Short Bio: JPC Allen started her writing career in second grade with an homage to Scooby Doo, and she’s been tracking down mysteries ever since. Her Rae Riley Mysteries series for teens combines faith and family with brain-busting puzzles and has won Selah and ACFW Kidslit awards. She also teaches writing workshops, online and in-person, encouraging every kind of writer to discover the adventure of writing. Coming from a long line of Mountaineers, she’s a life-long Buckeye and sets all her mysteries in fictional Marlin County Ohio
Long bio: JPC Allen started her writing career in second grade with an homage to Scooby Doo, and she’s been tracking down mysteries ever since. She’s a Selah-finalist at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in both short story and YA categories for her YA series, Rae Riley Mysteries. Her first Rae Riley novel, A Shadow on the Snow, won first place in the ACFW KidLit contest for YA fiction. A Storm of Doubts, her second novel, came in second in both the KidLit and Selah contests.
She writes novels for teens who are looking for a different kind of Christian fiction, stories that tie the mysteries of faith with real-world mysteries and dangers, stories that ask tough questions that a tougher God can always handle.
JPC Allen loves to teach about writing and has led writing workshops online for ACFWKidlit and Mt. Zion Ridge Christian Writing Conference. She also teaches in-person workshops at school and libraries and taught how to write YA Christian fiction at ACFW’s national conference in 2025. In her workshops, she encourages writers to discover the adventure of writing on their own terms. Coming from a long line of Mountaineers, she’s a life-long Buckeye and sets all her mysteries in fictional Marlin County Ohio.
Rae Riley Mysteries
Young adult Rae Riley solves the mysteries of life, faith, and crime with her newly-found father and his family in rural Marlin County, Ohio, where small town mysteries meet big time suspense.
#1 Rae Riley Mysteries: A Shadow on the Snow. On her own, Rae investigates who is stalking her, but her amateur sleuthing may cost her the dad she’s always wanted.
#2 Rae Riley Mysteries: A Storm of Doubts. Rae investigates the disappearance of a family friend’s ex-wife and the possibility that she’s calling the wrong relative “Dad”.
#3 Rae Riley Mysteries: A Riddle in the Lonesome October. While supporting her family through a crisis, Rae tries to solve a riddle that will allow her great aunt to inherit a fortune.
Read more of Rae’s mysteries in short stories found in these anthologies.
In this prequel short story “A Rose from the Ashes,” Rae uses the clues her late mother left her to find her father and discover if he tried to murder her mother twenty years ago when she was pregnant with Rae.
Rae has a cameo in the short story “Bovine” as other family members take center stage. A snobby New York novelist thinks Marlin County, Ohio is the perfect setting for the perfect crime.
Podcast and Video Interviews
Interview Questions
- When did you fall in love with mysteries? Why is this your favorite genre?
- Why write YA cozy mysteries?
- How does faith relate to writing mysteries?
- What’s your favorite mystery novel and favorite series?
- Why do you write under a pen name?
- How do you make a teen sleuth believable?
- How did you create Rae’s sidekicks?
- Why are all your mysteries set in rural Ohio?
- How important is research to your mysteries?
- Where do you get the inspiration for your characters?
- Which one of your novels or short stories is your favorite?
- Do you have a favorite character?
- What’s the toughest part about writing mysteries? What comes easily for you?
- What’s your writing routine like? Any writing quirks?
- If you weren’t writing mysteries, what would you write?
