It’s official! Murder Most Unladylike is out in the UK and Ireland today, and I am a published author.

I had my first sighting of the book in the wild yesterday, at Waterstones Piccadilly. It was on a table, and on the shelf, and seeing it (and watching my friend buy a copy) finally made it seem real. It’s an object! It costs money! You can purchase it!

Quite obviously, if you do feel moved to buy a copy today (or tomorrow, or any day) you’ll make me a very happy author. You’ll make me equally happy if you buy the print or the ebook edition – to me, it’s all the same words on a page.

But if you do want to get a physical copy, it would mean something extra-special to me (and to the whole book industry) if you went out and bought it from a real, honest-to-goodness bookshop. We all – readers and authors – need bookshops. A good bookseller is worth a hundred tailored mailings, and the discoveries you can make while you’re standing in a real bookshop can never be replicated on the internet. If you love reading, you should be supporting places that give books space and time. And it’s not as though you can’t pick up good bargains in bookshops. I know for a fact that Murder Most Unladylike is currently on 3 for 2 in Blackwell’s – and if you need some books to go with it, may I suggest some of the other excellent titles out today?

So quick! To your local bookshop! And if you happen to come upon Murder Most Unladylike – or if, even better, you buy a copy and have a #bunbreak with it – I’d love to hear from you or see your pictures.

In the meantime, I leave you with this – an exclusive Wells & Wong short story on the We Love This Book website. Can Hazel and Daisy solve the Case of Lavinia’s Missing Tie?

Happy 5th of June!