Robin Stevens's Blog, page 4

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!

I’m coming to Hay Festival 2024!

2024 is the tenth anniversary of Murder Most Unladylike – and I have a lot of celebrations planned! We’re putting together the final touches to the tour at the moment, and I’ll be able to reveal the full programme soon – but for now, I can announce the very first event on it, an appearance at Hay Festival 2024!

I’ll be there on the 30th of May at 2:30pm, talking about The Body in the Blitz and Murder Most Unladylike, and you can book tickets now. I’ll also be signing books old and new afterwards – you’re welcome to bring along as many as you want and I’ll sign what I can!

I hope I’ll see lots of you there – and if you can’t make it, don’t worry. We have lots more events to announce over the next few weeks!

The Body in the Blitz has been shortlisted for a CrimeFest award!

I just got the very nice news that The Body in the Blitz, the second Ministry of Unladylike Activity book, has been shortlisted for the CrimeFest Best Crime Novel for Children Award 2024! It’s really exciting to be noticed by one of the biggest crime fiction conferences in the UK – I’m really proud, and so pleased to be on the list with so many books and authors I admire.

The ceremony is in May, in Bristol, and I’m very excited about it – it’s great to have a whole weekend to celebrate crime fiction!

World Book Day 2024: Puffin Storymakers Show

I have something else to help you with your WBD celebrations this year: I’m part of Puffin’s free 2024 Storymakers Show with Ed Vere and Dr Sheila Kanani! This is perfect for teachers, librarians, home educators and of course aspiring writers and illustrators!

You can watch the show below, or follow the link to the Puffin website here – my section is all about The Ministry of Unladylike Activity!

World Book Day 2024 Show: Ed Vere, Robin Stevens and Dr Sheila Kanani

World Book Day 2024 – dress like my detectives!

It’s World Book Week 2024, and I know a lot of you are dressing up as my detectives! It’s very easy to do – really, all you need to do is spruce up your usual school uniform with a tie, a hat, a crest or badge, a notebook and a magnifying glass.

Deepdean crest by Dustin Hansen

If you want a detailed run-down of what my detectives are wearing in the MMU books, here’s a post I made in 2020 that should help you out.

And if you want to know what my detectives wear in the Ministry books, the good news is that we’ve got some lovely illustrations of them by Jan Bielecki on the covers of the books.

May and Nuala might be in their Deepdean uniforms, of course, and Eric in his Weston uniform. If they’re on a case, Nuala would wear something quite quirky – a brightly coloured dress that doesn’t quite fit her and a waistcoat, or a frilly blouse and a long skirt – and she’d of course have her glasses. May would wear a simple aertex shirt (like the ones you wear for PE) and a pullover, and she’d prefer to wear shorts rather than a skirt. Eric would also wear the shirt/woolly pullover/shorts or trousers combo, and he’d be carrying some kind of animal companion!

And that’s all there is to it! Good luck, Detectives – remember, anyone can be part of the Detective Society, and anyone can dress as any member of the Detective Society they want (as long as they do it respectfully). Have fun and enjoy World Book Day!