6th November: Devonshire Prep visit and Redbridge Award longlist

First, some very exciting news: Murder Most Unladylike has been longlisted for this year’s Redbridge Children’s Book Award!

Congratulations to all of the longlistees!

It’s in brilliant company, and I’m so pleased to be on the list. Wow!

And that wasn’t even the only fantastically brilliant thing that happened to me today. The wonderful people at Waterstones Hampstead invited me to come in to the store to talk to pupils from local school Devonshire House Preparatory about Murder Most Unladylike. I still find it a bit amazing that these days I actually look forward to standing up at the front of a room full of people and chatting to them for an hour, but I absolutely do.

The kids of Devonshire Prep were amazing: they had so many interesting questions and clever ideas (my favourite was the boy who asked whether my books were for boys as well as girls, to which I answered YES!), and I really enjoyed spending time with them. And they were very generous – some of them even gave me presents!

My loom bands! A must for any detective.

Here we all are with our copies of Murder Most Unladylike. As you see, murder is extremely exciting!

A host of young detectives with the book!

Thank you to the school, for being such a great audience – and thank you to Waterstones Hampstead, for being such brilliant hosts. They’ve even given Murder Most Unladylike a great home: here it is on one of their tables!

On a wonderful table at Waterstones Hampstead!