REVENGE IN RUBIES
by A.M. Stuart
Thank you so much for the invitation to your blog, Alice.
For those who don’t know, Alice and I have been the writerly equivalent of pen pals (she lives in Canada and I live in Australia) for a long time and Alice, more than anyone, has been there chivvying me along through disappointments, frustrations and inertia and was the first to cheer when I finally ‘broke through’ and published my first Historical Mystery, SINGAPORE SAPPHIRE, through Penguin USA in 2019.
REVENGE IN RUBIES is the second in the Harriet Gordon Mysteries and is released on 15 September. For those new to the world of Harriet Gordon, the stories are set in Singapore in 1910 and feature two protagonists, Harriet Gordon and Inspector Robert Curran of the Straits Settlement Police.
I was fortunate to spend three years living in Singapore and it was during that time that I first met Harriet Gordon in the microfiche room of the Singapore National Library.
Of course, she wasn’t known as Harriet Gordon, her name was Mrs Howell and in March 1905 she placed an advertisement in the Straits Times, offering her services as a Stenographer and Typist. She guaranteed “RAPID & CAREFUL work together with ABSOLUTE SECRECY” (the capitals are hers). The now long forgotten Mrs. Howell’s advertisement jumped off the microfiche at me. I loved her commitment to ABSOLUTE SECRECY, and slowly the character of Harriet Gordon, widow, typist, stenographer and failed suffragette began to form.
Over the next few years, I started to rebuild her world – a colonial Singapore you can barely glimpse in the modern, go ahead city of Singapore but there are maps, images, contemporary travel guides and those all important newspapers from the period to guide me.
Of course, Harriet does not exist in isolation. She has friends and family and most importantly (for Harriet) her partner in crime, the enigmatic Inspector Robert Curran, head of the Detective Branch of the Straits Settlements Police Force.
There are so many stories brewing in the tropical heat of the Malay Peninsula- where truth and corpses tend to decompose quickly- and I am delighted that Penguin has agreed to publish a 3rd book in the series (my current work in progress) so I am hoping Harriet will be around for a little while yet!
If you like puzzles, here’s a link to a jigsaw of the cover for Revenge in Rubies.
https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=05c50e12a3d0 I
Instead of a head shot, Alison sent this photo of the two of us having coffee in Vancouver a few years ago. She’s the one on the right. How often do two friends from the opposite corners of the world get to have a coffee date?
Thanks Alison, for sharing Harriet Gordon with my readers. I hope she as successful at solving mysteries in Revenge in Rubies as she was in Singapore Sapphire.
The book is available for sale here :https://books2read.com/RevRub
Views: 82
Did the puzzle! Holy Hanna, 300 pieces! I did it in 79 minutes, but unfortunately I wasn’t signed in. – sigh –
Now that I’m so familiar with the book cover, I guess I’ll have to read the book!
Glad you followed up on the puzzle. Alison introduced me to on-line puzzles with her first cover and I’m hooked. As though I didn’t have enough distractions in a day, I now waste hours on jigsaw puzzles, especially cats. I have quite a collection of “saved” cat pictures!
Thanks for commenting. Oh, BTW, I ordered the paperback version of Revenge in Rubies. I prefer books to kindles so next week I can put down the puzzles and pick up the book.
Thank you for having me as your guest this week, Alice! You were there at the very beginning of Harriet’s adventures!
Ah, you’ve wakened up on the other side of the world. Happy spring to you. Thanks for sharing your book launch with this blog.