Edmonds author transitions from young adult novels to romance

Jennifer Bardsley was watching the Edmonds 4th of July fireworks display in 2019 when she had an idea for a book.

She and her daughter had met a hundred Edmonds locals they knew throughout the hot summer day. She was impressed with the sense of community in her town.

“What if I wrote a book about it?” Bardsley thought. “Main Street, America, where does everyone you know go for the 4th of July?”

So far, this idea has turned into two books.

“Good Catch” is the final episode of Bardsley’s “Harper Landing” series. Its main characters, Marlo Jonas and Ben Wexler-Lowrey, are unlucky in love. On a dare, they both download a dating app in order to find someone who isn’t their gender.

For Marlo, a spin instructor at a gym, that means dating a man who wasn’t voted the most handsome in high school, and for Ben, a reporter for the Seattle Times, that means dating a woman he deems out of reach – too pretty, too smart, too successful.

Spoiler alert: “Because it’s a romance, it has a happy ending,” Bardsley said. “I wanted to do a foe vs. lover and I wanted to take a gamble – those are two kinds of tropes in romance, and I wanted to combine them.”

The Edmonds author actually has three new books this year: In addition to “Good Catch,” she published “Sweet Bliss” through Montlake Publishing and “Quick Fix” with Owl Howl Press.

She is the author of the “Blank Slate” and “Harper Landing” series, as well as “The Puritan Coven” and “Fight or Flight” series, which were written under Bardsley’s pseudonym, Louise Cypress. Her stand-alone novels include “Narcosis Room”, “Quick Fix”, “Books, Boys and Revenge”, “The Gift of Goodbye”, and “Mermaid Aboard”.

How did she find her pseudonym? Louise is her middle name and Cypress is the street she grew up on.

“The Puritan Coven” is a teenage vampire trilogy that rivals “Twilight” on Amazon’s top teenage vampire picks.

The books sold so well that Bardsley’s pen name became more popular than his current name.

So Bardsley wrote another trilogy, “Fight or Flight,” this time about teenage shapeshifters, under his pseudonym. Then she wrote a companion novel to this series called “Slayer Academy: Secret Shifter”.

There will be more Louise Cypress, but right now Jennifer Bardsley is in the spotlight.

His “Harper Landing” books are set in a fictional town inspired by Edmonds – there’s a ferry dock, senior center and yacht club in Harper Landing. “Good Catch” is the follow-up book to “Sweet Bliss,” in which we meet Julia Harper, descendant of the town founder and owner of a frozen yogurt shop on Main Street.

Bardsley, who writes the “I Brake for Moms” column for the Daily Herald, has published 16 books in just five years.

After sketching a book, she writes 3,000 words a day, without a break, until she finishes a novel. She meets with a group of writers about once a week, where they swap pages so she can get feedback from other published authors.

Bardsley is involved with EPIC Group Writers, an Edmonds-based non-profit organization that offers writing resources, hosts writers’ groups, and runs prose and poetry contests. She served as a judge for the group’s songwriting competitions. EPIC stands for Every Person is Creative.

Laura Moe, president of EPIC Group Writers and herself a published author, reads all of Bardsley’s manuscripts and helps edit her Herald column.

“I love the ‘Harper Landing’ books,” Moe said. “The one that just came out is my favorite so far. I feel like with “Good Catch” Jenny has found her sea legs with romance. writing them because she transitioned from writing for young adults to writing adult novels.

Moe isn’t the only one loving the new series. There is a waiting list for “Sweet Bliss” and “Good Catch” at Edmonds Library.

“People are stressed about the pandemic,” Bardsley said. “They just want to read something happy, easy and relaxing. These books are supposed to make you feel good.

In “Good Catch,” the main characters from “Sweet Bliss” make an appearance, so you can also catch up with Julia Harper, owner of the Sweet Bliss fro-yo shop, and Aaron Baxter, a recent transplant from Harper Landing. The continuity between his books – plus a map of Main Street – helps build the community of Harper Landing for his readers.

His favorite character in “Good Catch”? Without a doubt, it’s Ben Wexler-Lowrey. He covers Snohomish County, bikes to work in Seattle, and helps out at the family bakery on Main Street. “Ben is a solid character,” she said. “I love that he rides his bike everywhere.”

Ben is important to Bardsley’s history for another reason. Bardsley wanted to write a book that tackles the plight of local journalists who work too hard for not enough money – to the point that they often cannot afford to live in the areas they cover. She illustrates this irony through Ben, who has to split the rent with three roommates.

“I’ve been writing the ‘I brake for moms’ column for nine years, and I can really see how hard people work and how important stories are,” she said. “Having a local newspaper to tell our stories is extremely important. I hope that, thanks to Ben, readers will get a glimpse of what I see as a columnist.

Moe, of Lynnwood, also read Bardsley’s next two manuscripts for “Harper Landing”. Although she can’t say much, she says they are also good. Turn-it-into-a-mini-series-for-Netflix though.

Each book in the “Harper Landing” series has new main characters. Which means you can read them out of order: “Good Catch” doesn’t have to follow “Sweet Bliss.”

“I always do happy stories because I’m a sweet romance writer,” Bardsley said, adding that she didn’t write sex scenes in her romances because she didn’t want her stepmother to write them. read. “If you were to write a whole series about the same couple, you would have to separate them. I don’t want to do this.

If you fall in love with Harper Landing, you’re in luck. Montlake Publishing has picked up Bardsley’s “The Heart Remembers,” a novel that accompanies its “Harper Landing” series. It’s a small-town romance set in Port Inez, the fictional town a ferry ride from Harper’s Landing. This book should appear next year.

Learn more about Jennifer

Jennifer Bardsley, 43, of Edmonds, writes the ‘I Brake for Moms’ column for The Daily Herald. She wrote the young adult novels “Genesis Girl” and “Damaged Goods”, as well as the romance novels “Sweet Bliss” and “Good Catch”. Twelve other books, all but one of the YA novels, were written under Bardsley’s pseudonym, Louise Cypress. Follow her on Instagram @jenniferbardsleyauthor.

North Shore Washington Magazine

This article is featured in the winter issue of Washington North Coast Magazine, a supplement to the Daily Herald. Explore Snohomish and Island counties with each quarterly magazine. Each issue costs $3.99. Subscribe to receive all four editions for $14 per year. Call 425-339-3200 or visit www.washingtonnorthcoast.com for more information.