Robin Stevens's Blog, page 64
February 8, 2015
A tea-time treat: Arsenic for Tea’s launch!
Yesterday I was lucky enough to launch Arsenic for Tea at Waterstones Cambridge. There was cake, there was tea and there were lots of wonderful people. I was amazed at how many of you came along – some from incredibly far away.
Thank you to everyone – friends, family, authors, bloggers, publishers, agents and readers – who spent the afternoon with me, and thank you to the brilliant Waterstones team who organised everything. I hope you all enjoyed your tea!
And now . . . the pictures!
The tea table! Tiffin, biscuits (five kinds), crisps, sausages, sausage rolls, mochi balls (in honour of Hazel), a chocolate birthday cake (in honour of Daisy), Victoria sponge cupcakes and lemon drizzle cupcakes.
With my tea table!
With reader Phoebe
With reader Dominic
With reader Bethan
Cutting the cake!
I managed to snag a slice before it was all gone.
Tea-time scrum!
With fellow Cambridge mystery authors Helen Moss and Clementine Beauvais.
Moustache cakes – in honour of my favourite Belgian detective!
The moustaches in action!
Me reading from the book – by @chelleytoy
With reader Charlotte
Me with my agent, Gemma Cooper, my publicist, Harriet Venn and my editor, Natalie Doherty: Team Bunbreak!
I had a wonderful day – and I hope everyone else did too!
February 6, 2015
School visit – Moreton Hall Prep School
First, thank you so much to everyone who’s been sending me pictures of the beautiful Arsenic for Tea displays from all around the country. I can’t believe how inventive booksellers are being. Have a look at the Pinterest board here – and if you’ve got anything to add, please get in contact!
Today I was also lucky enough to visit a school that could double for Deepdean in any TV adaptation – Moreton Hall Prep School in Suffolk.
Moreton Hall and/or Deepdean
A decidedly suspicious front hallway…
Three ace young detectives, Tashy, Tilly and Pippa, who had met me at an event in Cambridge a few months ago, got their teacher on the case, and I was invited to talk to the pupils about my books, and explain a bit about how I concoct my mysteries.
We talked about how important setting is to writing mystery stories, how to craft your pool of suspects, and what makes a good detective, and at the end I set them the challenge to write a mystery of their own. I’m going to be helping to judge the competition, and the winning story will be featured on this site next month, so watch this space!
I had a lovely time meeting them and answering their questions (I hope I managed to persuade them that I would never actually murder anyone in real life). Here I am with some of them and the books!
Moreton Hall detective writers!
Moreton Hall were so welcoming and friendly, and Waterstones in Bury St Edmund helped out by selling books – I had a lovely time, and I even got a cupcake for bunbreak! Thank you all for a great day.
Delicious!
February 3, 2015
Didyoueverstoptothink review of Arsenic for Tea
‘Arsenic For Tea is a joy. A multi-layered sandwich cake of joy. There’s really very little else to be said other than this book is gorgeous and it’s something rather special. . .
Glorious, really, a book where the stakes are high and the mystery wraps around them a little tighter with each step taken. Daisy and Hazel remain a delight (Hazel’s little revealing one-liners are a joy), and the supporting cast remains ineffably perfect (Lord Hastings – Daisy’s father, Felix and Miss Alston all provide particular highs).
Sometimes, with a second book in a series, there’s always that risk of ‘second book syndrome’. Will it be as good? Will you still like it as much as you did the first time round? Will the characters have grown or will it be a pale rehash of the first?
Arsenic For Tea feels stronger, somehow, and deeper too. It’s glorious and worth cancelling everything for. Stevens feels like she’s settled more into her groove and that groove is producing stylish, charming, witty and delightful stories. I am a fan of this series and a fan of her work and I think this is again a title that feels a little bit like Christmas.’
The Bookbag review of Arsenic for Tea
‘There’s a clever mystery here, with lots of suspects and a denouement that will take many readers by surprise. Clues abound, although they can be deceiving, and lots of twists and turns in the plot keep the story moving along at a spanking pace . . .
What really makes this book stand out is the picture of life in the 1930s it presents. Hazel, Vice-President and Secretary of the Detective Society and our narrator, is from Hong Kong and frequently has to put up with thoughtless racism from adults. She finds some aspects of life in an English country house quite incomprehensible, but she is an observant girl and does her best to record events as they occur. Despite her obvious gratitude at being befriended by a proper English girl she is not blind to Daisy’s faults: her friend is headstrong and passionate, inclined to twist the evidence to fit her theories and overwhelmingly protective of her family.
Daisy’s desperately-felt anger and hurt as adults let her down and she learns uncomfortable truths about people she loves are vividly portrayed, and even Hazel soon finds she is less of an outsider in this family drama than she expected to be. It is a lively and thrilling tale, full of fascinating details, and the good news is that the third volume in the series is well on its way to publication.’ (4.5 stars)
February 1, 2015
Arsenic for Tea – Out and About in Cambridge
Today is the first day of Arsenic for Tea’s month as Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month. For all of February, the front page of Waterstones.com looks like this:
Which is pretty knock-out amazing, if you ask me.
I’ve written a blog for Waterstones about why I write mystery novels for children, and another for Girls Heart Books thanking Waterstones booksellers for getting behind the books – I seriously am so grateful to them for how enthusiastic they’ve been.
Today I went out in Cambridge to get my first proper sightings of the book in the wild, and see if I could see any displays – and I certainly did. I was expecting some tables, maybe a wall display . . . and then what I saw was THIS:
I mean. Really. That is the most BEAUTIFUL THING I have ever seen.
Inside was pretty amazing too – several tables, lots of advertisements for my launch next weekend (3pm, Cambridge Waterstones Children’s department!) and even a lovely wall display next to some Harry Potter books(!).
Then (once I had recovered from all that) I went over to Heffers, where the book is also beautifully featured on LOTS of tables. And on a 3 for 2 offer, no less!
The lovely Heffers booksellers even let me sign some copies – so, Cambridge people, get over there for your signed books NOW!
All in all, an incredibly exciting and successful book-hunting afternoon. I (and my boyfriend, helpful documenter of all of the above) definitely deserved a Fitzbillies bunbreak at the end of it.
January 28, 2015
Happy book birthday, Arsenic for Tea!
It’s the big day at last! Arsenic for Tea is officially out in the UK and Ireland, and I can’t quite believe it.
Actually, I don’t really believe anything right now. I certainly don’t believe the displays of Arsenic for Tea I’ve already been seeing.
Windows!
Waterstones Deansgate’s window display (photo by Fiona Hadfield)
Walls!
Waterstones Darlington’s display
Tables!
Waterstones Hampstead’s table
Lots of tables!
Waterstones Oxford’s table (photo by Phil Earle)
It’s amazing, and bewildering, and it makes me incredibly happy. And it’s all because, from the 1st of February, Arsenic for Tea will be Children’s Book of the Month in every Waterstones in the country.
I mean – wow.
So, happy publication day, Arsenic for Tea! I’m having my celebration for the book on the 7th February, at Waterstones Cambridge – I hope you’ll be able to join me for it!
With the help of all of the amazing booksellers out there, I think February is going to be a month to remember…
January 23, 2015
It’s almost time for (Arsenic for) Tea …
It’s the final countdown. In less than a week, on Thursday 29th January, Arsenic for Tea will be officially out in the UK and Ireland.
It’s funny – I forgot how weird this final bit of waiting is. I feel jumpy, and strange, and I keep checking my Amazon rankings (I still don’t know what Amazon rankings mean, but I check them anyway) and my Goodreads reviews (which is a terrible idea, but again I do it anyway). I don’t even know what I’m trying to find out, I just need to find it out now.
Of course, what I’m actually waiting for is you. I wrote a book, my publishers edited it and honed it and chose its cover and its paper and publicised it and got it into the warehouse – and now it’s time for you to read it. Once again, I’m handing over my characters and my story to you, and all I can do is hope that you like them.
Today I got the first picture of Arsenic for Tea in the wild, from the fantastic Jim at YaYeahYeah – isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it green?
Arsenic for Tea at Waterstones Birmingham – picture by Jim Dean
If you do begin to see Arsenic for Tea in stores – and, even better, if you buy it and read it, I’d love to see your pictures and hear your feedback. Did you guess whodunit? Did you have a bunbreak to help your little grey cells work? No kidding, talking to you is one of my very favourite things about being an author (second only to actually writing my books).
So, Arsenic for Tea is almost here – let’s celebrate together!
January 20, 2015
Kirkus Starred Review for Murder is Bad Manners
Murder is Bad Manners (the US edition of Murder Most Unladylike) will be out in North America in just three months, and I’ve just had some incredible news: it’s been given a starred review by Kirkus magazine.
I know what a high standard Kirkus has and how tough a star is to achieve – I am just bowled over to the point of incredulity by this.
From the review, which you can read in full on the Kirkus website:
‘This splendid school story/murder mystery opens with a map and a helpful cast of characters: the staff and students of Deepdean School, where Hazel Wong, daughter of an Anglophile Hong Kong banker, and Daisy Wells, golden-haired member of the English nobility, have formed the Wells & Wong Detective Society . . . Hazel’s outsider status allows her to comment humorously on the curious customs of the English world, while cheerful Daisy’s need to know and her privileged assumption that everyone will love her and do her bidding earns them access to places and information that help them solve their first serious case. There are clues, red herrings and suspenseful chases galore, as well as heaps of boarding school trivia that amuse and delight. An irresistible English import with sequels to come.’ – Kirkus Magazine
Wow.
January 17, 2015
Bookzone review of Arsenic for Tea
There are now less than two weeks to go until Arsenic for Tea is released in the UK, and it’s just been given its first blogger review!
Darren from The Book Zone for Boys says:
‘Not only is [Arsenic for Tea] a great sequel, but it is also a book that is even better then its predecessor . . .
the stage for this brilliant murder mystery story is Fallingford, a country mansion with obligatory sprawling grounds, and the cast a group of people with a plethora of eccentricities and foibles, most of whom just happen to be members of Daisy’s family. For Fallingford is the Wells family home, and Daisy and Hazel are there for the holidays. This makes for the perfect setting for our story . . .
Arsenic For Tea can be read as a standalone mystery but I would implore you to start with Murder Most Unladylike if for some unfathomable reason you or your children have not yet stumbled across the Wells and Wong Mysteries’
Read the whole review here - and thank you, Darren!
January 10, 2015
Launch Invitation: Time for Tea?
There are now fewer than 20 days until Arsenic for Tea is released in the UK. Rest assured, I’m just as excited as you are.
If you’d like to celebrate with me, I’ve got some good news: I’m holding an afternoon tea in the book’s honour in Waterstones Cambridge on Saturday 7th February at 3pm, and I want all of you to be there!
The event is free, and lashings of tea, ginger beer and cake will be served (don’t worry, quite arsenic free, though as they will be home-made I can’t guarantee that there won’t be lurking nuts). There will also be lots of activities for budding detectives, I’ll be reading from the book – and of course signing it as well!
Don’t be late…
