They don’t come around all that often, so it’s important to celebrate the moment when your new book finally arrives from the publisher.

In the case of Murder by the Book, the parcel arrived appropriately enough just before Christmas, giving me the added excitement of an author unboxing ahead of the big day itself. If you follow me on social media, you might have seen the video.

The novel is the first in a new series, The Cosy Crime Club Mysteries, and is published by the HarperCollins imprint One More Chapter on January 23, 2026, as an ebook and audiobook, and on January 29 in paperback. It’s closely followed by A Game of Murder, out on March 6 in ebook and audio, then March 12 in paperback, and From Murder With Love later in the year.

The series follows the fortunes of The Quaint Bookshop reading group (definitely not a book club!) as they investigate the murder of the shop manager. And once they’ve got a taste for the kind of adventure they normally only read about in detective fiction, there’s no stopping them.

The second and third instalments take them to a country house cut off from the outside world by a blizzard, and the intriguing world of international espionage in the footsteps of a certain secret agent, as they attempt to solve the mysteries that appear to dog them incessantly.

If you love your cosy crime, they should be right up your street and are available to order now.