The Bookshop Mysteries series originated from a murder idea the author had while writing a science fiction series. After discussing the idea with his wife, they developed the concept for the Bookshop Mysteries, setting it in their hometown of Belper, Derbyshire. They decided to collaborate on the writing process, with the author writing the first draft and his wife editing, and successfully published the first book, A Bitter Pill, in September 2025.

We have had many people ask us about our writing process and more general behind-the-scenes details about how we write our books. We did consider sending that type of information out in the newsletter, but it didn’t feel right to keep spamming our readers as, let’s be honest, we all get far too much email.