The day is finally here! From this very minute onwards, my short story The Case of the Blue Violet is available to download. This is the first-ever book birthday I’ve celebrated without being able to hold something in my hands, which feels a little strange, but it’s lovely to know that the story is out there, and you can all read it!

Some of you have been asking me questions about what exactly the story is, and where it’s available, so I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you a bit more about it. Here goes . . .

• The Case of the Blue Violet is a short story. I think it runs to about 4,000 words – it’s not a full-length Daisy & Hazel adventure, and there is no murder, just a puzzle involving a Big Girl and a mysterious letter . . .
• It’s narrated by Daisy Wells. This was the first time I got to write in her voice, and it was amazingly fun.
• It’s perfect if you’re waiting for Jolly Foul Play. I’ve set it after First Class Murder, but before the beginning of Jolly Foul Play, so you won’t be thrown out of the timeline!
• If you buy Blue Violet, you’ll also get access to an exclusive extract from Jolly Foul Play at the back of the book.
• We’ve chosen to flip the colours on the cover to show you that it’s a short story, not a full book – but it’s still illustrated by Nina Tara, the woman who’s illustrated all of my covers for the series.
• At the moment, it’s only available as an ebook. This doesn’t mean that it won’t appear in print at some point in the future, but at the moment there aren’t any plans to do so.
• It also isn’t available in North America yet. This is because it’s only published by my UK publishers, Puffin. My US publishers, S&S, would have to buy the rights to publish it – and they may do so in future, but again I haven’t heard any concrete plans about that yet.
• This isn’t the first short story about Daisy & Hazel I’ve written! I wrote another last year, called The Case of Lavinia’s Missing Tie, and it’s available for free here. That one is set before the series begins – it’s the case Hazel refers to in the very first chapter of Murder Most Unladylike.

So, there you go! I hope that was helpful, and if you do download Blue Violet, I hope you have as much fun being back in Hazel and Daisy’s world as I did while I was writing it. Enjoy!