Nicki Thornton’s crime fiction debut Little Bookshop of Murders is a twisty and witty murder mystery set around the world of a bookshop and is the start of a series.

It follows Nicki’s bestselling crime fiction fantasy thrillers for children.

The Last Chance Hotel won the Times Children’s Fiction Prize and was nominated for awards including the Carnegie Medal, the CrimeFest Best Crime Novel for Children and Specsavers National Book Award, and for the Prix Elbakin.Net for fantasy writing in France.

She has been described by Waterstones as ‘one of the most original children’s writers around’. Her books have been translated into more than 15 languages.

Little Bookshop of Murders is the the first book for Nicki’s new publishing company, Chimneys Publishing.

Nicki ran her own bookshop for more than ten years and moved into mentoring other booksellers as well as launching a writing career. She discovered bookshops are places where gossip is shared and you learn a lot about everyone locally! So having been a lifelong fan of crime fiction, she decided it would be the perfect place to set a murder mystery series.

Nicki remains a huge supporter of anything that promotes reading for pleasure. She also reads way too much and you can find out what she’s reading in her newsletter as well as following the progress of the next books.

Nicki speaks regularly in bookshops, literary festivals, libraries and schools, about her own writing and her love of mystery writing in general.