A three-book deal with @bookouture!

I’ve been very quiet on the blogging front recently. At first it was because I was working on a new series, and I hadn’t sorted it out enough to report back. Then it was because I’d realised it might fit best with a new publisher. And finally it was because I’d found the most fantastic home for it, but couldn’t say anything as it was all under wraps!

But now the official announcement date has arrived, and I’m absolutely thrilled to say that I have signed a three-book deal with Bookouture for a crime-thriller series set in Cambridge and the Fens. Bookouture publishes a fantastic list of crime authors, (and others too, of course), so to be joining them, and to have the chance to work with Kathryn Taussig as my editor, is – well, if you’d seen me dancing round the kitchen when I heard, you’d appreciate just how pleased I am…

You can read Bookouture’s announcement here.

As it says, the first book in the series is called Murder in the Marshes and is due out in July 2018.

Here’s an idea of what it’s about:

Cambridge Academic Samantha Seabrook has been found drowned, a crucifix wound tightly round her neck. A livewire who liked to party as hard as she worked, she’d been hinting all day that she was off on an adventure the night she died. She’d been enjoying keeping the details secret from her colleagues; now she’s taken them with her to the grave. The night before her body was discovered, journalist Tara Thorpe was sent a doll. It was hand-delivered to her isolated house with a noose around its neck and a cryptic message: “It was a warning. This is a warning.”

The occurrence becomes all the more chilling when DI Garstin Blake of the Cambridge police breaks it to Tara that Samantha Seabrook was also sent a doll before she was killed. Tara had been intending to write about Samantha Seabrook’s life but now the job takes on new meaning. Will her contact with the Professor’s family and colleagues enable her to work out who killed her, and why they want Tara to be next? As Garstin Blake conducts his investigation and Tara probes in order to write her story the two form an uneasy alliance – but neither’s able to fully confide. Each has only half the story. Can either of them keep Tara safe from the precise and ruthless killer who’s on the loose?

Regular readers will know I had a wonderful and much appreciated start to my writing career thanks to my first publisher, romance and women’s fiction specialist, Choc Lit. I’m indebted to all the team there for their support and hard work.

I wanted to end this post with a huge thank you to Peta and Kathryn at Bookouture for their fantastic advice and encouragement, and to Kathryn for taking me on!