I have some news to share with you today that’s both very exciting and very sad.

I’ve been working away on a first draft of a story for the last few months – and as a lot of you have guessed, that story will be Murder Most Unladylike Book 9! As I teased at the end of Top Marks for Murder, I’m sending Daisy and Hazel to Egypt to visit Amina – and to go on a Nile river cruise. As you’ll know if you’re a murder mystery fan, there’s a very famous book by Agatha Christie set on the Nile, and for years it’s been a dream of mine to create my own version of her brilliant story. (With an entirely different plot and characters, of course, just like First Class Murder!)

So that’s the good news: MMU 9 is on its way, and it’ll publish in the UK and Ireland in August 2020!

The other thing I have to tell you is a lot harder to say, and it’s this: MMU 9 will be the last full-length murder mystery in the Murder Most Unladylike series. Murder Most Unladylike was first published five years ago, in 2014, and since then Daisy and Hazel have travelled the world and solved more murder mysteries than most adult detectives! They’ve turned into fantastic, confident, brave young women who’re ready to face anything life throws at them, and I’m just as proud of them as I am of the fans who’ve grown up with them.

But a big part of growing up is dealing with huge changes, and I’ve known for a long time that this part of Daisy and Hazel’s adventures needs to come to an end at some point. A Nile adventure feels like the perfect send-off for my beloved detectives – I’m finding it very hard to finish this draft and say goodbye to this series, but I’m certain this is the right decision.

I know that you’ll be feeling just as sad as I am – it’s always hard to say goodbye! But all I can tell you right now is that even though this feels like the end, it’s really just the beginning. I’m not done with the world of the Detective Society yet …