Letter to Readers

September, 2025

Hello, dear readers!

New book alert!

My last novel for the year is now up on websites for preorder and I can start giving you the information!

THE CURSE OF ILL-GOTTEN GAINS, Volume 12 in The Casebook of Barnaby Adair, will be released on October 16, 2025. 

When the genial and highly regarded Sir Montague Underhill is found murdered in his own orchard, Inspector Stokes is dispatched, together with Barnaby and Penelope Adair, to Patchcote Grange to uncover the culprit. But a fashionable house party provides a large cast of potential suspects, and when the investigators learn what business Sir Montague had been dabbling in, the challenge before them grows even larger.

Richard Percival has bowed to familial pressure and agreed to attend a tonnish house party at Patchcote Grange, where the gathering’s unabashed aim is to introduce eligible gentlemen to suitable young ladies. Two of Richard’s elderly aunts have assured him that Miss Rosalind Hemmings will make him the perfect wife, and after meeting Miss Hemmings over dinner on the first evening of the party, Richard is sufficiently intrigued to be willing to learn—indeed, he’s even looking forward to learning—more of the unusually direct young lady.

But on coming downstairs the following morning, he hears an anguished scream for help. On racing outside to the orchard from whence the scream came, he finds his possibly-intended standing over the very dead body of their universally well-regarded host, Sir Montague Underhill. This is clearly a matter for Scotland Yard, and Richard wastes no time in summoning Barnaby and Penelope Adair and Inspector Stokes to the company’s aid. For, indeed, very soon, it becomes blatantly clear that the murderer is one of those presently residing in the house.

On arriving at the Grange, Penelope, Barnaby, and Stokes are confronted with a dauntingly large cast of potential suspects. Wedding through the throng takes time, but on uncovering Sir Montague’s private means of earning a little extra cash, it becomes ever more likely that his murderer is, indeed, one of the guests at the house. All too soon, the questions facing the investigators become whether Sir Montague learned a secret someone was desperate to conceal, and if so, what secret was powerful enough to compel an otherwise reasonable man to murder?

THE CURSE OF ILL-GOTTEN GAINS is available for pre-order in all formats - audio, print and digital. If you can’t see a link on my website to your favourite retailer, keep an eye out as it will be there shortly, it’s just working its way through the systems!

Click on the cover below for full details -

As usual I have also set up a competition to celebrate the release of THE CURSE OF ILL-GOTTEN GAINS. Entries are now open, and will be closing on the 12th of October. Click HERE to enter and good luck!

This novel is my last for a little while now, I will have one releasing next year, which I hope to have up for preorder either late this year or early next year. More information will be forthcoming in the next few months!

As always, stay safe, and if all else fails, sit down and read a good book!

Looking Ahead:

October 16, 2025 - THE CURSE OF ILL-GOTTEN GAINS, Volume 12 in the Casebook of Barnaby Adair series.

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!

Stephanie