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Lights, camera, action! It’s publication day for The Picture House Murders, the first in the Miss Clara Vale Mysteries. Is it too early for champagne? While I ponder that, you can get your copy now! Ebook, print or audiobook via Amazon, or order a copy through your local bookshop. Embla Books, Bonnier Books UK
Lights, camera, action! To launch my new Miss Clara Vale Mysteries I have created a whole new website. Do visit the site and get to know Miss Clara and her world. It’s a work in progress and there is lots more material to add, but there’s enough to whet your appetite. Videos, film clips, fashion, locations … it’s all there!
http://www.claravalemysteries.com/
The audiobook of The Picture House Murders, narrated by Hannah Genesius, is now available to pre-order. The Picture House Murders is the first in the new Miss Clara Vale Mysteries, set in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1929. Click below to hear a sample of the opening scene. And click here to pre-order!
Delighted to see that Poppy Denby has been named as one of the Magnificent Seven Amateur Female Detectives in Shots Magazine! Poppy will be tickled pink that she’s in there with Miss Marple. She doesn’t know who the others are (Agatha Raisin, Margery & Thyme, Vera Stanhope, Jessica Fletcher, Delilah Metcalfe and Abby Knight) as they are after her time, but she was thrilled to learn about them! Thank you Antony Johnston author of the delightful Dogsitter Detective series and SHOTS Magazine http://shotsmag.co.uk/feature_view.aspx?FEATURE_ID=531
The Picture House Murders, the first in the brand new Miss Clara Vale Mysteries, is available to pre-order now! Coming out in ebook, audiobook and print on demand on 29 August 2023. Published by Embla Books, and imprint of Bonnier Books UK.
1929: Miss Clara Vale is a woman ahead of her time. Rather than attending Oxford to bag an eligible aristocrat (as her mother, Lady Vale, so desperately hoped), she threw herself into a degree in chemistry, with aspirations to become a scientist in her own right. But the world isn’t ready for Clara. Unable to land a job in science because she’s a woman, she is stuck behind the desk at a dingy London library. Until her estranged Uncle dies suddenly, leaving her his private detective agency in Newcastle upon Tyne, and laboratory, in his will.
Clara couldn’t become a detective, could she?
The decision is made for her when one of her uncle’s old clients comes to her for help with a case surrounding the local picture house and invites Clara to see the latest show, before they discuss the details. But during the film, a fire suddenly engulfs the picture house, with tragic consequences.
It seems at first an accident, but Clara soon begins to question if it was in fact a carefully orchestrated murder. She’s suddenly in the middle of a deadly mystery and will discover her scientific skills make her a sleuth to be reckoned with… Can she catch the killer before they strike again?
Set in the Golden Age of cinema when talkies were just taking over from silent films.
From the author of the Poppy Denby Investigates books.
Well this is an auspicious day. Not only is it my birthday and I’m going to see the Mousetrap this evening as my present, but my new series with Embla Books (an imprint of Bonnier Books UK) has been announced in The Bookseller! The Miss Clara Vale Mysteries, about a lady science graduate who inherits a detective agency in Newcastle upon Tyne, will be released this September. There are three under contract, so far, the first is ‘The Picture House Murders’, set in the summer of 1929. So fans of Poppy Denby (and hopefully many more new fans) prepare yourselves for more mysterious Golden Age delights!
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