the first time in her life, she has found a fragile sort of happiness living a quiet, peaceful existence in East Texas with her young son, Sammy, and her adoptive mother.

Still, Allie fears she may be susceptible to the same mental illness that destroyed her serial-killer mother and brother. She's haunted by the idea that she could become incapable of caring for Sammy.

When twelve-year-old twins Zoe and Carrie arrive on her doorstep late one night, their parents slain in a vicious double homicide, Allie’s strength and sanity are put to the test. What did the twins see on the night of their parents’ horrific murder? They are too frightened to say.

Soon faced with a series of menacing phone calls, a rising body count, and the pressure of keeping the girls and her own son safe, Allie fears she'll lose her mind―and her one shot at happiness―once and for all.

Author: Jennifer Jaynes
First Release: 2016
ISBN: 978-1503933422
Don't Say a Word

Death has always stalked single mother Allie Callahan. For the first time in her life, she has found a fragile sort of happiness living a quiet, peaceful existence in East Texas with her young son, Sammy, and her adoptive mother.

Still, Allie fears she may be susceptible to the same mental illness that destroyed her serial-killer mother and brother. She's haunted by the idea that she could become incapable of caring for Sammy.

When twelve-year-old twins Zoe and Carrie arrive on her doorstep late one night, their parents slain in a vicious double homicide, Allie’s strength and sanity are put to the test. What did the twins see on the night of their parents’ horrific murder? They are too frightened to say.

Soon faced with a series of menacing phone calls, a rising body count, and the pressure of keeping the girls and her own son safe, Allie fears she'll lose her mind―and her one shot at happiness―once and for all.

Author: Jennifer Jaynes
First Release: 2016
ISBN: 978-1503933422
The Stranger Inside

After mystery author Diane Christie loses her husband to suicide, she and her son move to the small coastal town of Fog Harbor, Massachusetts. Her daughter is attending college nearby, and Diane hopes that her family can now begin to heal. But rebuilding their lives after the tragedy isn't so simple.

Diane's depressed college-age daughter, Alexa, still avoids her, critical of everything Diane does, and even her generally amiable teenage son, Josh, has started acting out. Diane pushes forward, focusing on her writing and her volunteer work at a local crisis hotline. She knows that healing takes time.

But then a girl from Alexa's college is found strangled. Worse still, the murderer uses the crisis hotline to confess to Diane…and claims she is the only one who can stop the killing. And just when the glow of new love from an attractive admirer begins to chase away some of the darkness, more girls turn up dead, and Diane races to solve a mystery she fears will hit terrifyingly close to home.

Author: Jennifer Jaynes
First Release: 2017
ISBN: 978-1477817919
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer