Robin Stevens's Blog, page 57

World Book Day – Detective Round-Up!

Jolly Foul Play officially arrives in the world TOMORROW. I’ve got a long list of appearances lined up to celebrate its publication – for the latest, click here!

But I think it’s important to remember that Jolly Foul Play wouldn’t exist without all of you. My original contract was for three books, and I was only asked to write more (and more! and more!) because of the support and love you’ve shown for the Murder Most Unladylike Mysteries. You read the books, and it changed my life.

To celebrate that, I’m sharing a selection of the pictures I was sent over this World Book Week, of some of my readers dressed up as Daisy and Hazel. I think everyone looks amazing! If you’d like to add to this list, please do email me, or share your pictures in the comments below. Hooray for every single one of you!

Hazel Wong – picture by Julia D

Hazel Wong – photo by Steph G

Lily as Daisy Wells – photo by Sam C

Sophie as Hazel Wong (with added Goth Girl) – photo by Tania W

Wells and Wong at Prince Albert School

Wells and Wong at Wroxham School

Daisy Wells

Holly as Daisy – picture by Mark N

Hazel Wong – picture by John S

Jolly Foul Play – it’s in the wild!

There are just two days to go before Jolly Foul Play‘s official release, on the 24th of March (Thursday). If you’ve preordered the book, it should be with you on Thursday or Friday, and if you’re looking for the book in a store, it should be everywhere from that day. It will be stocked in WH Smith and Asda, as well as Waterstones and independent bookstores, so it’ll be difficult to miss!

But there’s no official embargo on it, which means that stores can begin selling it before the 24th if their stock arrives, and I’m already seeing some incredible pictures of Murder Most Unladylike Mystery displays across the country.

Here’s Waterstones Salisbury …

Waterstones Cambridge …

… and Waterstones Nottingham.

And I know the list will grow throughout today and tomorrow!

If you’d like to follow all of the latest sightings of the book in the wild, I’ve created a new Pinterest board for Jolly Foul Play. And if you’d like to send more pictures to me, via Twitter, email or a comment here, I’ll add them to the set.

Good luck hunting down your copy – remember to have a bunbreak once you’ve found it!

 

Jolly Foul Play – Sunday Express Review

Jolly Foul Play has had another lovely review this weeknd – this time from the Sunday Express. It was included in their Easter books round-up for 10-13 year olds (along with two of my very favourite new books, The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth and Defender of the Realm).

According to the Express, it’s ‘Another cracking mystery’ – I was so pleased with that quote that I bought myself an early Easter bunbreak!

You can see the full review below.

Jolly Foul Play – Four Star Telegraph Review

This weekend, Jolly Foul Play was reviewed in the Telegraph. I’m completely delighted – this is an incredible honour – and they’ve given it an amazing write-up.

From the (four star!) review: ‘Robin Stevens has cleverly created a crossbreed of the detective and boarding school genres … [Stevens creates] a credible portrait of a lost age, but also one in which she can allude to issues familiar to modern readers.’

You can read it in full below!

 

Jolly Foul Play – the audio trailer!

There are just FIVE DAYS LEFT until Jolly Foul Play is in stores in Britain and Ireland. It’s coming in paperback and ebook … and it will also be out as an audiobook download. The first three books in the series are read by the wonderful Gemma Chan, but for this book we have a new Hazel: Katie Leung, who played Cho Chang in the Harry Potter films, and also Hsui Tai in ITV’s Cat Among the Pigeons. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know how special this is: that character was one of the inspirations for Hazel when I was first writing Murder Most Unladylike. It feels like things have come full circle!

A few weeks ago I went to hear Katie recording Jolly Foul Play, and I was totally delighted. She makes a fantastic Hazel – I love her reading of the character, and I’m so grateful to her for her hard work on it. I know you’re going to be just as happy as I am!

Me and Katie in the Puffin recording studio!

And if you’re curious to know what she sounds like, you can now listen to a preview of Katie reading Jolly Foul Play in a beautiful book trailer. Puffin really have pulled out all the stops making it. The video really is the most perfect introduction to Jolly Foul Play! You can watch it below, or on Puffin’s YouTube channel here. Enjoy, and happy weekend! Roll on publication week!

Jolly Foul Play – we’re almost there!

The wait is nearly over: it’s now just eight days until Jolly Foul Play is officially released.

Last weekend, I visited Dublin for the Mountains to Sea Festival, and got a lovely surprise: the book was available for one day only, to everyone who was at my workshop. I signed my very first copies of it, and it really does look beautiful next to the other three books in the series. We’re creating a rainbow!

If you weren’t there, don’t worry. I’ve got lots of events coming up to celebrate its publication, and I hope you’ll be able to be at one of them:

On Friday 18th March, between 1 and 2pm, I’ll be hosting a Jolly Foul Play Twitter chat, where you can ask me all of your burning questions about the book. The hashtag is #AskRobinStevens, so start planning your questions now!

On Wednesday 23rd March, the day before release, I’ll be at London bookstore Ottie and the Bea to talk about the book – tickets are £2, and I happen to know that they’ll be selling copies a day early!

On Saturday 26th March, at 12 and 3pm, I’m holding a launch at Waterstones Trafalgar Square (tickets are sold out, but it’s worth contacting the store just in case!). I’ll sign copies of the new book – and the old ones, too!

On Friday 1st April at 4pm I’ll be launching the book at Waterstones Birmingham. Contact the store for tickets – they’re still available! Again, I’m happy to sign new books or old!

On Friday 8th April at 3pm I’ll be speaking about the book at Cambridge Literary festival.

On Sunday 10th April at 4pm I’ll be at the Oxford Literary Festival with my partners in crime Katherine Woodfine and Julia Lee. This will be a general mystery event, but Jolly Foul Play will be available, and I’m happy to sign it and all of my other books.

On Saturday 16th April at 3pm I’ll be launching the book at Waterstones Cambridge. Find out more here!

On Sunday 17th April I’ll be speaking about the book in Dulwich, at Alleyn’s School in the MCT. Get tickets here!

Are you coming to any of these events? If so, let me know! And if you can’t make it, don’t worry! I’m working hard to visit as many places as I can, so keep on watching this website…

Announcement – two more adventures for Daisy and Hazel!

I’ve got some exciting news, Murder Most Unladylike fans: Daisy and Hazel’s adventures won’t be over any time soon!

I’m currently working hard on their fifth mystery, to be published in October this year – but Hazel and Daisy won’t be hanging up their deerstalkers at the end of it. Instead, I can promise you that they will have at least TWO MORE investigations to solve.

If you live in the UK or Ireland, Murder Most Unladylike 6 and 7 will be coming your way in 2017/18. I’ve signed the contract with my UK publishers, Penguin Random House, and I’m absolutely delighted to be working with them again. They have done wonders with the series, and I know what a lucky author I am to have such a marvellous publishing team supporting me.

Of course, this is all a long way off – I have to finish book 5 first! But I’m so glad that I know what’s next, and really pleased that I don’t have to stop writing about my detectives any time soon.

And if you’re looking for more from the world of Murder Most Unladylike, may I remind you that Daisy & Hazel’s fourth full-length book, Jolly Foul Play, will be hitting UK stores on the 24th of this month? You can pre-order it now, and you definitely should. On Friday I got to see the very first finished copies of it, and it looks gorgeous. It’s brighter than the sun!

World Book Day Week 2016

World Book Day is almost here again! The official day is Thursday the 3rd, but my WBD begins today – I’ve got a busy week of four school visits in four days. If I’m coming to your school, please come and say hello!

If you’re thinking about dressing up as one of my characters, it’s very easy – I wrote a blog last year with some handy tips about how to dress like Daisy and Hazel. I would love to see your pictures, and hear your stories, and I might even put my favourites into a blog post at the end of the week! Please send everything to my email address, redbreastedbird@gmail.com.

Whoever you’re going as, though, I hope you have a wonderful week! It’s so exciting that we all get to celebrate books like this, and I’m proud to be a part of it for the second year. Happy WBD 2016!

Jolly Foul Play notebook competition – the results!

Last week I posted a competition to win two extra-special Jolly Foul Play notebooks for you and your detective society. I got a lot of incredible entries that were funny, inventive, creepy and very, very clever. Daisy and Hazel would be very proud!

It took me a long time to decide – and in the end, the standard of entries was so high that I decided to add in second place and an honourable mention, as well as the overall winner. So . . .

THE WINNER, for her brilliant and extremely scary murder mystery set-up, was Rachel. It begins ‘I’m a murderer. But I’m not guilty. I never was.‘ I was hooked! Rachel wins two Jolly Foul Play notebooks to finish writing her story down.

IN JOINT SECOND PLACE are Rhea, who unearthed a real-life unsolved crime, and Julia, who came up with a very logical way of solving a bookshop murder. They both win one notebook!

And finally, HONOURABLE MENTION goes to Lauren, whose chocolate factory mystery made me laugh out loud. Lauren wins some signed bookmarks!

If all of the winners could contact me at redbreastedbird@gmail.com, I’ll post out their prizes as soon as I can.

And if you entered the competition, thank you so much – I loved every single entry, and I’m sorry that I don’t have notebooks for you all! I think you’re fantastic.

Murder Most Unladylike Author Events – Spring and Summer 2016

It’s now only six weeks until Jolly Foul Play is released in the UK and Ireland. I’m incredibly excited to share it with you, and even more pleased that now I’m a full-time author I’m much more able to get out and meet you all.

I’ve got a busy programme of events lined up in the next few months. Below is a list of what I have confirmed in terms of public events so far (I’m not including school events in this list, but do let me know if you’re a fan and you’ve heard that I’m coming to your school!). More will be added soon, so keep on checking here and on my author calendar.

19th February – talk at the Imagine Festival. 1pm, Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall, London.

24th February – appearance as part of the Biggest Book Show on Earth. 10am and 1:15pm, Mercury Theatre, Colchester. See image for details.

13th March – detective workshop at the Mountains to Sea Festival. 2:30pm, Dublin, Ireland.

23rd March – speaking at Ottie and the Bea Bookshop’s Reading Group. 4:30pm, Greenwich, London.

26th March – London Jolly Foul Play launch, 12pm and 3pm, Trafalgar Square Waterstones, London.

1st April – Birmingham Jolly Foul Play launch, with signing and activities, 4pm, Waterstones Birmingham.

8th April – appearance at Cambridge Literary Festival, 2:30pm, Cambridge.

10th April – appearance as part of the Murder for Tea panel at Oxford Literary Festival, 4pm, Oxford

16th April – Cambridge Jolly Foul Play launch, with a signing and activities, 3pm, Waterstones Cambridge.

The below are a list of festivals that I am confirmed to appear at, but not yet sure of schedule. Watch this space!

Weekend of 14th May – appearance at Barnes Literary Festival, London

22nd May – appearance at Linton Bookfest

Weekend of 28th May – appearance at Brighton Festival