Robin Stevens's Blog, page 57

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

Competition – Win Two Jolly Foul Play Detective Notebooks!

Over the past week, my lovely marketing team have been sending out beautiful detective notebooks to celebrate the upcoming release of Jolly Foul Play (24th of March, less than two months to go!). They’ve gone out to bloggers, booksellers and reviewers – and now I want to make sure that fans have a chance to grab some too.

My publishers, Puffin, have given me the go-ahead to hold a competition to give one aspiring detective (and their best friend) their very own Jolly Foul Play notebooks. Not only is there plenty of space inside them to let you write down your own cases, but there’s a special extract of Jolly Foul Play in the back, and a few handy tips on how to become an even better detective in the front of the book.

I’m launching the competition now, and closing it in a week’s time, on Monday 15th February at 3:30pm. It’s open to all British and Irish fans under the age of 18, and you can enter either by posting a comment here, or commenting on my Instagram post.

All I want to know from you is this: if you won these notebooks, what mystery would you and your detective society try to solve?

Answers below or on Instagram, please – and good luck! May the best society win!

Happy Birthday, Blue Violet!

The day is finally here! From this very minute onwards, my short story The Case of the Blue Violet is available to download. This is the first-ever book birthday I’ve celebrated without being able to hold something in my hands, which feels a little strange, but it’s lovely to know that the story is out there, and you can all read it!

Some of you have been asking me questions about what exactly the story is, and where it’s available, so I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you a bit more about it. Here goes . . .

The Case of the Blue Violet is a short story. I think it runs to about 4,000 words – it’s not a full-length Daisy & Hazel adventure, and there is no murder, just a puzzle involving a Big Girl and a mysterious letter . . .
It’s narrated by Daisy Wells. This was the first time I got to write in her voice, and it was amazingly fun.
It’s perfect if you’re waiting for Jolly Foul Play . I’ve set it after First Class Murder, but before the beginning of Jolly Foul Play, so you won’t be thrown out of the timeline!
If you buy Blue Violet, you’ll also get access to an exclusive extract from Jolly Foul Play at the back of the book.
We’ve chosen to flip the colours on the cover to show you that it’s a short story, not a full book – but it’s still illustrated by Nina Tara, the woman who’s illustrated all of my covers for the series.
At the moment, it’s only available as an ebook. This doesn’t mean that it won’t appear in print at some point in the future, but at the moment there aren’t any plans to do so.
It also isn’t available in North America yet. This is because it’s only published by my UK publishers, Puffin. My US publishers, S&S, would have to buy the rights to publish it – and they may do so in future, but again I haven’t heard any concrete plans about that yet.
This isn’t the first short story about Daisy & Hazel I’ve written! I wrote another last year, called The Case of Lavinia’s Missing Tie, and it’s available for free here. That one is set before the series begins – it’s the case Hazel refers to in the very first chapter of Murder Most Unladylike.

So, there you go! I hope that was helpful, and if you do download Blue Violet, I hope you have as much fun being back in Hazel and Daisy’s world as I did while I was writing it. Enjoy!

Deal Announcement: Wells & Wong 4 & 5 to Simon and Schuster US!

It’s been an incredible year for my books already, and I’ve got some more brilliant news to share with you all: Daisy and Hazel’s fourth and fifth adventures (coming March and October in the UK) have just been bought by my US publishers, Simon and Schuster!

S&S originally took three books (Murder Most Unladylike, published as Murder is Bad Manners; Arsenic for Tea, to be published in April as Poison is Not Polite; and First Class Murder, to be published in summer 2017 under its original title), so this is a wonderful vote of confidence in the series.

I couldn’t be more pleased to be working with my editor Kristin and the rest of the US team again, and I can’t wait for US readers to get their hands on more of my books! Books 4 and 5 will come to the US in 2018, so there’s a little while to wait, but I’m delighted that they’re on their way. Here’s to lots more cases for my girl detectives!

From the Publishers Marketplace announcement:

Jolly Foul Play launch day invitation

I’m delighted to be able to formally invite you all to the public launch of Jolly Foul Play, the fourth full-length book in the Murder Most Unladylike series.

The book is out on the 24th March, and so on Saturday 26th March, at 3pm, I’ll be holding a tea at Waterstones Trafalgar Square in London to celebrate its birthday. I’ll be signing copies of the book (or all of the books, whichever you’d prefer!) and chatting to fans, so if you’d like to come along to meet me, this is the perfect opportunity! There will also be buns and detective activities available, and I’ll be reading from Jolly Foul Play.

Tickets are free, but the store would like you to book ahead of time, so they know how many people will be there.

If you’re friends and family, by the way, don’t worry – a separate invitiation is in the works for later in the day, so you won’t feel left out!

Cover Reveal: The Case of the Blue Violet

There are a lot of adventures coming up for Hazel and Daisy this year. Jolly Foul Play is out on March 24th, and the fifth book will be out in October. But to whet your appetites there’s a very special short story coming to you on February 4th – the first Deepdean Mini Mystery, The Case of the Blue Violet. The story will only be available as an ebook for the time being, but it’s very possible that in future it will appear as part of a physical edition.

Blue Violet is very different to anything I’ve done before – for the first time ever, I’ve written a Wells & Wong story that isn’t narrated by Hazel. This story is from Daisy’s point of view, as she tries to prove to you all that she’s just as good at telling a story as her Vice-President.

From the official description:

‘I am the Honourable Daisy Wells, President of the Detective Society, one of the greatest detectives ever known – and also a fourth former at Deepdean School for Girls.

Violet Darby – one of the Big Girls – recently asked me to solve a most puzzling romantic mystery. I knew I’d be able to crack the case, and I did, in just a day and a half. It was one of my greatest triumphs (Hazel Wong, my Vice-President and best friend, is telling me that this is boasting, but it is also the truth). Hazel didn’t believe I would have the patience to write the account of it, but of course, she was wrong. I did write it down, and it came out very well.

I now, therefore, present to you: the Case of the Blue Violet.’

The Case of the Blue Violet ebook also contains a teaser chapter for Jolly Foul Play (just in case you’re not excited enough about it yet), and I’m delighted to be able to reveal its cover at last!

What do you think? Do you like the way it fits with the other covers in the series? Let me know in the comments! And if you’d like to pre-order the story, just click here. 4th February isn’t so far away!

Murder Most Unladylike will be published in Vietnam!

It’s only January, but my books are already having a fantastic year!

I’m finally able to share the good news that Murder Most Unladylike, Arsenic for Tea, First Class Murder AND Jolly Foul Play will be published in Vietnam by Huy Hoang. This is the sixth foreign territory for the series (the books already have publishers in America, France, Italy, Germany and Taiwan). Once again, my books are becoming better travellers than I am (though I do think this gives me an excellent excuse for a future trip).

This year, I hope I finally get to see some more of my foreign editions, and of course I’ll share them with you as soon as I can. I can’t imagine not being able to read the books that I wrote – but all the same, I’m incredibly excited about it. Hazel and Daisy are taking over the world!