Robin Stevens's Blog, page 3

Happy publication day, Puzzle Book!

I’m delighted to say that The Most Unladylike Puzzle Book is out NOW in the UK and Ireland!

It’s packed full of puzzles – there are over 100 (!) to solve – and it features stories about all of your favourite Murder Most Unladylike and Ministry characters! There are chapters from Daisy, Hazel, Eric, May, Nuala, Beanie, George and Alexander, and each chapter will help you practice a different set of skills that every detective needs!

Even though there are two covers, it’s only one book – you solve half of the puzzles and read through the stories, and then you flip the book and solve the other half!

I’m so proud of it, and I really hope you love working through it.

If you want to meet me, here’s a link to my tour (with one new event added, a virtual event for schools!), and if you want to order your copy of the book, you can get it from Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Blackwell’s, Dubray, Eason’s and Amazon. And if you can, get down to your local store and pick up a copy – there are signed editions in a lot of independent bookstores this month!

Come meet me on my puzzle book tour!

The Most Unladylike Puzzle Book is publishing on the 26th of September, and to celebrate I’m going out on tour! Here’s where I’ll be …

BATH Festival, 28th September, 2pm. This is a talk with a signing afterwards.

CHELTENHAM Festival, 12th October, 2pm. This is a talk with a signing afterwards. (Tickets available 5th Sept)

YORK Waterstones, 19th October, 1pm. This is a signing event.

LIVERPOOL Waterstones, 26th October, 12pm. This is a signing event.

NOTTINGHAM Waterstones, 27th October, 12pm. This is a talk with a signing afterwards.

DUBLIN Festival, 10th November, 10:30am. This is a talk with a signing afterwards. (Tickets available 11th Sept)

LONDON Muswell Hill, Children’s Bookshop, 17th November, 12pm. This is a signing event.

If you already have copies of my books, you can absolutely bring them along to the signing – I’m always happy to sign books old and new.

If you have access requirements, especially around queuing, please speak to the stores/festivals directly. There are always things we can do to make the experience easier for you!

The Dublin and Cheltenham events are not yet available to buy – Cheltenham goes on sale on the 5th September, and Dublin on the 11th. So hang in there!

If a town or city in your region is not here, don’t worry! I try to visit different places each tour – I’ll be back out on the road next year. But it may be that you will need to travel a little to see me – I just can’t get to every town in the UK and Ireland, although I wish I could!

I’m very excited about the tour – it’s always so wonderful to be able to meet you and talk to you about my books! See you soon …

August update – and children’s murder mysteries in the Sunday Times!

Hello Detectives! I hope your summers are going well, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

I’ve been pretty quiet because there’s a lot going on behind the scenes – I sent The Most Unladylike Puzzle Book off to print at the end of last month (it’s coming out in September! Pre-order it now! It’s great!), and now I’m hard at work on Ministry of Unladylike Activity 3. This won’t be publishing until September 2025, but I want to get the first draft handed in before my autumn tour begins at the end of September (more news on that soon – we’ve finalised all of the tour stops, and we’re going to be announcing the whole tour in a few weeks).

So I’m head down on writing – I’m aiming to write 2,000 words a day each writing day to hit my deadline. Which is a lot! So that’s why you’re seeing a bit less of me at the moment. You can follow along on Instagram, though – and I’ll keep you updated here as well.

If you haven’t signed up to the Robin Stevens reading challenge yet, you still can – you need to be in the UK to be entered in the prize draw, but no matter where in the world you are, you can still have fun reading my books!

I do have one bit of nice news about my books – both Murder Most Unladylike and the Super Sunny Murder Club got mentioned in Nicolette Jones’s excellent round-up of new children’s crime fiction in the Sunday Times. It’s paywalled, but here’s the important extract:

This year marks ten years of Robin Stevens’s bestselling Murder Most Unladylike books: ten novels plus half a dozen spin-offs since a science mistress was first found dead in the gym. The series features the heroines Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, who solve a surprising number of murders at their boarding school (Deepdean School for Girls, based on Stevens’s own experience of Cheltenham Ladies’ College) as well as
during the school holidays.

Stevens set her stories in that murderous Golden Age, the 1930s, with a fine sense of the period despite a more modern outlook on subjects such as sexual identity. Her decade of crime for kids has been responsible for a rash of copycat killings throughout the children’s books industry, and younger readers have found a thirst for homicide.

Out this summer is an anthology of stories, The Super Sunny Murder Club (HarperCollins £8.99, 8-12), co-edited by Stevens with Serena Patel, the author of the amiable Anisha: Accidental Detective series. It demonstrates the range of writers who have taken up the genre, with 13 diverse authors — from Abiola Bello to Dominique Valente — reunited after a Christmassy anthology, The Very Merry Murder Club, which was published in 2021. Not every story involves a murder but this is a compelling gateway to crime fiction. It is a good introduction to such talents as Sharna Jackson (High-Rise Mystery), Patrice Lawrence (The Elemental Detectives) and Roopa Farooki (The Cure for a Crime).

I’m so proud of this mention – what a decade it’s been for children’s crime!

Once Upon a Crime publishes this week in the US and Canada!

Huge news for my North American detectives: as of this week, you finally have access to my entire Murder Most Unladylike series!

Once Upon a Crime is OFFICIALLY out now from Simon & Schuster BFYR, with a gorgeous cover by Elizabeth Baddeley – and that means that every single one of Daisy and Hazel’s adventures are available for you to read if you live in the US or Canada!

I’m so thrilled about this (it’s something I’ve been working towards for a lot of years!), and also really pleased that it’s had a lot of wonderful support. It’s been given a prestigious JLG Gold Standard badge, and it also got a Kirkus review (!) and a Booklist review.

Kirkus calls it ‘A welcome addition to an addictive series’, and Emily Graham at Booklist says ‘The sophisticated writing has a charmingly old-fashioned feel … Another winning entry from the Murder Most Unladylike series.’

The Summer Reading Challenge is back for 2024!

Big news for Detectives with time on their hands this summer – we’re bringing the Robin Stevens Summer Reading Challenge back for 2024!

This version is themed around the 10th anniversary of Murder Most Unladylike – if you read (or reread) five or more of my books in any format, physical, digital or audio, before the end of the summer and register that you’ve completed the challenge on the Puffin website (very important: don’t do it here! This challenge is run by Puffin, not me!) then you’ll be sent a special Detective Society pin badge and be entered into the draw to win both the MMU 10th anniversary edition and my brand new puzzle book that’s out in September. (If you’re under 18, by the way, you’ll need to ask an adult to enter on your behalf.)

There’s a handy printable sheet so you can track your progress – and if you do have social media, please do let us all know how you’re doing!

Good luck, Detectives, and happy reading!

The MMU10 tour is over!

Hello Detectives! What a month it’s been! I’ve celebrated the 10th anniversary of Murder Most Unladylike in the most incredible style – I held events all over the country, ending up with a huge birthday party in the real Deepdean, Cheltenham Ladies’ College.

If you want to see what the celebrations looked like, head to my Instagram for more – that’s where you’ll usually find me these days!

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who supported me on the tour – Hay Festival, Yeovil Waterstones, Waterstones Piccadilly and St Giles’ Church, Book Nook Hove and All Saints Church, Oxford Waterstones and Oxford High School, Booka Bookshop and Lingham’s Books, and finally Rossiter Books and Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Plus of course my amazing Puffin team, as well as my publicity supports Catherine and Sally. It really takes a lot of people to make so many events go so smoothly!

If you came to one of my events, thank you so much! Meeting you and talking to you makes all of the planning and travel and post-event exhaustion absolutely worthwhile. You are amazing!

And if you didn’t, please don’t worry. We’re being very purposeful about our event planning, and trying to cover different regions of the UK and Ireland each time. This tour was very focused on the south, but in the autumn we’ll be heading north – and over the sea! So keep an eye out for announcements in the late summer – I will be back out on the road from the end of September!

And finally, I really am so honoured that people are still reading this first book, and my whole series. I am so incredibly lucky to have had ten such brilliant years, and it is so astonishing to know how much my words have affected each of your lives. It doesn’t get any better than this. Thank you.

Murder Most Unladylike turns 10 – and you’re all invited to celebrate!

My puzzle book announcement isn’t the only news I have for you today. This is Murder Most Unladylike‘s 10th anniversary year – and we’re celebrating in style!

My publisher Puffin has reissued Murder Most Unladylike in a beautiful gold foil edition, with special Daisy and Hazel sprayed edges, a new introduction from me, and a special short story about Daisy and Hazel’s first meeting from Daisy’s point of view (first published in the 5th anniversary hardback edition and now back for more people to read!).

This is replacing the current edition, so the best way to make sure you get your copy is by going into your local bookstore and picking one up. Stores are already getting their stock, and it should be absolutely everywhere for the 5th of June, which is the official 10th anniversary date!

And, of course, I’ll be back out on the road to mark ten years of MMU. My tour dates are below – as always, if you don’t see something in your area, do not worry. I’m on it, and I’ll be visiting different places in the autumn for the puzzle book tour!

Bristol, 10th May, 3:30pm @ Max Minerva bookstore – I’ll be doing a SIGNING of old and new books. Please book online to secure your place!

Hay-On-Wye, 30th May, 2:30pm @ Hay Festival – I’ll be doing a TALK about MMU and BITB. Book now!

Yeovil, 31st May, 12pm @ Yeovil Waterstones – I’ll be doing a SIGNING of old and new books – the ticket includes a copy of the MMU 10th anniversary edition, but you can also bring your own books.

London, 5th June, 6:30pm @ St Giles in the Fields – I’m IN CONVERSATION to celebrate the actual 10th anniversary of MMU! Tickets available now.

Brighton, 8th June, 2pm @ All Saints Church – I’ll be doing a TALK about MMU’s 10th anniversary. Book now!

Oxford, 11th June, 6:00pm @ Oxford High School – I’ll be doing a TALK about MMU’s tenth anniversary. Book now!

Cheltenham, 22nd June, 2pm @ Cheltenham Ladies’ College PAC – I’ll be doing a super-special Q&A session with fans in the place MMU is set, before an afternoon of fun activities (bunbreak! A MMU-themed tour of the school! Photo opportunities!). This is not to be missed – book now!

Announcement: the Detective Society’s first puzzle book is publishing in September!

Ministry of Unladylike Activity 3 isn’t publishing until autumn 2025 – but fear not, there WILL be new Detective Society content this year!

I’m beyond proud to present The Most Unladylike Puzzle Book, publishing on the 26th of September 2024. It features BOTH your favourite characters from the Murder Most Unladylike series AND your favourite characters from the Ministry of Unladylike Activity series – they’ll teach you important detective skills and set you brain-teasing puzzles, and for the first time ever you’ll be able to solve interactive mysteries along with them. Part a test of your logic skills and part a short story collection, it’s a great way in to the series for new fans – and existing fans will spot a lot of very exciting Easter eggs as they read.

All of the plots and puzzles in this book are entirely new (so you can’t cheat by knowing about my series!), and the action takes place after the end of Once Upon a Crime and The Body in the Blitz. And when I say ‘book’, it’s really TWO books, because we’ve split the story into two! There are TWO covers and TWO sides you can read from – all you have to do is flip the book over to choose between going on super spy missions with Eric, May and Nuala or solving mysteries at Deepdean and Weston with the Detective Society and the Junior Pinkertons.

This is what I’ve been working on all this spring, and I’m so delighted with how it’s turned out. I can’t wait for you all to read it in September – and of course, you can pre-order it now from Amazon, Blackwell’s, Waterstones or your local indie bookseller.

Cream Buns and Crime is out in the US today!

Cream Buns and Crime, my Murder Most Unladylike companion novel, publishes in the US today from Simon and Schuster!

It’s a very special book for me – it’s got recipes, essays and short stories, and I think it’s both a brilliant way in to the series if you’ve never read one of my books before, and perfect for long-time fans of my books.

It’s had lots of really nice support in the US – it’s been picked as a JLG Gold Standard book, and it’s had a wonderful review in the School Libraries Journal, below.

A short story companion to the popular mystery series. At Deepdean School for Girls, Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are solving mysteries once again. In this book, they encounter some “mini mysteries” while offering tips, tricks, and tales from the Detective Society. The book opens in 1936 with the introductory text appearing on a typewriter, intriguing readers and setting the tone that this is a ­legitimate artifact revealing true tips and detective secrets. Readers are given a thorough guide on how to set up their own ­detective society, the basics of sleuthing, information about special cases and the world of spies, and how to crack unsolved mysteries. Readers are encouraged to choose detective society members well and have them pledge to discover truth and justice. The book even includes instructions on how to make a fingerprint kit. VERDICT Fans of ­Enola Holmes, Agatha Christie, and ­Stuart Gibbs will love this engaging text that is a blend of mystery fiction and gumshoe ­how-to.

–Lisa Gieskes, SLJ, April 2024

I’m very excited for US readers to discover Cream Buns and Crime – and also Once Upon a Crime, my other short story anthology, when it publishes this summer!

I’m coming to Bristol in May 2024!

I’ve just added another event to my spring tour! I’m going to be visiting the wonderful Max Minerva’s bookstore in Bristol on the 10th of May at 3:30pm.

The last time I visited Max Minerva’s it was 2018 and they’d just opened, so it’s wonderful to be back again six years later! You can book your ticket now at their website – please note that you can bring along your own books if you want, or buy new books for me to sign! If you do bring your own books, the price is £1.

I’m going to be in Bristol for CrimeFest that weekend – I’m also doing a school event on the morning of the 10th, so it’s going to be a really wonderful day. I can’t wait!