The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder blog tour is through Rachel’s Random Resources. Share, comment, follow, enter the giveaway.
Book Details
The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder (The Crooked Medium 1)
London 1881. Can two crooked women stop a murder?
Extravagant medium Mrs Ashton and her lover, blunt working-class Mrs Bradshaw, run a spiritualist scam. Mrs Ashton secretly reads minds.
Believing that Mrs Ashton is genuine, grieving Lady Violet craves the truth behind her mother’s untimely death. But Lady Violet’s powerful husband Sir Charles hates spiritualists. Has he killed before?
Uncovering this MP’s wicked crimes will put all three women in terrible danger…
To solve a shocking murder, look both sides of the grave.
“I loved this book! Victorian murder mystery meets “ghost” story, with delicious sprinklings of compassion and mischief…”
Caroline Day, author of Sunday Times Bestseller Hope Nicely’s Lessons for Life
Purchase Links
https://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crooked-Mediums-Guide-Murder-Victorian-ebook/dp/B0FLK68742/
https://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Mediums-Guide-Murder-Victorian-ebook/dp/B0FLK68742/
Exciting News: Book 2 in the Crooked Medium series is now available for pre-order!! – https://stephencox.co.uk/buy-terror/
Author Bio
My grandmother told me I read too much. I remember walking in the garden when I was small, telling myself stories. It was over thirty years of wanting to be a novelist before I tried… and succeeded.
The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder arose because I wanted to write about Britishness and specifically about Englishness; about our complex relationship with the past; I wanted leads who were morally grayer but still capable of kindness. It was time for a novel with queer leads. And in quite desperate times, I needed to write something with some uplift. It’s the first book intended to start a series.
My first books, Our Child of the Stars and Our Child of Two Worlds are set in the 1960s USA. It’s about Gene and Molly, a childless couple, and Cory, the little boy from the stars that they adopt, under such challenging circumstances. The books got lovely reviews and are available on both sides of the Atlantic.
I spent nearly all my childhood in Bristol, and I’m now an adoptive Londoner. I live with my partner, and it’s the best thing our two adult children come back from time to time. Our garden rages wild.
Social Media Links
Active
Website
Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/stephencoxauthor.bsky.social
Facebook Author Page
https://www.facebook.com/StephenCoxAuthor
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@StephenCoxAuthor
Free newsletter
https://stephens-newsletter-69af79.beehiiv.com
Giveaway to Win 4 x Signed Books by Stephen Cox (Open to UK Only)
Prize includes – Our Child of the Stars, Our Child of Two Worlds, The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder and the Crooked Medium’s Guide to Terror.
*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome. Please enter using the Gleam box below. The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
Win 4 x Signed Books by Stephen Cox (Open to UK Only)Author Guest Post
Stephen Cox
The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder
Questions Readers Ask Me
Of what are your three main characters most afraid?
Both Mrs Ashton and Braddie are worried about their future as aging women without secure income. They have their quarrels, but they would each be devastated without the other. Living off Mrs Ashton’s spiritualist powers is hardly steady work. Exposure of past crimes and their true nature would be dangerous. Their loving relationship has to be private: it’s not illegal in Victorian England but no-one claiming respectability would want anything to do with them. It is not just sapphic but breaks the mistress-servant barrier which is also outrageous.
Maisie’s mother died, and she had to be the grownup when her Pa was too drunk to work. She knows life can be brutal, short, and unfair. Her greatest fear is probably for her family. She’s brave, but not stupid about it.
All three now realise the world is more complicated and dangerous than they thought.
Why write a series?
The characters came to me as series characters – in fact as wily opponents of someone else. It soon became clear Mrs Ashton and Braddie were better than the idea I was working with, and anyway I had a couple of different books to finish.
I will make each book about solving a different mystery. All the reaction to the first book has convinced me there’s room for more.
There are some readers who don’t buy a series until all the books are published. That’s their right, but it’s counter-productive, because if the first book doesn’t sell, it reduces the chance of the next one even happening. Anyway, the books will largely stand alone, and I don’t know how many books I’m going to write.
How you build your character’s different voices?
I get a good starting sense, writing them flags up what I need to know, and the second draft is where the voice really has to shine. A social climber who hides her humble origins, Mrs Ashton is always on the stage. She never uses a short word when she has a long one, uses her speech as her toolbox, and quotes widely and erratically. Only when very tired or drunk, do her vowels reveal her humble origins. Braddie is plainspoken, stubborn, Northern working class – often speaking little around the powerful, for whom she feels a burning distrust. Least said, soonest mended. A radical, she surprises by how widely she’s read. Ambitious dock-lass Maisie loves books, and mixes that with dockland slang, enormous cheek, and the odd grammatical slip – sometimes deliberate to make a point.
Isn’t it ridiculous for amateurs to get involved in solving lots of crimes?
Mrs Ashton is a spiritualist and a comforting ear for the bereaved. It’s rare anyone approaches her without something on their mind. There’s a young lady not reconciled to her mother’s death two years before. Yes, Mrs Ashton sees a golden goose and rich fees, but she also feels sorry for Lady Violet and when the controlling husband gets involved, Mrs A turns stubborn. Of course, possible murders are much less common than unsaid goodbyes, lost wills, lost dogs, and other such matters. All in all, no one should have any trouble believing it when another case walks into their life.
With all the trouble in the world today, why write about the past?
Sometimes distance lets us see ourselves more clearly. It is the most glorious playground of stifling conformity, overseas adventure, and scandal behind the curtains, of new thinking and extraordinary rigidity. I am fascinated by those who beat convention. My outsiders can end up in the heart of the slums or in the parlours of the rich. And in 1880 London was the biggest city and the financial centre of the world.
The Victorian era saw a rapid growth in wealth and technology, the benefits of which were very unevenly spread. There were struggles around race, class, the role of government and of charity, international relations. Sometimes it feels close to us, and sometimes very different.
