Anna Sayburn Lane's Blog, page 2

February newsletter: Who murdered the media mogul? Extract from my new novel.

Congratulations – you made it through January! I admit, I find the first month of the year a challenge. I love the cosiness of Christmas, but once the year has turned it feels like a long haul until spring. I’ve spent the month revising my new novel, making plans and doing a lot of reading. I’ve also indulged my love of flowers with some narcissi for my study, and enjoyed seeing these little cyclamen while out on a brisk, chilly walk in my 1920s-style cloche hat! What’s your top tip for keeping cheerful in gloomy weather?

Read on for more about my plans for audio books, recommendations for books, podcasts and television, and firstly, an exclusive extract from my new book, Death On Fleet Street, which will be published next month.

 

 

DEATH ON FLEET STREET: chapter one

Miss Beatrice Waddon breezed into the room like the figurehead of a ship, her noble brow and wide blue-grey eyes conveying a tremendous air of forward motion.

I jumped up from my desk to greet her. The young woman was the first proper client to have made an appointment at Mrs Jameson’s detective agency since Christmas, and I was keen to see what new adventure her arrival might bring.

‘Good morning. I’m Marjorie Swallow, Mrs Jameson’s secretary. Please, take a seat. I’ll let Mrs Jameson know you’re here.’

Miss Waddon shook my hand with a firm grip. ‘I appreciate you fitting me in at short notice, Miss Swallow. The matter is rather urgent.’

She wore a smart walking suit of tobacco-brown French serge, with jet beading at the collar and cuffs, and a rather chic black velvet hat. I felt rumpled by comparison, and pulled down my jacket sleeve to cover an ink splodge on the cuff of my blouse.

I ran to fetch Mrs Jameson from the drawing room, where she was reading The Times with a despondent air.

‘There you are, Marjorie. Has Miss Waddon arrived? Thank heavens. I am in severe need of distraction. The newspapers never have anything cheerful to report.’ Like me, Mrs Jameson thrived on a knotty investigation and got fretful between cases.

Unlike me, she looked as regal as Queen Mary as she entered the office, in a day dress of bottle-green cashmere with a matching turban.

‘Good morning, Miss Waddon. Marjorie, please ring for coffee. Now, how may we be of assistence?’

Miss Waddon picked up her handbag, snapped it open and withdrew a piece of paper, which she handed to my employer.

‘Please tell me what you think of this.’

Mrs Jameson read quickly, her fine grey eyes scanning the paper. She compressed her lips and handed it to me. ‘Marjorie?’

It was newspaper cutting, the ink slightly smudged on the soft paper. The headline read: ‘An unfortunate accident.’

‘Fleet Street was today plunged into mourning by the death of the popular newspaper proprietor Lord Ravensbourne, at the age of fifty one,’ I read. ‘The first Baron Ravensbourne is said to have suffered an unfortunate accident. His death, we understand, was instantaneous. He is survived by his second wife, Lady Ravensbourne (formerly Miss Annabel Quick) and his four children.’

I frowned. ‘It doesn’t say what the accident was.’ I raised my eyes to our visitor, puzzled. ‘I didn’t know Lord Ravensbourne was ead.’

‘He’s not,’ said Miss Waddon, crisply. ‘He’s my father. And that notice is dated one week from today.’

I checked. Monday, the twenty-fifth of February, 1924. As Miss Waddon said, a week away. A prickle ran up my neck. A death notice, one week early, of a man who was still very much alive…

Want to know what happens next? Death On Fleet Street will be published in March. Why not pre-order now?

Plans for 2025

I’ve wanted to make the Marjorie Swallow books available as audiobooks for a while, and I’m finally underway. My chosen narrator, Kim Bretton, is immensely experienced in audiobooks and loves cozy mysteries. Kim narrates Magda Alexander’s popular Kitty Worthington books, so she knows the 1920s period well. I hope to release Blackmail In Bloomsbury as an audiobook in March or April, with the others following on.

I’m starting research for the next Marjorie Swallow mystery now. I plan to publish three this year: Death On Fleet Street in March, then one in the summer and another just before Christmas.

I also plan to start work on a new short series of mysteries this year, set in a different historical period. I’m interested in the Regency, a short decade where a lot changed – a bit like the 1920s. I’m doing my research now, so I’ll let you know how I get on.

Recommendations

I was thrilled to be asked to join London tour guides Fiona and Alex on their Ladies Who London podcast. Ladies Who London takes a light-hearted look at some of the lesser known histories of the capital – I’m a big fan and recommend it to anyone who loves London and history. I was wearing another of my hats on this episode, as walk leader for the Refugee Tales walking project. This year we are walking around London on the Capital Ring route, so that was the focus of our talk – but we talked about writing, too! You can listen in here.

The book I’ve enjoyed most this year so far is also about London history. London Clay by Tom Chivers is a fascinating blend of geology, deep history, memoir and exploration. Tom tracks the routes of lost rivers, descends into the sewers, pokes around in the remains of London’s woodland and wetlands and communes with the spirits of Roman and medieval Londoners. It’s rather brilliant.

I’ve also enjoyed the second series of Lucy Worsley Investigates, where the historian takes a closer look at some of the better-known episodes of British history, from the Norman Conquest of 1066 to the Whitechapel murders attributed to ‘Jack the Ripper’. She uses modern historical techniques to question some of the myths about the subjects. I particularly liked her focus on the sensational reporting of the new mass media newspapers at the time of the Whitechapel murders, and how they fuelled the first ‘true crime’ obsession.

The big question!

What are your top tips for keeping cheerful when the weather (and the news) is gloomy? Hit reply and let me know! I’ll include a selection of ideas in my next newsletter.

Wishing you a fabulous February, and happy reading!

Podcast appearance: Ladies Who London

I’m a big fan of London’s tour guides, so I was thrilled to be invited to be a guest on the Ladies Who London podcast, hosted by Blue Badge tour guides Alex and Fiona. The podcast takes a fun and informal look at people and places from London’s rich history.

They asked me on to talk about walking the Capital Ring, a round-London walking route which will be the focus of this year’s Refugee Tales project. I’ve been involved with this walking and storytelling project since 2017. We walk for five days each July in solidarity with people who’ve experienced immigration detention. This year we are holding a Festival of Walking at the same time, with arts events, film screenings, music and theatre as we walk our way around London.

I also managed to slip in a bit of chat about how London has inspired my books, from the first novel Unlawful Things to my more recent 1920s murder mysteries. Find out more here.

The Stories Behind the Story: Plant hunters

Frank Kingdon-Ward, one of the inspirations behind Death At Chelsea, is the closest thing botany has to Indiana Jones. He was one of the last great explorers, seeking out the most remote regions and enduring hair-raising escapades in the search for new flora for British gardens.

Kingdon-Ward escaped death multiple times: when a tree fell on his tent; after impaling himself on a bamboo spike; clinging to a branch after falling over a precipice; drinking nectar from rhododendrons while lost for several days without food; surviving an earthquake; evading Japanese troops in China as a spy during the second world war… his writings read like the most thrilling of Boy’s Own adventures.

I learned about him after following up a mention in a gardening magazine about a 1920s gardener who had worked with a plant hunter while designing a garden for her aristocratic clients. Plant hunters travelled the globe looking for exotic species to bring back to the UK, where gardeners seized with delight on rhododendrons, azaleas, primulas, lilies and more. I was seeking inspiration for the plot of a novel to be set around the Chelsea Flower Show, to involve rival gardeners, sabotage of precious lilies and poisonous plants.  An intrepid plant hunter, I decided, was just the extra spice the story needed.

Kingdon-Ward, born in Manchester in 1885, was commissioned by a seed-grower to visit to Yunnan province, where he collected plants, seeds and bulbs, made drawings and took photographs. It was the first of 24 expeditions in a life of adventure.

His travels took him repeatedly to the mountains and valleys east of the Himalayas, crossing borders between south west China, north east India, Tibet, Bhutan, and Burma (now Myanmar). One of his most celebrated travels was to the steep and inhospitable Tsangpo Gorge, where the river slices through land held holy by Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims. This was where he discovered the Himalayan blue poppy and the Giant Tibetan Cowslip, among other finds.

He was still exploring at the age of 68, when he went climbing in Burma, only four years before his sudden death from a stroke.

I adapted Kingdon-Ward’s travels in Tibet for my fictional 1920s plant hunter, Ernest Buckler, who was a much nastier character than Kingdon-Ward had been! The blue poppies also influenced my imagining of the precious Himalayan Sapphire Lilies brought back from Tibet by Mr Buckler and his companions, due to be unveiled at the 1924 Chelsea Flower Show.

Mr Kingdon-Ward’s description of crossing vertiginous gorges by perilous rope bridges gave me an idea or two as well – but you’ll have to read the book to find out more!

To find out more about the hair-raising adventures of Kingdon-Ward, and the research I do for my novels, have a look at my Substack, The Stories Behind the Story.

The Stories Behind the Story: Venice

If you enjoyed my Christmas story for newsletter subscribers, A  Venetian Masquerade, you might like to hear about the research behind it. The story was prompted by my favourite trip of 2024, a visit to the magical floating city of Venice. As the city shimmered from the waters of the lagoon and the vaporetto ferried us to the city, I fell under enchantment. I already knew I’d want to write about Venice one day.

Lots of details from that trip stayed with me and made it into the story. We ate chichetti and drank Campari spritz at a bar on the corner of Campo S. Toma, right next to a mask and carnival costume shop. I marvelled at the ornate costumes and masks, so beautiful and colourful. The idea of donning a mask and gliding through the city incognito immediately lodged in my mind.

I didn’t fix on the story I wanted to tell until I discovered that carnival season starts right after Christmas, on December 26, or St Stephen’s Day. Online research then told me that masks and gambling were associated with carnival, and masked gambling in ‘ridotto’ entertainments were only allowed during the carnival season.

I immediately wanted to see my redoubtable sleuth Mrs Jameson, newly married, unmask a card cheat. I knew she would learn something about her husband, perhaps something she didn’t want to know. And I liked the idea that masks came into it somehow, so decided to learn more about Venetian masks.

I remembered the close-fitting Volto masks, the classic full-faced masks, at the little shop in Campo San Toma, and the white Bauta masks, flared at the bottom to allow the wearer to eat and drink. The pretty Columbina masks are familiar from the Commedia dell’Arte , and I’d seen the sinister Medico della Peste, or plague doctor masks, with their long beaked nose.

But there was one mask I’d only seen in paintings of carnival – the Moretta. I found it shocking and rather horrible. It’s an oval mask, made of black velvet, with holes for eyes but no mouth. It has no ribbon, but it held in place by the woman (they are only worn by women) holding a button on the back in their teeth. Speak, and the mask falls.

The Moretta mask

To find out more about Venetian masks and see photographs from my trip, have a look at my Substack, The Stories Behind the Story.

To join my Readers Club and receive short stories and other news, sign up below.

January newsletter: reading recommendations and a creative New Year workshop

I hope you’ve had a good festive break, whether you’ve been celebrating Christmas, Hanukka, Diwali or simply pausing in the depths of mid-winter. I enjoyed a cozy Christmas in Deal with my husband and parents, after a wonderful week’s writing retreat in Devon.

The course was tutored by historical novelists Anna Mazzola and Natasha Pulley. They helped eight of us work on our novels, from my 1920s murder mysteries to Regency romances and sea-faring adventures from the age of sail.

The staff at the 14th century farmhouse where we stayed pulled out all the stops for a celebratory Medieval Christmas Banquet, complete with music. Some of us made impromptu medieval costumes (see my attempt left) – it was a lot of fun!

On the last night we all read pieces from our work in progress and I’m pleased that the sneak preview of Death On Fleet Street went down very well. I’m working on edits this month, and hope to have it with you in February or March.

Thanks to everyone who wrote to say they enjoyed my Christmas short story, A Venetian Masquerade. If you’d like to know more about the inspiration for the story, including more about Venetian masks, take a look at my Substack post here.

Read on for recommendations, book news, a Creative January workshop, and a New Year promotion.

Stepping out: travels through words and song

Exciting news! Following the success of our summer seaside workshop, musician Katie Rose and I are back to offer a creative boost for January.

The singing and writing workshop is themed around travel and journeys, as we take our first steps into 2025. Expect travellers’ tales and songs, creative soundscapes and signposts for your own creative journey.

Stepping Out will be held upstairs at the Brown & Green Life Cafe in Crystal Palace Park, London SE20 8DS.

It takes place on Sunday January 26, from 10.30am to 4pm. Tickets are £50 (£40 concessions).

 

Death On Fleet Street

Death On Fleet Street is the fifth Marjorie Swallow book and it might just be my favourite yet. I began my journalism career in the 1990s, by which time most of the British newspapers had already left London’s Fleet Street, which was the hub of the newspaper industry for centuries. So it was wonderful to research the heyday of Fleet Street, when media barons like Lord Beaverbrook set up newspapers like the Daily Mirror, and the newspapers themselves were printed using linotype machines and hot metal.

I took a trip to the St Bride Institute’s printing workshop by Fleet Street (pictured) to talk to retired Fleet Street printers about how it all worked, and read some hair-raising memoirs and autobiographies of journalists from the street. I particularly enjoyed the autobiography of Lord Beaverbrook’s daughter Janet, which gave me plenty of ideas for my fictional media baron, the loathsome Lord Ravensbourne. I’ll share more about the research when the book is published.

That should be quite soon now – my copyeditor will be working on it this month and I’ll be sending it to beta readers very soon. You can pre-order here. You won’t be charged until the book is published.

Reading recommendations

Spring and flowers might seem a long way off, but Rosie Hunt’s new mystery, Murder At A Flower Show, will have you feeling spring-like in no time.

Lady Felicity Quick receives a peculiar invitation. A prestigious competition between British rose growers seeks celebrity judges, and Felicity is top of their list.

Despite a lack of interest in flowers, and after a spot of meddling by her beloved grandmother, Felicity finds herself surrounded by sweet-smelling blooms in the charming Devonshire village of Bickleford. And as romance blossoms, judging the flower show proves surprisingly enjoyable…

Until Britain’s most notorious rose breeder is found murdered behind the floral marquee — with Felicity’s own grandma as the prime suspect! Can Felicity unearth Bickleford’s secrets in time to save her grandmother? Find out here!

I’m also recommending two excellent novels by my lovely Arvon tutors:

Anna Mazzola‘s The Unseeing, about a lawyer drawn into investigating a murder in 1837 London. It’s based on a true life case, the Edgware Road murder, and asks why a convicted woman might not tell the secret that could free her…Natasha Pulley‘s The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, a magical tale of clockwork, friendship and love in Victorian London. Who could resist a tale with a clockwork octopus and a replica Japanese village in Knightsbridge (astonishingly a real place)?Free e-books for January

I’m taking part in the New Year Cozy Mystery giveaway promotion on Bookfunnel throughout January, where you can find dozens of mysteries to download.

December newsletter: a festive stocking full of stories

I’ve had a wonderful time meeting readers at fairs and markets this month. Writing can be a solitary business, so it’s great fun getting out and talking to people about my books.

It gives me the chance to thank people in person when they buy a book – something I can’t do when you buy online. But I’d like to take this chance to say a big, heart-felt ‘thank you’ to all of you – everyone who has read, bought, borrowed or recommended one of my books this year. It’s been my best ever year as an author, and you made it possible.

I’m doing one more Christmas fair this year, at St George’s Hall in my home town of Deal in Kent, on Saturday 7 December. If you’re in the area, do drop in and say hello!

Now it’s December, I’m planning a jolly Christmas by the sea, with a big Christmas tree, delicious food and my family visiting. Will I manage the traditional dip in the sea on Christmas day?

But before the festive fun, I’ve booked myself a special treat – a week on an Arvon Foundation writing retreat in Devon. I’ll be surrounded by other writers, with helpful tutors and plenty of time to write, walk, chat and think, surrounded be glorious countryside. It’ll be a great way to unwind and contemplate editing the first draft of Death On Fleet Street.

Read on for more writing news and festive recommendations.

Writing news

Death On Fleet Street, the next Marjorie Swallow mystery, is on its way to the editor! I’ve finished the first draft and my designer Donna has come up with another brilliant cover. You can pre-order now – you won’t be charged until it’s ready to deliver in February or March.

Marjorie and Mrs Jameson are called in when the Daily Post newspaper receives a death notice for Lord Ravensbourne. Not unusual, you might think – but Lord Ravensbourne is the owner of the Post, and he’s still very much alive… for now!

Marjorie gets to work uncovering which of Lord R’s many enemies might have sent it – and wondering if someone plans to make the threat a reality.

Pre-order here.

A trio of festive recommendations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tis the season to curl up with a Christmas mystery! Agatha Christie, one of my favourite authors, was known for publishing ‘a Christie for Christmas’, so more or less inventing the seasonal Christmas book frenzy.

I have three festive historical mysteries to recommend:

Verity Bright’s A Midwinter Murder. Amazingly enough, this is the 20th Lady Eleanor Swift book! Lady Eleanor is hoping for a cozy Christmas by the fire with her new fiance – but the house party is interrupted by murder, just as Audwyke Hall on the Yorkshire Moors is cut off in a blizzard…

Benedict Brown’s The Christmas Candle Murders, the latest in his much-loved Chrissie and Lord Edgington series. Benedict says this is his favourite Christmas book so far, “set in a snowy English village with a thousand secrets, bad Christmas presents, far too many decorations and a string of inexplicable murders…”

The Emerald Threads, the latest Regency mystery from Lynn Morrison and Anne Radcliffe. It’s set at Alnwick Castle, a real and spectacular castle in Northumberland, where mysteries abound for Lady Grace and Lord Roland on a Christmas visit.
If you can squeeze a few more mysteries in your stocking after those, I’m taking part in the December Free Cozy Mysteries promotion on Bookfunnel, where you can find dozens of mysteries to download.

The Big Give

In the frenzy of present-buying and food preparations, it’s easy to forget about the wider world. A charity I always like to support at Christmas is Book Trust, which sends books to vulnerable children.

No matter what’s happening in a child’s life, a good book is can be a comfort and refuge. Help BookTrust give the gift of reading this Christmas and share the enchanting world of books with families.

November newsletter: Read all about it!

I’ve relocated from the seaside to London, while I help to plan a big walk for the Refugee Tales project. Next July I’ll be leading groups of walkers in a 60-mile partial circumnavigation of the city, on a route adapted from the Capital Ring.

It’s been a delight to get out and about in some sunny, cold autumn weather, and a real pleasure to visit parts of London I haven’t seen before, to the north and west of the city. Perhaps the walk will inspire me – watch out for Death In Finchley, or The Wembley Park Murders!

The walks get me away from my desk, where I’m hard at work on the next book, set in the newspaper world of 1920s Fleet Street. I’ve immersed myself in the newspaper lore of the 1920s, reading memoirs and old newspapers to get a feel for what it must have been like to work in the Street of Newspapers.

Read on for more about newspapers and history, free book promotions, and recommendations for books and other entertainment to keep you busy through November.

My favourite research tool: the British Newspaper Archive

Old newspapers give a fascinating glimpse into the world of the past. This week I’ve been dipping into the archives on a daily basis, as I put together the first draft of Death On Fleet Street.

What might a fictional national newspaper put on its front page in February 1924? Well, a quick search and I can find out: A scandalous divorce case involving a Lord, a Lady… and the butler. What were ordinary people worried about? The price of sugar, which was up a penny a pound. Who might a newspaper proprietor have lunch with at the Savoy Grill? How about up-and-coming politician Winston Churchill, standing as an independent ‘anti-socialist’ candidate at a by-election that month?

The only problem is that I get so engrossed in reading historical newspapers, I forget what I was supposed to be writing about!

If you’d like to learn more about the treasures I’ve unearthed from the archive, check out my Substack post Read All About It! And why not sign up to receive all my posts about historical research?

Books, podcasts and fun for November nights

There’s something so comforting about curling up with a good book on a dark night. One of my favourite writers, India Knight, has published a list of her favourite ‘comfort reads’ – books she returns to when she wants to retreat to ‘really deeply satisfying, fully realised worlds where you feel safe and cosy.’

The full list is here, but the ones I’ve read and wholeheartedly recommend include Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love; Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day; Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women, EF Benson’s Mapp And Lucia; and Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. I’ll add in my all-time favourite book to re-read, Stella Gibbon’s Cold Comfort Farm.

Less cosily, I’ve enjoyed listening to the always-excellent Lucy Worsley explore the world of female villains in her new podcast series, Lady Swindlers. I especially enjoyed learning about Alice Diamond, the queen of 1920s shop-lifters, and her all-female gang, the Forty Thieves. They raided the newly fashionable department stores, filling up their specially-made shoplifter bloomers with stolen goods! It’s given me a few ideas for future Marjorie Swallow adventures.

And finally, no I haven’t watched the television adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals yet. I adored the book as a teenager, and I plan to lock myself away next weekend with chocolate and the Big TV, and watch the whole thing in one go. Have you watched it yet, and if so what did you think?

Free books!

Looking for a few more autumnal cozy mysteries to squeeze into your e-reader? Check out the Cozy Mystery Free Book promotion at Bookfunnel for free novels and novellas. It runs until November 24.

October newsletter: cozy reading for rainy days

The seasons have definitely turned in Britain and it’s perfect weather for curling up by the fire with a cup of tea and a good book. I’m home after an eventful trip (see below) and enjoying reading the lovely reviews for The Riviera Mystery. I’m also getting started on writing the next Marjorie Swallow adventure, which will be set in the newspaper world of 1920s Fleet Street.

Read on for travel misadventures, reading recommendations and promotions.

An adventure on the water

September is often a glorious month in the UK, with late summer sunshine and mellow temperatures making it my favourite time to travel. So I was looking forward a week-long trip on a narrowboat in the English Midlands for the end of September.

Britain is criss-crossed by canals, man-made waterways which were used to ferry heavy goods like coal around the country during the industrial revolution. Long cast-iron narrowboats, originally horse-drawn and later motorised, supplied fuel to the factories of the industrial revolution and moved goods from one end of the country to the other. They fell into disuse after the rise of the railways but recently the canals have been restored and now many people choose to live or take leisure trips on converted narrowboats.

It can be fun, trundling gently through the countryside at four miles an hour. You do need nerves of steel to steer a 60-foot boat from the tiller at the rear through some of the narrow, winding sections of canal, not to mention navigating and working the frequent locks which are used to raise or lower boats from a higher to lower section of canal.

But I didn’t bank on the weather. We had about an hour of sunshine before the heavens opened. Our trip coincided with the heaviest rain we’ve had for months. Not only did we get soaked steering the boat and working the locks, but some sections of the canal were closed because of dangerous flooding, which meant our boat might have been swept into the fields with the cows! We moored up and waited for the waters to recede.

There are two British responses to this sort of thing. The first is to make a cup of tea. The second is to go to the pub. Luckily we had a kettle and plenty of teabags, and our mooring was close to a fine inn, The Swan, which had an open fire, good beer and served tasty and enormous meals. Even better, I had a good book on the go, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, which I’m re-reading for a book club.

It may not have been the holiday I hoped for. But as Marjorie discovered in The Riviera Mystery, sometimes even the best holiday doesn’t quite work out as planned. I’m sure she’d agree that a cup of tea, good food and a gripping book makes it all worthwhile!

The Stories Behind the Story

A quick reminder that, if you are keen on learning more about the historical research I do for my novels, you can find out more on my separate newsletter, The Stories Behind the Story. Next week I’ll be sharing some of my favourite finds in the British Newspaper Archives.

Sunny books for rainy days

After my soggy adventure, I’m drawn to some sunny books! And coincidentally there are not one but two newly-published Egyptian adventures on my to-be-read pile.

Sara Rosett, author of the 1920s High Society Lady Detective series, has a new mystery featuring a Lady Traveller in Egypt, starting with Murder Among The Pyramids.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Verity Bright’s next book, Murder On The Nile, sees Lady Eleanor Swift and butler cruising down the Nile on the SS Cleopatra – when the inevitable happens and the cruise is interrupted by murder.

At least none of my narrowboat adventures resulted in a corpse! (Although I wouldn’t bank against my experiences finding their way into fiction at some point.)

Promotion

Looking for a few more autumnal cozy mysteries to squeeze into your e-reader? Check out the Everything Nice Cozy Mystery promotion at Bookfunnel for free novels and novellas.

The Riviera Mystery: out now!

The fourth in the 1920s Murder Mystery Series, The Riviera Mystery, is published today. Marjorie is looking forward to some sunshine and relaxation when she heads to the French Riviera with Mrs Jameson for a late summer holiday. But from the journey on the Blue Train to a glamorous party at the luxurious Villa Beau Rivage, that doesn’t go according to plan.

A suspicious death, a close shave in a speedy sports car and a night in the cells await – but will Marjorie learn who to trust in time to unravel the mystery?

 

September newsletter: First travel overseas, excerpt from The Riviera Mystery, and a Posh Night Out!

Do you remember your first trip overseas? Packing your case, the thrill of travelling by air or sea, the wonder as you stepped into a new world for the very first time, full of sunshine and colour?

For me, I was a ten-year-old on a day trip to Calais, France. We took the ferry from Dover – a mere 20 miles, but I was determined to feel ‘foreign’. I remember buying baguettes from a boulangerie, noticing schoolchildren chattering away in French, and looking at all the exotic-looking sweets in the shop windows.

It’s that sense of excitement that I wanted to capture in the new Marjorie Swallow adventure, The Riviera Mystery, out on September 19. A year ago, I stepped aboard the Eurostar train in London, bound for the south of France, then took the sleeper from Paris to Nice (pictures of that trip left). The journey sparked the idea for the new book, which begins with Marjorie lying awake in her compartment on the luxurious Blue Train… Read on for an excerpt from the new book to whet your appetite – and the chance to win a signed copy.

 

The Riviera Mystery

I was far too excited to sleep. The wheels rattled over the tracks, my toothbrush clinked in the glass on my nightstand and Mrs Jameson’s gentle snores vibrated rhythmically through the thin walls. Outside, the French countryside rushed past, fields and rivers and lakes and forests, an endlessly changing panorama of the first foreign country I had ever seen.

I reached from my bunk for the cord to pull up the blind. There might not be much to see in the dark, but I wanted to see it anyway. Ahead of me was the luxury of a September holiday, a whole month at a villa belonging to a friend of Mrs Jameson, my employer. Travelling as her secretary, I’d been promised turquoise seas, sunshine, white sailing boats and palm trees. I lapsed into a happy reverie.

Then someone screamed.

It was a woman’s scream, full of terror. I swung my feet to the floor, heart thumping, and wrenched open the sliding door to my compartment. All my parents’ warnings about the perils of Abroad, the danger of being robbed or murdered or worse on a sleeper train, rushed into my head. I’d hoped to get away from murders on this holiday, not be plunged straight into one before we even arrived.

Outside, the door to a compartment three down from mine stood open, light spilling into the corridor.

‘I say,’ I called, hurrying over. ‘Are you all right?’

***

What happens next? You’ll have to read the book to find out! You can also see me read the first few pages on my YouTube channel, here.

 

A Posh Night Out!

An author’s life might sound glamorous, but mostly it involves sitting in front of a computer, tapping away. However, I do enjoy a spot of glamour – and it doesn’t get more glamorous than Glyndebourne. This very English affair involves getting dressed to the nines for a picnic in the grounds of a sumptuous stately home, followed by world-class opera in a private opera house. It was my first time, and I had a ball.

Here I am with friends Christina and George, and husband Phil, all dressed up and ready for our champagne and smoked salmon.

 

 

 

 

 

Book recommendations this month

The Shanghai Secret by Vanessa Lind

A new author to me, but a subject close to my heart as a former journalist. The Shanghai Secret, by Vanessa Lind, is a duel timeline historical mystery from 1880s America.

In a charming riverfront town, a maid goes missing on the eve of her scheduled court appearance against a notorious shanghaier. Budding Gilded Age newspaper woman Jo Felch is determined to uncover the truth. But Jo’s investigation takes a terrifying turn when her newspaper’s beloved publisher turns up dead. She soon discovers nothing is as certain as she thought—not even her own past.

Link here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV17DZ14

 

 

 

 

A Murder In Paris by Magda Alexander

And an old favourite returns!

A honeymoon in Paris. Idyllic days and nights. It couldn’t be more perfect. Until somebody dies.

After their magical wedding, Kitty Worthington and her husband, Inspector Robert Crawford Sinclair, head to Paris for their honeymoon. Art museums, haute couture, French cuisine. Wondrous nights. It’s everything Kitty has always dreamed of and more. But then a body drops, putting a damper on things.

At least this time, it’s a matter for the French police. There’s no need for Kitty and Robert to get involved. Things change, however, when a dear friend becomes the chief suspect, and she begs Kitty for help. Unable to walk away, she and Robert agree to investigate…

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