Stephanie Laurens February News

Stephanie Laurens’ Into 2025 Newsletter, February 13, 2025

Getting swept away by a good story is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Happy New Year to you all! It has been a hot and dry summer here so far, and today is just the same. Some of the rural schools have closed today and everyone is trying to find somewhere cool to rest.

 

In between enjoying some good novels and the summer heat in the last month, my team has finalised my first book release for 2025 – MARRIAGE AND MURDER! This novel is the next and 10th novel in the series The Casebook of Barnaby Adair. In this novel, we catch up with Henry, Lord Glossup. 

 

When a middle-aged spinster is found strangled in her country cottage and scurrilous gossip implicates Henry, Lord Glossup, he appeals to Barnaby and Penelope Adair along with Inspector Stokes to unravel the mystery of who killed Viola Huntingdon.

 

Henry, Lord Glossup, arrives on Barnaby and Penelope Adairs’ doorstep and begs their aid—and that of Stokes—in identifying the murderer of Viola Huntingdon, a middle-aged spinster who lived a largely blameless life in a country cottage in a tiny village close to Henry’s home. As Stokes has already been tapped to take the case, the investigators travel to Salisbury and thence to Ashmore village and throw themselves into the case.

 

While initially Henry was touted as a suspect, he is quickly eliminated, and with the help of the victim’s sister, Madeline, the investigators set out to discover all they can about the victim and who might have wished her ill. In such a small village, with a commensurately small population, the list of possible suspects is short, but the existence of Viola’s ‘secret admirer, H’ has everyone stumped. First, how could Viola, living in such a small community, have had a secret visitor, a man no one saw except at a distance? And who on earth is he, this H?

 

As the investigators piece together the clues of missing jewelry and sightings of H and follow the leads generated by opportunistic thieves, dodgy jewelers, and local moneylenders, a picture emerges that points to only one conclusion. But in small villages, things are rarely as they seem. Have the investigators got the right man in their sights, or have they been led astray?

 

 

MARRIAGE AND MURDER is now available for pre-order in print, audio and digital formats. The book will be released on March 20, 2025. Click on the cover for a full description and click on the retailers link below to arrange your copy.

We have also opened a new competition to celebrate the release of Henry’s story, MARRIAGE AND MURDER. Click HERE to get your chance to win one of five novels in your preferred format! Entries are open, and close on March 17, 2025. Good luck!

 

Apart from MARRIAGE AND MURDER, at this stage I will be releasing just one other book for 2025. I’ve got a few other projects on the go, and think it’s time to start sitting back and enjoy the slower pace of life just a little more :).

Stephanie.

Looking Ahead:

March 20, 2025 – MARRIAGE AND MURDER, Volume 10 of The Casebook of Barnaby Adair Novels.

 

The complete list of my recent and upcoming releases can be found on my LETTER TO READERS or website home page, which is updated monthly on my website.

 

As ever, I truly appreciate your wonderful support. As long as you are there, wanting to read my stories, I’m happy to keep writing them! 

 

NEXT NEWSLETTER: March 20th, 2025 – STEPHANIE’S HENRY IS HERE NEWSLETTER, with information on my latest release and competition winners!