The 2025 Louisiana Book Festival will be held on Saturday, November 1.
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Jess Armstrong

Home Featured Authors & Panelists Featured Participant Lineup Jess Armstrong
© Christy Lorio

© Christy Lorio

Jess Armstrong’s debut novel, The Curse of Penryth Hall, won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition. She has a master’s degree in American History but prefers writing about imaginary people to the real thing. Armstrong lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her historian husband, two sons, yellow cat, speckled dog, and the world’s most pampered school-fair goldfish. And when she’s not working on her next project, she’s probably thinking about cheese, baking, tweeting, or some combination of the above.  

 

Schedule

2:00 pm to 3:00 pm

State Capitol, Senate Committee Room F

Deadlier than the Male: Women Solving Mysteries

with Jess Armstrong, Katharine Schellman, Emma C. Wells, Ashley Winstead, and moderator Robert Gwaltney

 

3:15 pm to 4:00 pm

Cavalier House Books Tent

Book Signing

The Curse of Penryth Hall: A Mystery

“A delightful debut.” – People

An atmospheric gothic mystery that beautifully brings the ancient Cornish countryside to life, Armstrong introduces heroine Ruby Vaughn in her Minotaur Books & Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut, The Curse of Penryth Hall.

After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and house mate in Exeter. She’s always avoided dwelling on the past, even before the war, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she’d never return. A more sensible soul would have delivered the package and left without rehashing old wounds. But no one has ever accused Ruby of being sensible. Thus begins her visit to Penryth Hall.