J.F.Penn

Thrillers, Dark Fantasy, Crime, Horror

News and Press Releases

Audio Short Story: Sins Of Treachery

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 Many of you have asked me for more audio, and I aim to please!

Thousand Fiendish AngelsHere's me reading ‘Sins of Treachery' from A Thousand Fiendish Angels: Three short stories inspired by Dante’s Inferno, linked by a book of human skin passed down through generations.

Sins of Treachery

On the death of their Grandfather, twin brothers Simon and Gestas are left a map covered in alchemical symbols that could lead them to great wealth and power. But they find more than they expected in the frozen wastes of the Arctic north …

Download the audio (right click and Save As) => Sins of Treachery.mp3

Or you can listen or download through Soundcloud:

You can also get all the stories for free by joining my email list here. The ebook is also available on Amazon and Kobo.

 

Music used: “Hitman” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Winner: One Of The Guardian Top 100 Creative Professionals 2013

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I'm thrilled to announce that I was voted one of The Guardian's Top 100 Creative Professionals 2013 on 18 November 2013.

Guardian top 100 2013The nomination process was secret, but when the announcement came out, I really thought I had no chance of winning. I was up against luminaries from the writing and publishing world including JK Rowling, Iain Banks, Caitlin Moran and Charlie Redmayne (UK CEO of Harper Collins).

JoannaPennJKRowlingBecause of our names, I was next to JK Rowling in the nomination program – very cool!

The winners were chosen by a public vote and announced at a reception at The Hospital Club, a fantastic venue for creatives in London, with bars, recording studios, meeting spaces and more.

There were 10 winners in 10 categories and amusingly, the winners list includes Benedict Cumberbatch, The Rolling Stones, Idris Elba, Damian Lewis … oh yes, and me!

This award means a great deal because I'm an independent author and not a part of the traditional publishing industry. In previous years, publishing wouldn't have considered someone like me because of the stigma of ‘self publishing'. But that is almost gone now, replaced by the creative entrepreneurship of indie authors – in the same tradition as indie musicians and indie film-makers.

It's an exciting world for authors right now, with huge shifts happening in this creative space. I'm looking forward to the next year!

Sins Of Temptation, Violence And Treachery. Short Stories For Kobo’s Descent Dan Brown Inferno Competition.

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So I've been involved in a secret project for the last month or so and today I can finally announce it!

Sins of Temptation. Dan Brown

So What's Happening? The Descent: Kobo's Inferno Contest

Dante's Inferno hopefully needs no introduction, but on May 15 Dan Brown's new novel, also called Inferno is launched, based on Dante's work.

KOBO DescentFor the lead up to the launch of the book, Kobo is running an exciting new kind of interactive online contest that you can enter for free in order to win fantastic prizes, including $5000 and Kobo Glo devices signed by Dan Brown himself.

The first step of the contest is a series of short stories, written by – yes, you guessed it, me 🙂 EXCITING!

(The contest is only open to residents of US, Canada and the UK, but everyone else can still get the stories)

You can get the first story right now: Kobo.com/Descent

and here's the official Kobo press release about the contest

Solve the clues in each of the stories and they will lead you to the next step of the puzzle.

dan brown infernoIt's an extremely cool idea and I've had a total blast writing the stories, exploring aspects I haven't yet done in my full-length novels. They're steeped in the symbolism of the world of Dante's Inferno as well as religious and supernatural themes that Dan Brown fans will love.

I haven't been involved in the development of the rest of the contest, so I can't give anything away, but from what I have heard, it is amazingly detailed and layered in symbolism, myth and literature. It's worth reading Dante's Inferno (a modern translation) in order to get the most from the competition. For example, you might not know that the center of Hell is actually ice, rather than fire, and the stories will inform the clues.

You can check out the Pinterest board here to see images of the various aspects of the story.

Here's an intro to the stories – as you can see, the covers feature the wild creatures Dante encounters in the wood at the start of his Descent.

Sins of temptation J.F.PennStory 1: Sins of Temptation

When the tortured and mutilated corpse of a wealthy author is discovered, the police officer sent to investigate finds a curious diary amongst the occult objects at the scene. Will he uncover the author’s secret at the ruined chapel, and does he really want to pay the price that it demands?

Available now on Kobo.com/Descent

Story 2: Sins of Violence

In a post-apocalyptic world, a young girl is about to be taken to the man known as The Minotaur for a Blessing that will end her innocence. Can her sister gain access to the fortified city of Dis in time to stop the ritual and wreak vengeance for her own lost youth?

Available on 2 May 2013 …

Story 3: Sins of Treachery

On the death of their Grandfather, twin brothers Simon and Gestas are left a map covered in alchemical symbols that could lead them to great wealth and power. But they find more than they expected in the frozen wastes of the Arctic north …

Available on 9 May 2013 …

Register To Read The Inferno Short Stories For Free

You can read the short stories for free on Kobo – the first one is available right now and the next two are released over the next few weeks.

REGISTER HERE => Kobo.com/Descent

You don't have to have a Kobo device to read them, you just have to join the site to get the download and then read on your computer, your mobile device or other apps listed here.

Once you sign up, you will also be in the competition to win loads of great prizes, so now's the time to check out Kobo!

The stories will be on sale after the game is finished but they are exclusive to Kobo for 6 months, so best get them for free right now.

You Can Also Listen To Story 1: Sins Of Temptation

I've also recorded the first short story as an mp3 file: www.JFPenn.com/sins 

Please do leave any comments or questions below. Enjoy the stories and good luck with the competition!

Prophecy Cover And Back Blurb And Giveaway

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Exciting times! My next novel, Prophecy, will be coming out at the end of December (final edits still to come!) and I wanted to share the cover design and also the back blurb for the novel. I'd love to know what you think! It's the next in the ARKANE series, kind of Dan Brown meets Lara Croft in a kick-ass thriller! Below I also share a giveaway for print copies of Pentecost which I am soon to ‘un-publish' in the current print form. See below for all the details.

Prophecy, an ARKANE thriller by Joanna Penn

“I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” Revelation 6:8

The prophecy in Revelation declares that a quarter of the world must die and now a shadowy organization has the ability to fulfill these words. Can one woman stop the abomination before it’s too late?

When the medieval Devil's Bible is rediscovered, the malevolent Thanatos organization finally holds the power to fulfill the prophecy through demonic curses that lie within. All they need is the vehicle to take the curse to the masses and the pale horse of the apocalypse will ride forth.

When mysterious suicides in Israel draw Oxford University psychologist Morgan Sierra into the fray, she joins ARKANE, a secret British agency investigating paranormal and religious experience, for their investigation. Partnered with Jake Timber, the two must stop the Devil's Bible from reaching Thanatos before destruction is unleashed.

From the catacombs of Paris to the ossuaries of Sicily and the Czech Republic, Morgan and Jake must find the Devil's Bible and stop the curse being released into the world before one in four are destroyed in the coming holocaust. Because in just seven days, the final curse will be spoken and the prophecy will be fulfilled.

What do you think?

I'd love to know what you think. Does this sound like your type of book? Please do leave a comment below.

Giveaway of print copies of the first novel, Pentecost

Pentecost sales are almost at 16,000 copies now and unsurprisingly, 98% of those have been ebook sales. It's still ranking in the Bestseller lists for Religious Fiction in the US & UK and sporadically ranks for Action-Adventure. It currently has 57 reviews averaging 4 star in the US Amazon store & 16 reviews averaging 4 star in the UK Amazon store.

This means that a print book is basically a vanity project for me so I have something to give to my Mum & Dad 🙂 I still want to do print books but because of the extra design & pro-typesetting I want to use, it takes more money than ebooks. I am also un-publishing the current print version of Pentecost soon in order to republish at a smaller size, 5×8 instead of 6×9 as for my shorter books, this just looks like “more value” to the customer. Weird, yes, but true! I also want to correct a few mistakes and also add a chapter of Prophecy at the end. So the current print version of Pentecost will soon disappear and I'm giving away 2 copies on Goodreads – click here for the giveaway (currently pending approval by Goodreads by shouldn't be long!). Check out the video below as I talk about the reasons why I am un-publishing this version and come join the giveaway!

Please leave your comments and valuable feedback below!