New Year review of The Kill Fee

Happy New Year to you all! It’s been a lovely start to the year receiving my copy of Northern Insight magazine with a review of The Kill Fee on p139. They say “Steeped in flapper girls, scandal and jazz age glitterati, The Kill Fee is a potent mix of history, mystery and sharp observation. A great thriller for the festive period and every bit as good as the author’s initial offering, The Jazz Files.”

The Crime Writers’ Awards Dinner

This week I am back at my desk after a whirlwind week in London where I went to attend a gala awards dinner, hosted by the Crime Writers’ Association. The Jazz Files did not win the CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger award. It was pipped at the post by the very worthy Stasi Child by David Young. But what a fantastic night we had! A gang from my publishers’ Lion Hudson were there to cheer Poppy along and my husband, Rodney, came down from Newcastle with me. Here are some pics from the night. The one with my eyes closed is me waiting to hear the result …

Illustrious company. The Jazz Files alongside fellow nominees AJ Wright’s Striking Murder (wonderful book) and David Young’s Stasi Child (a worthy winner).
Me and editor Jessica Tinker in our flapulous 1920s gear. Photo courtesy of the very lovely Amy Boucher Pye from the Woman Alive Book Club who was also there to cheer us on.
And the winner is … not me!
Pride in the pride. Me with Lion Fiction editors Tony Collins who first commissioned the Poppy Denby series, and current editor the flapulous Jessica Tinker
Me and fellow Lioness Elizabeth Flynn, author of the D.I. Costello crime series.

Flappers, fops and murder

Anyone in the Newcastle area on Monday 26 September, between 5 – 6.30pm (you can come straight from work), I am giving a talk at the central library on writing historical crime fiction in the jazz age. The event is free and there will be tea and biscuits. This is aimed at the general public and writers and readers of historical crime fiction.

(Please note this is not the launch party of The Kill Fee – I will be sending out invitations to that later!)

For more information and to book your free ticket click here.

CWA Historical Dagger shortlist

I am delighted to hear that The Jazz Files is on the short list for this year’s Crime Writers’ Association Endeavour Historical Dagger award. The Daggers are sort of the Baftas of British crime writing. The winner will be announced at a swanky dinner in London on 11 October. In the meantime Poppy Denby and I are toasting each other with pink champagne and wondering what to wear!

This is what the judging panel said about the book:

“This first entry in a new series featuring a female journalist in 1920s London is, like its heroine, buoyant and stylish but with a core of steel. Poppy Denby arrives in London from the north of England determined to make it as a journalist and gets her chance when she has to finish a murdered reporter’s investigation into the death of a suffragette. The Roaring Twenties are beautifully evoked.” – the CWA judging panel http://thecwa.co.uk/the-jazz-files/

If you haven’t already read The Jazz Files, why not remedy that now? The sequel, The Kill Fee, will be coming out on 16 September. You can click on the book covers on the right hand side of this page to buy them. Cheers!

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