Robin Stevens's Blog, page 8
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 …
December 31, 2022
2022 – year in review!
Hello Detectives,
I hope you’ve enjoyed the holiday season, and taken a chance to rest after a very busy and strange year. It’s felt as though the world has tried to push us all back into ‘normal’ life even though we’re not quite ready, and things are not quite normal. It’s been lovely and hard, in equal measures, at least for me.
Time has felt very strange for me this year – I started off the year with a very bad draft of a book, The Ministry of Unladylike Activity, and ended the year with that book being published. I still don’t really know how I did it. I don’t think I slept much. I also very dramatically got Covid on the last afternoon I worked on the final draft of Ministry, and sweated through the last pages of edits before pressing send and then basically not getting out of bed apart from to eat and look after the baby for the next three months. I would not recommend it, personally!
But now the book is out, and people seem to like it, and I’m halfway through the first draft (really the 0th draft, my first drafts never count because they are so dramatically bad) of Ministry 2. We have a title for it (I can’t tell you what it is yet), and a plot (I can tell you a bit about that – basically it’s the Blitz in London, and there’s a dead body in a bombed-out house that should definitely not be there …) and I’m really enjoying working on it. Last time I was still working out who Eric and Nuala were, and how I wanted to write about them, but now I’m a lot clearer about my main characters, so I can focus on the plot. And I’m excited about the plot!
Ministry 2 will be out either at the end of 2023 or at the beginning of 2024, depending on how well this draft goes and what my editor thinks of it. But I can tell you for definite that the UK/Irish paperback of Ministry 1 will be out in May – and the German, Italian and Polish translations will be out at some point in 2023 as well!
I’m going to have lots more events, both in-person and online, next year, so look out for those announcements in early 2023. And I really, really hope that 2023 will be the year that I finally get to tell you something about MMU TV …
So stick around – I’ll update here when I can, although of course my first priority is always going to be writing.
More adventures on the way very soon …
December 23, 2022
Happy Mistletoe and Murder season!
Hello Detectives – today’s a big day in the MMU calendar! There are just two days to go until Christmas – and today (in 1935) is the day that Hazel begins writing Mistletoe and Murder! So if you’re looking for a festive readalong, now is the perfect time to begin Daisy and Hazel’s fifth adventure!
Whether you’re currently celebrating Christmas or Hannukah, or whether you’re just happy to enjoy the lights and food (like George in this book!), I hope you’re having a wonderful festive season. Happy reading!
December 7, 2022
The Very Merry Murder Club meets Mr Dilly!
For anyone out there looking to get into the festive spirit, I have something perfect for you: the Very Merry Murder Club and I took part in Mr Dilly’s bumper Christmas special yesterday!
Sharna Jackson, Maisie Chan, Patrice Lawrence and I all appeared to talk about our work on the Very Merry Murder Club anthology of short stories – which I’ve talked about on here before, and which I think would make the perfect Christmas present for a young detective this year!
You can watch the video below – and I’d recommend watching the whole thing, there are so many great authors featured, and all of their books sound fantastic! Thanks so much to Mr Dilly for having us on the show!
December 6, 2022
Ministry made it onto four books of the year lists!
It’s been a bumper week for The Ministry of Unladylike Activity – it was picked as a children’s book of the year in FOUR different places!
Sara Keating in the Irish Times Magazine called it ‘A brilliant murder mystery’!
Sara Keating for the Irish TimesSally Morris in the Daily Mail called it ‘Rip-roaring stuff’!
Sally Morris for the Daily MailKitty Empire in the Guardian called me ‘indefatigable'(!)
Kitty Empire for the GuardianAnd Ministry even made it into the Waterstones Children’s Books of 2022 list.
