Robin Stevens's Blog, page 6

Signed and dedicated copies of The Body in the Blitz available now!

I have some great news: I’m absolutely delighted to be partnering with Daunt Books to bring you signed and dedicated pre-order copies of The Body in the Blitz!

The book is available from the Daunt website now, and can be delivered anywhere in the world (perfect for fans who don’t live anywhere I’ll be travelling to on this autumn’s tour). You can ask for any personalisation you want, too (though be aware that I will sign whatever I see on the spreadsheet, so please make sure you’ve spelled everything correctly).

Just head to the link now to reserve your copy – and don’t delay, because this page will only be open until early October. I’m going to be heading in-store to sign and dedicate all of the books during the week of publication, and after that cut-off point I won’t be able to sign anything more. Unless, of course, you come to one of my signing events!

The Body in the Blitz – extract!

Hello Detectives! Today is the 12th of September, which means there’s just ONE MONTH TO GO until the second book in my new series, The Body in the Blitz, is published!

And today I have a very special treat for you – an extract from the second chapter of the book. Nuala and May are on their way to London, to do important work for the Ministry … but what and who will they find when they get there?

If you’re excited to read more, please do pre-order – from Waterstones, from Blackwell’s, from Eason, from Amazon or from your local indie (please contact them directly – some of them may even be getting in the special indies-only version of the cover!). If you’d like a signed copy, watch this space – I should have an announcement about that on this website in the next few days.

And if you’d like to meet me this autumn, check out my calendar! I’ve got events in Ilkley, Oxfordshire, Lincoln, London, Manchester and Newcastle up already, and more will be added in the next few weeks.

Finally, remember to sign up to my newsletter if you haven’t yet – newsletter members got this extract yesterday, and they’re always the first to know about exciting news from the world of my books.

The Body in the Blitz – paperback edition!

I’m excited to say that The Body in the Blitz is publishing in paperback this October!

I’m so thrilled about this – paperback is the format fans have been asking for, and it’s going to fit perfectly in classrooms, in Christmas stockings and on shelves next to the books in my Murder Most Unladylike series.

There will be two beautiful editions to choose from, one with yellow sprayed edges and then a special edition for independent bookstores with green sprayed edges and a die cut cover. We’ve updated the cover to match the paperback of Ministry of Unladylike Activity and added in some really lovely endpapers from my illustrator Jan Bielecki – this is a very beautiful book!

There is a signed edition available for pre-order too – and remember that I’ll be doing a tour this autumn, all across the UK and Ireland, so you can meet me and get your book signed in person! We’re finalising plans at the moment, and the events will be up on my calendar and my social media as soon as they’re confirmed. So keep an eye out!

July update – and two new interviews with me!

Hello detectives! I hope your summer is going well.

I’ve just handed in the FINAL DRAFT of The Body in the Blitz – I’m so proud and excited (and exhausted) to say that it is now DONE! It’ll publish on the 12th of October this year – and you can find out a tiny bit about what’s in it here!

Last week I did a very fun interview with 2 Kid Interviews – they were brilliant and very thorough interviewers, and you can watch the whole thing below:

I also have a new blog post up on the Novelry about what to remember when you’re writing a crime novel – I hope it’ll be useful for all of the budding crime writers out there!

If you want to ask me any burning questions right now, the best places to do it are TikTok and Tumblr. I can’t answer everyone, but I am replying to a few questions a week on both places!

And remember, I’ll be up in Scotland in August – first at Waterstones Silverburn Glasgow on the 19th and then Edinburgh Festival on the 20th. So get your tickets now!

The Robin Stevens Summer Reading Challenge 2023!

It’s summer – and The Body in the Blitz will publish in LESS THAN THREE MONTHS! So to celebrate, my publisher Puffin is running a Robin Stevens summer reading challenge to get you ready for May, Eric and Nuala’s next adventure.

Just read (or reread!) any five of my published books, in any format (you can read on Kindle, or listen on audio), and then get an adult to submit your completed challenge on the Puffin website to win your very own Detective Society badge and put you in a draw to win a copy of the new book!

It’s very easy and (hopefully) very fun – and it’ll help you prepare for The Body in the Blitz. This is the book that’ll bring back a LOT of your favourite characters from the MMU series – so you’ll want to be totally up to date on who everyone is before October!

Happy reading, Detectives – and enjoy yourselves!

The Body in the Blitz at Bath Festival 2023

I promised I’d start sharing events for the Body in the Blitz tour soon – and here’s the first one!

I’ll be at Bath Children’s Lit Fest on the 30th of September this year for my first EVER The Body in the Blitz event!

This is huge for me – and huge for you, as well, because even though the book won’t be officially out until the 12th of October, fans will be able to buy copies on the day. That’s right: you’ll get to read my new book two weeks before everyone else!

And not just that – last year I wasn’t able to stay and sign (the venue wasn’t set up for all authors to sign, sadly!) but they’ve fixed that this year, so I am able to sign copies of the book and chat to you!

I’m very excited – I think this is the perfect way to kick off my new tour. Book your tickets now – and, as I always say, if you’re not near Bath do NOT despair. More events coming very soon, in more than one country!

Happy National Crime Reading Month – and Happy Pride Month!

It’s June! This really is the perfect month for my detectives – because it’s not only Pride Month, but it’s National Crime Reading Month too!

I’m delighted to say that I’m one of the NCRM ambassadors again this year. It’s an initiative from the CWA and the Reading Agency, encouraging everyone to get out there and read more crime fiction, especially children’s crime fiction! If you’re on my website, you probably already read a lot of crime – but I do think that this is a great month to read or reread my series. They’re not only mysteries, they’re mysteries that star a lot of queer detectives – most notably, of course, Daisy Wells, who came out in my very favourite book of the series, Death in the Spotlight. Here’s an article I wrote about it – a few years ago, now, but I still stand by it!

To celebrate Pride Month I always create a Progress Pride flag made up of editions of my books from lots of different countries, to show my support for my queer fans all over the world. Here’s 2023’s version – I hope you can read with pride this month, and I hope that wherever you are you can have some moments of joy too. As Daisy shows us all, queer people make the world so much better just by existing in it!

If you want to meet me in June, I’ll be at Brighton Waterstones on the 24th at 12pm – it’s a free signing, and I’ll sign books old and new, so come along and say hello!

Oh, and I’m working away on the copyedit of the second book in my Ministry series, The Body in the Blitz. It’s coming out on October 12th this year, and I can promise a lot of mystery, plenty of murder and many, many queer characters …

Ministry of Unladylike Activity is Foyles Children’s Book of the Month for June 2023!

Big news for May, Eric and Nuala – The Ministry of Unladylike Activity has been chosen by the bookseller Foyles to be their children’s book of the month for June this year!

This means that it’s going to be everywhere in Foyles branches this month – a real honour for my book, and a very exciting opportunity for more fans to discover my detectives’ first adventure!

You can buy your copy now from the Foyles website, or head into a branch – thank you again, Foyles, and have a wonderful June!

Happy paperback publication day, Ministry of Unladylike Activity!

The day’s finally here! The Ministry of Unladylike Activity is out now in paperback!

I’m out on tour for the paperback release – here’s where to meet me, if you can – and even if you can’t, keep your eyes peeled for the three editions out there. The story’s the same in each one, but the cover details are a little bit different – and there’s even some bonus content in the Waterstones edition!

I really hope you love Eric, May and Nuala’s story if you’re discovering it for the first time – and remember, there are only FIVE MONTHS before the second book in the series publishes in hardback. So get reading!!

Events – May and June 2023!

Hello Detectives! There are only a few weeks until the paperback release of The Ministry of Unladylike Activity, and to celebrate I’m going to be out and about a lot over the next two months.

21st May, 3pm, Dulwich Festival, Alleyn’s School, London. Tickets £10/£8 – book here! This is a full talk – I’ll be discussing the Ministry series and mystery writing in general! There will be a signing afterwards.

25th May, 4:30-6pm, Seven Stories, Newcastle. FREE! This is a signing to celebrate the paperback release of Ministry. Come along and bring your books!

27th May, 11am-2pm, Waterstones Durham. FREE! This is a signing to celebrate the paperback release of Ministry. Come along and bring your books!

1st June, 1pm, Hay Festival, Hay on Wye. Tickets are £7 – book here! This is a full talk – I’ll be discussing the Ministry series and mystery writing in general! There will be a signing afterwards.

24th June, 12pm, Waterstones Brighton. FREE! This is a signing to celebrate the paperback release of Ministry. Come along and bring your books!

All of these events are also on my calendar – it’s always a good idea to keep checking on it to make sure you haven’t missed anything!

I’ll be back later this summer with more events in the east of England and also in Scotland (!) – and then of course there will be a tour for The Body in the Blitz‘s hardback release. So please don’t worry if there aren’t any events near you this time round – I’m always working to make sure that I cover as much ground as I can, but I can’t always get everywhere on every tour. I promise I am thinking about it, though!