Robin Stevens's Blog, page 7
March 14, 2023
Ministry has been shortlisted for the 2023 Crimefest Children’s Award!
I’m delighted to announce the first shortlisting for Ministry of Unladylike Activity – and it’s a particularly wonderful one!
It’s on the Crimefest Best Crime Novel for Children 2023 shortlist, along with some of my favourite children’s crime writers. I’m so pleased to be part of the list, and grateful to CrimeFest for recognising my book! The full shortlist:
– Elly Griffiths for A Girl Called Justice: The Spy at the Window (Quercus Children’s Books)
– Anthony Horowitz for Where Seagulls Dare: A Diamond Brothers Case (Walker Books)
– Sharna Jackson for The Good Turn (Puffin)
– M.G. Leonard for Spark (Walker Books)
– Robin Stevens for The Ministry of Unladylike Activity (Puffin)
– Sarah Todd Taylor for Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble (Nosy Crow)
The awards will be announced in May – which gives you enough time to read the whole shortlist!
March 9, 2023
Deepdean is a literary legend!
A very fun mention for my books in the SoGlos magazine – according to their list, Deepdean school is one of 11 ‘Gloucestershire Literary Legends’.
I really love this, because it’s all true – I did base Deepdean on my school Cheltenham Ladies’ College, and these days the college does actually run regular Murder Most Unladylike tours – so if you really want to know what it’s like to be Daisy and Hazel, see if you can get a spot on one of them!
March 8, 2023
War Through Children’s Eyes competition
The War Through Children’s Eyes competition is a creative competition that aims to raise awareness of the impact of war on people around the world. 2023 is its second year, and I’m pleased to say that I’m going to be one of this year’s judges.
The competition is open to anyone aged 7-17 who’s resident in the UK – so if that’s you, and you’d like to get involved, visit their website now. I think this is a great initiative – as they say,
Our ultimate objective is to empower children to speak out, take action and share the stories of their peers who have no voice
The competition is open from now until the 15th of May, so there’s plenty of time to work on your entries. Good luck!
March 7, 2023
Thanks for another wonderful World Book Day!
Last Thursday was World Book Day in the UK and Ireland. I wasn’t able to do any events this year because I’m working so hard on Ministry 2 (more on this soon, I promise!) but I had the most wonderful time seeing all of your creative and brilliant costumes and art projects!
[image error]My very favourite costume this year – it’s Nina Tara’s silhouette of Daisy![image error]And a proud moment – my very first Nuala!If you sent something to me, thank you so much. It means a lot to know that you were inspired by one of my characters! And if you did dress up as Daisy, Hazel, May, Nuala, Eric or another one of my detectives, I hope you had a wonderful day being part of the Detective Society!
I hope I’ll be able to do some visits for WBD 2024 – and I can promise that I’ll be out on the road more later this spring and summer. I’ve got lots of events and festival appearances in the works – keep an eye on my calendar for where I’ll be next!
March 1, 2023
Happy WBD 2023!
It’s that time of year again – World Book Day! I’ve been very busy with writing, so I haven’t been able to book any school visits, but I can’t wait to see your costumes and your creativity. It’s always one of my favourite times of year as an author!
If you want to dress up as one of my characters, you’re in luck! All the costumes are very easy.
I’ve given a comprehensive rundown of how to dress like the Detective Society in this post from 2020 – all you really need is a school uniform and a magnifying glass, so it’s perfect if you’re pressed for time.
And of course, if you want to dress like my newest detectives, May, Eric and Nuala – you can just look at the cover of the Ministry of Unladylike Activity! My illustrator Jan has done wonderful drawings of all three of them, complete with their outfits.
Whatever you do tomorrow or this week, I hope you have a wonderful time celebrating books and reading! Happy World Book Day!
February 17, 2023
Ministry of Unladylike Activity – paperback cover reveal!
The Ministry of Unladylike Activity is publishing in paperback in the UK and Ireland on the 25th May – and I’m thrilled to be able to reveal the refreshed cover look for the new edition!
[image error]Cover by Jan BieleckiI think it’s so fun and striking, and it makes the original cover even better!
And this isn’t all that’s been updated – the paperback will have new-look maps, new inside illustrations and (for the special Waterstones edition) some special extra material that fans are going to love …
I’ll be able to share more about the different special editions (yes, there will be more than one – indie bookstores will have their own too!) in the next month or so – but for now, enjoy the new-look cover! And please do pre-order if you can – it’s so helpful to authors and bookstores when you do.
Some links:
February 14, 2023
Cambridge Lit Fest event 2023
I’m delighted to be announcing another 2023 in-person event – I’ll be at the Cambridge Lit Fest on the 23rd of April at 10am!
You can book tickets at the link above – they’re £8 for children and £10 for adults.
This is another special festival for me – I used to live in Cambridge (that’s why Mistletoe and Murder takes place there!), and the Cambridge Lit Fest has been so incredibly supportive of me and my books over the years. I’m so glad to be going back!
February 1, 2023
New event – I’ll be at the 2023 Oxford Lit Fest!
I’m delighted to announce my first in-person event of 2023: I’ll be speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival on the 2nd April at 12 noon!
This is a very special event for me – Oxford is where I grew up, and where I live now. I also had to cancel my appearance at the 2020 festival because of the first pandemic lockdown, and I haven’t been back to speak since, so it feels really wonderful to be announcing this now.
I’m in the Sheldonian again, a really incredible space to talk in, so there are plenty of seats. Book now via the website – tickets are £8. And I’ll see as many of you as possible there!
This is just the first event of many we have in the works – I can tell you that there will be events in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, as well as lots more across England. Keep watching my website and social media for more details soon!
January 27, 2023
Death in the Spotlight is a Junior Library Guild gold standard pick!
Some really nice news for Death in the Spotlight in the run-up to its publication in America – it’s been chosen as a Junior Library Guild gold standard selection for 2023. This is a really nice stamp of approval for my very favourite book in the series (it’s a tie between this and Death Sets Sail, but I think this mystery plot is my best ever) and it’s a really lovely way to welcome it to the states.
Cover by Elizabeth BaddeleyDeath in the Spotlight will publish in the US and Canada from Simon & Schuster BFYR on the 11th April 2023 – and you can pre-order from Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com or your favourite indie bookstore (please do this if you can! Indies are amazing)!
January 4, 2023
USA news – new books and Murderous March!
Hello Detectives, and welcome to 2023! It’s an exciting year in a lot of ways, and one of the things I’m most thrilled about is that US readers will be getting access to a lot more of my books.
My all-time favourite MMU book, Death in the Spotlight, will be hitting US and Canadian shelves in April 2023, closely followed by Top Marks for Murder in July. Both will be published by S&S Books for Young Readers, with glorious new covers by Elizabeth Baddeley – I’m so excited about them! I’m working on the proofs for Top Marks at the moment, and Spotlight is already off at the printer’s.
I’m also going to be part of a US mystery conference in March. I’m taking part in Murderous March (best name, right?!) – I’ll be on a virtual panel about young sleuths in detective fiction. I’m so delighted about this – it’s really nice to be able to talk to US crime fans – and if you do love crime writing, I think you should definitely sign up at the link!
I’ll have lots more event announcements coming over the next few months, and a lot of other good news as well. I’m currently working on Ministry book 2, and also on something that I can’t talk about but am highly thrilled about. I think you might be too …
