Robin Stevens's Blog, page 67

Author on the Orient Express

Being the author of a series means constantly living in the future of your books (which, for me, still happens to be the past – I’m very temporally confused). The next Wells & Wong Mystery that you’ll read is Arsenic for Tea, out in the UK and Ireland on 29th January 2015 and available for pre-order now. For me, though, Arsenic for Tea has already happened, and the book I’m currently working on is Daisy and Hazel’s third adventure, First Class Murder.

Murder Most Unladylike is a boarding school murder mystery, Arsenic for Tea is a country house murder mystery, and First Class Murder is a train murder mystery . . . and not just any train. It takes place on a certain rather famous 1930s train, the Orient Express. And that’s the reason why yesterday I took the world’s best author research trip.

No, I didn’t go to Venice. But what I did do is take a five-hour tour of the Kent countryside, departing and arriving from Victoria Station, in Pullman dining carriages that have been restored to their original ridiculous 1930s beauty as part of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. The Orient Express itself would have been blue and cream rather than brown and cream, with three dining carriages to 11 Wagons Lit (sleeping cars), but what we saw was otherwise pretty much what my characters would have experienced. I’m enormously grateful to train manager Jeff Monk, who very kindly responded to my bonkers author questions (‘But would there have been ice cream?’), and to the train staff, who let me take hundreds of photos of window locks and curtains and their uniforms.

The train arrives!

I prepare to board our coach, Minerva.

Minerva was originally built in the 1920s and ran throughout the 1930s. Perfect!

Our table. The chairs were real, moveable armchairs.

Minerva carriage

The marquetry. Oh, the marquetry. And an instruction about what to do in case of an unexpected emergency…

Off we go!

The beautiful place setting. The crest was always at the top, and the knives and forks and crystal glasses were ALWAYS rattling as the train moved. Pouring a drink was a difficult activity!

Serving soup. Everything came in large tureens, and nothing was spilled, which was amazing.

Oh, the food. This was a creamy apple and blackberry pudding. The Orient Express would have had a chiller, but not a freezer – no ices for Daisy and Hazel!

Exploring – the rather fancy bathroom!

The BEAUTIFUL Art Deco lighting in carriage Audrey.

More marquetry, and a window.

Very tight squeeze in the corridors.

The door outside. So secure . . .

Dancing to the band

Authoring

A peaceful afternoon photo.

We had a completely brilliant time, and I have learned some very important things, such as: 1930s trains have weird suspensions. They bounce. They are also very loud, and when you move through them you have to constantly re-adjust the way you’re standing so that you don’t fall over. I’m now going to go back to my manuscript and add in a lot of people staggering about and not being able to hear each other. Authoring really is an enormous amount of fun.

Woman’s Hour: hooray for boarding school books!

Yesterday, Woman’s Hour ran a piece on the enduring popularity of boarding school fiction. In an unlikely but delightful turn of events, I was asked to be one of the guests (Amanda Craig was the other), and now the whole episode is available to listen again online. We’re on at about 35 minutes in, but if you’d like to skip straight to the piece, here’s a link to the section itself.

It’s so brilliant that we got to have a discussion about children’s books on national radio, and I’m delighted that I was able to take part. The whole thing went bewilderingly quickly – Amanda managed to squeeze in a few recommendations, but even though I had a long list of contemporary twists on the genre I wanted to mention, I talked about . . . er, none of them. So if you’re now looking for some boarding school novel reading inspiration, here are our recommendations in full.

The books that Amanda mentioned:

BESWITCHED by Kate Saunders

This is a boarding school novel that’s also a time-travel novel. This and Kate’s new book, Five Children on the Western Front, has been highly recommended to me, and I’m very much looking forward to reading them.

THE MOUNTWOOD SCHOOL FOR GHOSTS by Tony Ibbotson

A lovely, batty and delightfully ghastly book about a boarding school for ghosts, this is by Eva Ibbotson’s son Toby, based on an idea she was working on before her death.

THE GLASS BIRD GIRL by Esme Kerr

A contemporary thriller set in a strict all-girls’ boarding school – sort of an edgier Noel Streatfeild for the 21st century.

 

And the books that I had on my list:

FOLLOW ME DOWN by Tanya Byrne

A very murderous, very noir YA take on the boarding school novel, I love how Tanya problematises the genre. Her narrator, Adamma, is from Nigeria, and her boarding school is a terrifyingly dangerous and uncertain place. Full disclosure: I think Tanya and her books are brilliant, and I’ll be introducing her at the Tower Hamlets WriteIdea Festival on the 15th November. If you’re in the area, I strongly encourage you to come along!

SAY HER NAME by James Dawson

A cracking YA ghost story (in the Point Horror style) set in a strict boarding school. James gets the cliques and rules of a girls’ school absolutely right – one to buy this Hallowe’en.

 

THE LIVES OF CHRISTOPHER CHANT by Diana Wynne Jones

I picked this because it backs up one of the points I made – that boarding school fiction is essentially fantasy. The main character, Christopher, can travel between worlds. He finds one that’s our idea of the perfect fantasy setting (magic! Gods! Danger and excitement!), and in it he discovers a girl who’s the living aspect of a goddess. And she’s obsessed with Angela Brazil novels. She’s a powerful magic-user, but all she wants to do is to go back to Christopher’s world so that she can go to boarding school.

PEA’S BOOK OF HOLIDAYS by Susie Day

Susie Day writes the most brilliant updated Enid Blyton stories for the 21st century – cosy, jolly adventures that are also quite sharp critiques of some of the bigger issues with Blyton’s fiction. Can you enjoy Enid Blyton books when the only characters who look like you are the golliwogs? What if you don’t have a father – or you have two mums instead of one? Pea’s Book of Holidays also contains a very funny second-hand account of an absolutely dire performing arts boarding school. Clever and fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, of course . . . my books. We all talked about MURDER MOST UNLADYLIKE, my own take on the 1930s boarding school novel (and the 1930s crime novel – as I mentioned, there is a murder in it, although quite a polite one). It’s the first in a series, and the second book, ARSENIC FOR TEA, will be out in the UK in January and is available for pre-order now.

Thank you to all who tuned in yesterday! I’d love to hear about your own boarding school favourites, both new and old. What books did you read growing up, and what books do you love now?

Newsflash: have a bunbreak with Woman’s Hour!

I have some very exciting news to tell you about!

On Thursday 2nd October at 10am, Woman’s Hour will air a piece on the enduring popularity of boarding school fiction. They’ll be interviewing Amanda Craig, and they’ll also be interviewing me.  I’ll be talking (hopefully coherently) about Malory Towers, St Clares and Deepdean – so if you’re free, please do listen in, and make sure you bring tasty supplies. You’ll be able to have a bunbreak with me!

US and UK giveaways!

As you may have heard, Murder is Bad Manners (the American edition of Murder Most Unladylike) has been chosen by the ABA as one of its Indies Introduce picks for spring 2015. I can’t get over how brilliant this is – I am genuinely honoured, and a bit overwhelmed.

So, to celebrate this, I’m holding a special giveaway for my American and Canadian readers. Up for grabs is one copy of Murder is Bad Manners, not available in the USA until April 2015. The lucky winner will be able to read the book six months before the rest of North America – and I’ll even sign and personalise it (just don’t ask me to draw anything for you).

All you need to do is comment below with your favourite sweet treat (it could be cake, cookies, pie, candy or anything else) – as Hazel and Daisy will teach you, good detectives need to boost their little grey cells with regular bunbreaks.

The competition is open now, and will close on 1st October at 12pm EST. Only Americans and Canadians may enter – I reserve the right to pick another winner if it turns out you’re from Walthamstow.

But if you are from Walthamstow, never fear: I have something for you as well! I’m currently blogging at Girls Heart Books, and the wonderful people at Random House have given me three copies of Murder Most Unladylike to give out as part of the GHB September giveaway. Head over to the site now to answer a question and put yourself into the running to win a copy of the book!

Event announcement: Demystifying the Publishing Process

*puts editorial hat on*

Are you a soon-to-be-published author? Have you just signed a contract with a publishing house? Has your book just been released? Are you working on that difficult second novel? If so, you may be unsure of what to expect, what you should be doing now and what your publisher should be doing for you. But never fear! Help is at hand!

On Tuesday 14th October, I’ll be appearing as part of a SCBWI Professional event, alongside Rosi Crawley, PR Manager of Hot Key Books, and Joanna Moult, agent and founder partner of Skylark Literary, to help demystify the publishing process.

Our panel, chaired by Non Pratt (author of Trouble and previously editor at Catnip Publishing), will try to explain an author’s rights and responsibilities, and lay out the long and slightly bizarre journey from signed contract to books on shelves.

The event will cost £12 for SCBWI members (£18 for non-members) and it will take place from 6:45pm to 8:45pm, in

St James Piccadilly Conference Room 

197 Piccadilly

London

W1J 9LL

If you’d like to book, please email profseries@britishscbwi.org.

I hope you’ll all come along!

Author events and school visits!

What a week it’s been! On Thursday I went to Oxford and signed stock at Waterstones and Blackwell’s. I also held my first ever author event, at Waterstones Oxford. I’m very pleased to be able to say that it went swimmingly – the young detectives I met were all absolutely worthy of membership in the Detective Society, and we had a very interesting discussion about murder, ducklings and biscuits.

Four young detectives show off Murder Most Unladylike

And here they are with me! We are plotting terrible things . . .

They reminded me that I really should get on and create a Facebook author page – and so I did. You can now like RobinStevensAuthor on Facebook to keep up to date with my author news, events and giveaways.

They were also very interested in where I went to school, and whether it was really like Daisy and Hazel’s school, Deepdean. Well, it just so happens that on Saturday, I was lucky enough to be invited back to look around my real school, Cheltenham Ladies’ College.

I have to point out for the sake of legality (and also truth) that none of the teachers or girls in Murder Most Unladylike are at all real, and that Deepdean School is not the school I went to. But there are certain similarities between the real place and what ended up on the page that I want to share with you here . . .

Here is the playing field. Behind me you can see a pitch that bears great similarity to the place where Hazel has her argument with Lavinia, and my face is the face that Hazel makes when she thinks about games lessons.

My fifth form boarding house . . . which, incidentally, looks rather a lot like Hazel and Daisy’s.

Town entrance (which might double as North Wing. Miss Bell’s car not pictured).

West Wing (also known as Old Wing) Entrance (beware of the girls)

The Marble corridor (do you recognise those black and white tiles?)

The horrible corridor between the Hall and the Gym . . .

. . . and the Gym itself! But what’s that stain on the floor?

Luckily, there was an author on the case.

Then I went up to the balcony to look for further clues . . .

And it all went wrong.

Happily, I was revived. Here I am with Amanda Silk, my English teacher (you may recognise her from the book’s dedication).

And here’s one of the music rooms, rather similar to the room where Inspector Priestley holds his denouement.

And (this was the most exciting) as we were leaving, we found a real bunbreak in progress!

Then we went into Cheltenham itself – and if you happen to be looking for signed copies of Murder Most Unladylike and you live near Cheltenham, you’re in luck! Waterstones Cheltenham now has signed stock – quick, go grab one before they’re gone!

Murder is Bad Manners is an ABA Indies Introduce pick for spring 2015

I’m utterly delighted and honoured to announce that Murder is Bad Manners has been chosen by the American Booksellers Association as one of ten Indies Introduce children’s and YA picks, to be promoted in independent bookstores across the USA in spring 2015.

From the announcement on the ABA website:

“After weeks of reading and discussing wonderful debut books, it is an honor and delight to highlight 10 new authors out of such a worthy and talented pool,” said the chair of the children’s panel, Tegan Tigani of Seattle’s Queen Anne Book Company. “The selection process introduced us to dozens of books we can’t wait to recommend, and through much deliberation, we honed our list to a spectacular, can’t-miss 10. Readers will fall in love with these books — and fall deeper in love with reading.”

This is wonderful news – I can’t wait for the US to be properly introduced to Daisy and Hazel’s adventures, and I’m over the moon that the book will be promoted in this way. Thank you, ABA!

September Events, Blogs and News Round-Up

This month’s blog is full of excitement!

First of all, I’m delighted (and only a bit nervous) to announce that I will be having my first public event at Waterstones Oxford on Thursday 18th September at 4:30pm. I’ll be talking about who I am, why I wrote Murder Most Unladylike and why mysteries are such extremely interesting things, and I’d love to see you there. If you’re really nice to me I might even let you try on my Sherlock Holmes hat.

Second, the UKYA Blogger Awards are taking place this month. Some very nice people have nominated me in some of the categories – I’m up for Most Social Author (offline), Best First Line, Best Mystery and Best Friendship. Anyone can vote, and voting will stay open until the 21st September. Please do vote (although don’t feel you have to vote for me) – there are so many fantastic authors on the shortlists, and they all deserve recognition.

I’ve also been blogging up a storm on other websites in recent weeks:

Here I am at Author Allsorts, writing about some of the books that made me a reader.

And here I am at Girls Heart Books, in my very first post for them, talking about how important friendship is to both boarding school pupils and detectives.

For anyone following the progress of Arsenic for Tea, I’m pleased to say that the text has now been finalised, and it’s gone off to be turned into a book-shaped thing. I’ll only see the script once more before it’s actually published (which will be in January 2015, in case you’re interested – it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon, Waterstones and Blackwell’s).

If you’d like to know more about Daisy and Hazel’s second adventure, here’s a blog post I wrote last month introducing you to it.

And if you just can’t wait until January to read more, you’re in luck: I’ve been given the go-ahead to reveal a very special and very exclusive extract from it on this website very soon. Keep checking back here, and follow me on Twitter, if you want to make sure not to miss it!

I’m now busily working away on the first draft of Book 3, which is currently called First Class Murder, and currently features Daisy and Hazel travelling across Europe on a very special and very famous train. As is the way with first drafts, nothing makes much sense at the moment, but I have hopes that things will improve eventually. Wish me luck!

First News review

‘I thought this book was fantastic and a jolly good read. Robin Stevens the author did a great job with this book and I got upset when I finished it, as I didn’t want it to end!’

(Alannah Graham, First News)

Guardian Kids’ review

I really enjoyed reading this book and once I’d started reading I found I couldn’t stop!

The book could be read at almost any age. But because it has murder in, I wouldn’t recommend it to young children.

When Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong (or Sherlock and Watson) become bored of their pacifism society and spiritualism society they decide to start up a detective agency at Deepdean school for girls. There’s only one problem: they can’t find anything to investigate apart from silly little mysteries like why does Lavinia’s tie vanish?

But when their science mistress is found dead in the gym by Hazel, what more exciting a case could they want. The two girls race the police to find out who the murderer is. They spend every minute of their spare time looking for clues and finding suspects.

But can they do it before the murderer strikes again?

This is a well written book full of excitement and mystery. I highly recommend it to you.

(Kung Fu Kitty on the Guardian site)