A Very Vexing Murder, the debut novel of Lucy Andrew, and the first book in the Harriet Smith Investigates series, will be published on 5th March 2026 by Corvus, part of Atlantic Books.

A Very Vexing Murder is a cosy crime retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma which transforms Emma’s timid little sidekick, Harriet Smith, into a feisty con-woman-turned-detective who is hired to investigate a murder that hasn’t yet been committed.

Dr Lucy Andrew is a crime writer, and crime fiction scholar from Wolverhampton. She is a former Senior Lecturer in English Literature and former Programme Leader of the English degree at University Centre Shrewsbury (University of Chester), with a PhD in English Literature from Cardiff University. She is an avid fan of Jane Austen and cosy crime and decided to combine her two passions to create a Jane Austen Regency world of murder, mystery and mayhem.

After a sellout talk at the Wolverhampton Literature Festival in February, Lucy is launching A Very Vexing Murder at Waterstones Wolverhampton on Friday 13th March at 6pm, where she will be interviewed by Leo Vardiashvili, the Birmingham-based author of the acclaimed Hard By A Great Forest. You can purchase tickets for the launch event here.

‘It’s so special to launch the book at Waterstones Wolverhampton,’ Lucy Andrew said. ‘This was my childhood bookshop, the place where I roamed in my teens and dreamed of seeing my book on the shelves. It feels amazing that this is now a reality and the staff at Waterstones Wolverhampton have been so supportive of A Very Vexing Murder.’

The West Midlands literary community is very important to Lucy. She is co-organiser of the Society of Authors West Midlands group, a member of the Crime Writers’ Association Midlands branch and the Room 204 Writers’ Development Programme, run by Writing West Midlands. She is also a Lead Writer for Writing West Midlands’ Spark Young Writers Programme. She is a regular participant in the Wolverhampton Literature Festival and has run sellout events at the festival for the past three years. Lucy volunteers at her childhood local library, Penn Library, in Wolverhampton, where she also co-runs the Penn 2 Paper creative writing group and is a member of the Penn Crime Club. Lucy is also holding a launch for her book at Penn Library on Friday 20th March at 11am.

‘Penn Library holds a very dear place in my heart. I spent many hours there as a child, particularly in the school holidays, and it was where I picked up a copy of The Secret of Shadow Ranch – the book that began my Nancy Drew obsession and my desire to write and study detective fiction. I now volunteer at Penn Library and Wolverhampton Library staff have been brilliant cheerleaders for my work. I’m so looking forward to sharing my book with the Penn Library community.’

Another huge local influence on Lucy’s life is her beloved secondary school, Wolverhampton Girls’ High School, which Lucy will be visiting as part of the school’s Creative Careers fortnight.

‘I’m delighted to have the opportunity to speak to Girls’ High girls about my journey to becoming an author and the creative career paths that are open to them,’ Andrew said. ‘In a climate where creative careers are not always valued, it’s incredibly important to demonstrate to young people that there are creative career paths open to them and to demystify the world of writing and publishing. Revisiting my alma mater is particularly special to me as it’s the place where I discovered my love of Jane Austen and came up with the spark of the idea for A Very Vexing Murder.

I studied Jane Austen’s Emma at A-Level and had brilliant teachers who helped me to fall in love with Austen. One of those teachers, Ms Whittington, tasked us with writing a piece of Emma fan fiction. Along with my friend Becky, I was deeply suspicious of the convenient timing of Mrs Churchill’s death, which allowed her nephew, Frank Churchill to marry his secret fiancée, Jane Fairfax, of whom his aunt would certainly have disapproved. We decided that Frank must be somehow involved in his aunt’s death and so we wrote the opening of a Jane Austen murder mystery! I don’t think it’s what Ms Whittington intended when she set the task but, clearly, it stuck with me as, over twenty years later, the idea has expanded into a published Austen murder mystery novel. If it wasn’t for the Girls’ High, this book wouldn’t exist.’

At her launch event on 13th March, Lucy will be sharing her inspirations for A Very Vexing Murder, discussing why Jane Austen’s Emma is such appropriate source material for a detective retelling and explaining why she chose Harriet Smith as the heroine of her novel, as well as signing copies of the book.

‘I’m very excited to be sharing my novel with the people of Wolverhampton,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s a dream come true to be celebrating my book launch in the city that introduced me to Jane Austen and taught me to write.’

If you want to find out more about Lucy’s books and research, you can sign up for her Secret Sleuths Club for access to her monthly newsletter and her exclusive Secret Sleuths Club article ‘Five ways Jane Austen paved the way for Golden-Age detective fiction’.