As some of you may have heard, I have a book coming out in May. Murder Most Unladylike is the first book in The Wells &Wong Mystery series, about Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, my 1930s crime-solving schoolgirl duo.
From the official synopsis on the Random House website:
When Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong set up their very own deadly secret detective agency at Deepdean School for Girls, they struggle to find any truly exciting mysteries to investigate. (Unless you count the case of Lavinia’s missing tie. Which they don’t, really.)
But then Hazel discovers the Science Mistress, Miss Bell, lying dead in the Gym. She thinks it must all have been a terrible accident – but when she and Daisy return five minutes later, the body has disappeared. Now the girls know a murder must have taken place . . . and there’s more than one person at Deepdean with a motive.
Now Hazel and Daisy not only have a murder to solve: they have to prove a murder happened in the first place. Determined to get to the bottom of the crime before the killer strikes again (and before the police can get there first, naturally), Hazel and Daisy must hunt for evidence, spy on their suspects and use all the cunning, scheming and intuition they can muster. But will they succeed? And can their friendship stand the test?
The book will be published on May 8th in the UK as part of Random House Children’s Publishers’ Corgi imprint, who are really going out of their way to make it look fabulous. There’s a map, there are character lists – and I can now reveal that there is the most fantastic cover.
It has been designed by the wonderful Nina Tara, who has worked on covers for Diana Wynne Jones and Agatha Christie (!), and what she’s done to my cover is fabulous.
Are you ready? Here goes . . .
It’s fun, stylish and brilliantly quirky, and it really captures the spirit of my book. I love the slightly Alice in Wonderland feel Nina’s managed to achieve, I love the tagline, and I LOVE the lettering. Every time I look at it, I find a new detail to be excited about.
I can already imagine this on shelves – and I don’t know about you, but if I saw it in a bookshop I’d pick it up. It’s simply gorgeous.
If you’re interested, Murder Most Unladylike is already available for pre-order: from Blackwell’s, Waterstones, Foyles and Amazon.co.uk, among others.
And I’m also delighted to say that advance review copies will be released into the wild extremely soon – and when they are, I’m going to be running a competition on this blog to give away a copy. So if you want the chance to read about Daisy and Hazel three months early, watch this space!
