Jennie Felton Books In Order

Publication Order of The Families of Fairley Terrace Sagas Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Jennie Felton is a Sagas novelist from Somerset where she was born and still lives. Over the course of her writing career, she has written a ton of short stories and novels. She is best known for “The Families of Fairley Terrace Sagas” that chronicles the loves and lives of the resident of Somerset in the sunset years of the 19th century. She asserts that she has been writing for as long as she can remember and says that the first people who read her stories were her Grammar School classmates. During those early days, she would write her serials on exercise book paper and was often caught writing during her Chemistry lessons. When she got caught, she thought she would be expelled but the teacher confiscated her work and after reading them, encouraged her to become a published author.

She first got into professional writing when she started writing serials and short stories for several women’s magazines in the 1960s, something that she did for the best part of a decade. Her first novel which she published under her own name Janet Tanner was “The Black Mountains.” She set the novel in the Somerset coalfields, the same setting for the Fairley Terrace series. Her first novel was a family saga in Hillsbridge, a fictional mining town. With the success of the first novel, she went on to publish three more titles set in Hillsbridge. She also issued the many of her other eBooks written under her real name Janet Tanner. Besides writing several novels under her own name, she has also written “Dance with Wings” under the pseudonym Amelia Carr. The sagas are heartwarming love and family stories spanning three generations of one family. After being married for more than fifty years, Jennie Felton lost her husband in 2013. She has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Jennie Felton’s most popular series is the “Families of Fairley Terrace” novels, which have gained massive popularity since the publication of “All the Dark Secrets” the debut novel in 2014. The series is inspired by a real-life mining disaster in Somerset during the 19th century. Twelve miners had died in 1839 when the rope lowering the cage into a pit at Walls Way Coal Works had snapped. Most people in the small town believed that it was no accident and that someone had cut the rope with malicious intent although no one had ever been arrested. Jennie’s novels now reenact the same stories now set in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They follow the stories of the fortunes and misfortunes of the mostly mining families that live at Fairley Terrace, a row of miners’ cottages in South Compton. It is a tight-knit community brought together by the legacy of the accident, the colliery, and an uncertain future. They combine drama, romance, mystery and drama in some of the most intriguing stories. Jennie proves herself a master storyteller as she writes stories of personal struggle, fascinating characters, and upheaval.

Jennie Felton’s “All The Dark Secrets” is the first of the The Families of Fairley Terrace Sagas and one of the best in the series. It is set in the small mining town of Somerset, where it is expected that everyone would become a miner just like their father before them. The novel tells the story of Maggie, a woman whose world and those of her neighbors on Fairley Terrace houses are turned upside down after a tragedy at the mine. She turns to the only man she thinks she could trust but instead she finds undeniable and sudden passion. However, she strongly feels that any relationship with Josh Withers would be betraying her past. The only way she can survive is to keep her dark secrets hidden. Everyone expects her to marry Jack and settle down though she is not so sure she loves him that much to make a lifelong commitment. Maggie makes mistakes but manages to make the most of things but this is one of the hardest decisions she has ever had to make.

“The Miner’s Daughter” is the story of Annie who is the wife of Algernon the local preacher. She had a hard time taking care of her two children Kitty and Lucy alone when John her husband died in a mining accident. Algernon her husband wears a mask and pretends to be a pillar of the community though he is nothing of the sort back at home. Lucy is a headstrong but caring, kind and sweet girl that can sing like an angel. Once she meets Molly her father’s sister she is convinced that she is destined to become a professional singer just like her. Her dream is to sing in packed music halls but Algernon her stepfather dashes her dream and forbids her from following the path. He even goes as far as banning her from communicating with her Aunt Molly leaving her devastated. Kitty is different in temperament from her sister Lucy. While she is weak, she is always coming up with one plan or another against her sister so as to get her in trouble with her stepfather. Felton does a very good job drawing Kitty as it is almost impossible to dislike the girl as there is a feeling that maybe she will come good. Algernon has a son named Joe that he takes in as he wants the people at the local church to think he is the kindest soul in town. Joe is a kind soul though as he treats Kitty and Lucy as his sisters, until he grows up and falls in love with Lucy.

Jennie Fenton’s “The Girl Below Stairs” is the story of Edie Cooper, a woman who has lived all her life in the small town surrounded by loving friends and family. Now that she is an adult, she got a job from Christina an adopted child of the influential Fairley family. She spends much of her time dreaming of a life with Charlie Oglethorpe, a local handsome lad. However, she is heartbroken when the lad moves away to London without even telling her that he was leaving. While she is heartbroken, life has to move on and she finds consolation with Christina her friend. Things soon get interesting when Christina asks her to help uncover her true parentage which has been a mystery for years. She dives into the mystery and discovers some intriguing secrets though they put her life in danger. The man with the secrets will do anything to ensure that they do not get out. Can Edie find happiness with Charlie while protecting Christina?