When Murder Most Unladylike was first published in June 2014, I was convinced that no one would buy it. I’m thrilled to say that I was completely, magnificently incorrect about that – my first book is not only still in print, but for its fifth anniversary in June 2019, my publisher Puffin have decided to celebrate by creating an extra-special exclusive hardback edition of Murder Most Unladylike!
This is the same story that you know and love, but with a new introduction from me, a new short story from Daisy’s point of view and an EXCLUSIVE look at the first chapters of Book 8. And … each and every copy of the first print run will be SIGNED BY ME. That’s right: whether you buy your copy in a store or online, it will have my signature on its title page. How do I know that? Because last week I visited the Penguin warehouse and spent two days signing 5,500 copies of the Murder Most Unladylike hardback.
It’s hard to explain how huge a pile 5,500 books is. It’s so many books that I never saw them all together – they couldn’t fit in the big room I signed in, so the warehouse team (six people, led by author signing experts Georgie and Melvyn) had to keep removing the boxes of books I’d signed and bringing in new ones. It took me about ten hours of constantly writing my name (I only forgot what my name was twice – apologies to you if you find one of those two copies) over Thursday and Friday, and I didn’t see the long table I was signing on until twenty minutes before I signed the last book.
I used up ten Sharpies as I signed (each time a pen ran out, I did a magnifying glass doodle in the book I was signing, so keep an eye out for those special copies!), and we went through two enormous rolls of SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR stickers (yes, all 5,500 were put on by hand by Georgie, my publicists Fritha and Jasmine and my agent Gemma – no machines were involved!).
Below are some of my favourite photos from the two days – you can see more over on my Instagram, as always. The Murder Most Unladylike hardback is publishing on the 6th June in the UK and Ireland, priced at £12.99. You can pre-order it from Waterstones, Blackwell’s, Foyles, Amazon and your local independent bookstore. And each copy is SIGNED! Thank you so much to Georgie, Melvyn and the rest of the team, and to my signing support Jasmine, Fritha and Gemma. I couldn’t have done it without any of them!
