We Have Signed with Simon & Schuster UK

We’ve had to keep this quiet since before the summer, which is easier said than done, but we’re excited to announce we have signed with Simon & Schuster UK for their new imprint Simon Stream.

For an independent author to work with a large publisher is a daunting prospect as we are so used to doing things ourselves, but the team at Simon & Schuster have been fantastic to work with. They have set our minds at ease and have been extremely transparent about how we will work together, and we look forward to opening up a new audience with them. The team we are working with have an impressive wealth of experience in publishing, and we have learnt a huge amount from them already, which helps us grow as authors.

We began speaking to Simon & Schuster back in February when they contacted us. They had noticed the sales performance and positive reviews of The Bookshop Mysteries series, and they wanted to know if we had ideas for a new series that we could pitch; as it happened, we did. Those of you who follow our updates on this blog will know we refer to that first book as MMS Book 1.

We pitched the idea for the series concept and a rough synopsis for the first three books, and they became quite excited about it. We didn’t sign straight away, but we went down to London to meet with them for a long meeting, and then had lots of follow-up meetings to discuss how this would work. From our point of view, the discussion was around what Simon & Schuster could do for us that we couldn’t do ourselves. Essentially, would the new series be in expert hands and given the care and attention that we would give it ourselves for marketing and promotion?

After lots of discussion and planning, we feel the series will be in excellent hands, and there are indeed many enormous benefits to working with them on this project, so we signed with them in June. The contract is for 4 books in this new series and does not limit us with any of our other works. Those projects remain independent, and that includes new books and series concepts in the future.

We will announce the new series soon with a cover reveal, and we can’t wait to talk about it as it’s such a fun idea. Book 1 is already written and going through post-production, and we’re almost a third of the way through book 2. We had the idea for book 1 in this new series when we were drafting The Bookshop Mysteries – A Murder at the Church, but we held off writing the draft while we honed our craft. We began drafting this new series in August 2025, so a lot of work has been happening behind the scenes.

For our fans of The Bookshop Mysteries, don’t worry. We are still writing in that series, and we are as passionate about it as the day we began. Book 7 – A Ring of Roses is coming along great; we are currently drafting the third act. We have also begun the planning process for Book 8.

2027 is going to be a fun year, and most importantly, we can’t wait for our readers to experience this new series. We had so much fun writing it, and the feedback so far has been fantastic.