I’m always inspired by music when I’m writing so I put together a playlist for Murder Most Cold. Might be fun for a Friday night…https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3GfXwbvoZ0FZlAy3VBbFSM?si=5b7075050cba4c0d

It was a fabulous publication day yesterday! So many messages of congratulations were sent privately and on social media. I hope I managed to reply to all of them and thank every one because this is such an incredibly exciting and nerve wracking time. To know that people are excited about the book and that those who have read an early copy have enjoyed it, is just so wonderful to hear. Thank you again to everybody who made this launch so fantastic. Some of the lovely things that have been said about this book are on the welcome page of this website if you scroll to the bottom, authors and reviewers who took the time, trouble and effort to not only read the book, but to give a quote as well. Thank you to all of you. It’s very reassuring to know that the book isn’t an absolute howler when it’s about to be released into the wild.

I can never quite believe that all those tiny scraps of paper, odd ideas, post it notes and red string end up becoming a book. There’s some sort of strange alchemy between those first scribbled notes and the beautifully packaged item that ends up in a reader’s hands. There are so many magical and mysterious things about the world of books. How they ever end up being a published book is definitely one of them. One of my favourite movie moments is in Shakespeare in Love, when Philip Henslowe says to Hugh Fennyman, ‘The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.’ Mr Fennyman replies, ‘So what do we do?’ To which the response is something that sounds very similar to the world of books. ‘Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.’

Part of that is, of course, all the incredibly talented, hard working people who make this happen. People who say useful things such as ‘you can’t have all this description of the snow.’ And when I protest and say, ‘Why not?’ they very patiently tell me that no one would have been able to see it because I closed the curtains on page 10!! So I owe a huge thank you to everyone at every stage that this book has been through who has made it so much better than just a collection of words. Thank you to Emma for being the best editor in the world and a very good friend. You make these books sing, Emma. Working with you is an absolute joy. Thank you. Thank you Jasper and all the team at Joffe Books for taking the Smart women on, not an easy prospect, and believing in this unusual family. And thank you to James and Helena for everything and always being there and doing so much to make this all happen.

There’s a long distance between me sitting amongst a pile of post its, and the actual book being released. Thank you to everyone involved in that process. Huge thanks to all the wonderful authors, at the CWA and the D20s in particular, who have supported me, read my books and, most importantly, become wonderful friends over a glass or two. You lift me up when it doesn’t look like there will ever be a book and remind me that we all have vomit drafts, that ‘don’t look, don’t cry’ is a sound policy, and that we do this because we love it so much – most of the time.

Finally, thank you to my own fabulous family, who are nothing like the Smarts. No, I did not base the characters on anyone in particular but I know you all have your favourites. Thank you Catherine for all the support. To my Sarah, always inspiring me and supporting me. To my Delilah, for all our collaborations and all your ingenious plot points. To my Jimmy, for the models and endless ideas on how to kill people. And, finally, to my gorgeous husband, the one who has to read it first when it is actually just a collection of words!

So book five heads off into the world. Reviews will come in, some good, some… There are many more lovely events planned around the release – a book launch party (or two! why not?! in London on 23rd November and Devon on 1st December – thank you to both bookshops that have supported me so much); interviews; appearances; and general fun and excess will happen! If you would like to come to any of these, feel free to message me on my contact page.

Then the process will begin again. After all the excitement dies away, I will come back to my desk, an empty murder board and all those post it notes, maps, photographs, and red string, and I’ll say the same thing. ‘OK ladies, who are we going to kill next?’

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it and watching it come to life. Thank you for reading and for all your kind messages. Authors are nothing without readers.

Not long now! It’s always incredibly exciting when a new book is about to be released and there’s so much happening in the build up. You can pre order your copy here.

There’s an online launch party which you can register for here. That’s going to be a lot of fun as I’m doing it with the fabulous Louise Mumford, author of The Safe House. We’ve got fantastic prizes, competitions and, not to mention, a fabulous cocktail, called The Locked Room, of course!

I’m also hosting an in person launch at my wonderful local bookshop, Barnes bookshop, on 24th May 6-8pm. Come along if you’re in the area! There will be wine, books and lots of mingling!

I’ll also be interviewed on Global Girls Online Book Club on the morning of the release. You can find that here.

On 13th May I’ll be on a panel at Crimefest in Bristol, talking about locked rooms and impossible crimes.

There are lots of interviews and festivals coming up. Including the fabulous National Crime Readers’ Month. I was very honoured to be asked to be on the organising panel for this and it will be running all through June! Look out for more here.

And as a little taster, you can see a live reading here that I did this morning of the opening scene from A Book of Murder. #whatsinthebag.

As an ardent fan of Desert Island Discs, I was very excited to be interviewed by the wonderful Jill Doyle for her blog, the premise of which is that the author chooses five things they can’t do without, five things people don’t know about you and, of course, five songs that have been part of your life. It brought back a lot of wonderful memories. You can read the full article here.

It was a very lovely start to the weekend to receive an email letting me know that book 3 in the series, The Supper Club Murders, is up for this award. It’s a readers’ choice award, so if you’d like to vote, here’s the link.

Here’s the link for another reading of The Supper Club Murders and we venture upstairs in Black Tower!

And today finds Aunt Charlotte asking about priests’ holes. Have a lovely day and I hope you enjoy the reading. Here’s the link.

Good morning! Or afternoon, depending on where you are. Here’s a link to this week’s live reading and you can see how enthralling it is from the audience in my study at the time.

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and were able to see family and friends. I’m kicking the year off with a live reading from The Supper Club Murders over on FB for a lovely authors’ association. There’s a recording of it here if you’d like to watch. Enjoy the rest of the week and don’t forget there’s news of the next book on my latest newsletter which you can sign up for on the welcome page of the website. xxx

I always do a little playlist for each book. It’s a bit of fun really and ends up being a complete shambles of different songs that relate to characters and moments in the book. I’ve loved doing this one as there is such an unusual collection of characters, including of course, Dupin, the little red monkey!

Here are the links to listen. Apple music and Spotify