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Reposted by Robin Stevens

Louie Stowell @louiestowell.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Shirt alert at an incredible launch for Cressida Cowell's new book with @redbreastedbird.bsky.social. Dragons! Pic by @primarylibrarian (on insta, still trying to tempt all the librarians onto here...). @cressidacowell.bsky.social is a force of nature, and a force for good. #KidLitUK

Me and robin stevens wearing wildly clashing patterned outfits and clutching copies of Dragon School by Cressida Cowell. Behind us is some art cos we're in a fancy place for fancy people.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Oh thats adorable. Only a hundred years too late!

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

I now take the official policy that if a kid tells me they’re doing a report on me that needs a response for a good grade, I reply telling them to tell their teacher to give everyone in the class an A and cancel the assignment. I’m simply not having it any more on the children’s behalf.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Also, half of them are going to write to Roald Dahl or Enid Blyton, who are famously dead. They are going to get a bad grade because of the ravages of time! Why are you putting us all through this. Just get them to research our Wikipedia pages and end this madness.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Teachers, I am once again begging you to stop giving your pupils assignment where they have to write to and get a response from an author. Do not make us part of a child’s homework grade! We are inevitably only going to find time to reply six weeks after the assignment is due, if at all.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Happy Pride from the Murder Most Unladylike family all around the world. I hope that wherever you are, and whoever you are, my books can feel like home to you. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

A Progress Pride flag made up of international editions of MMU and MUA

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

And here it is: the gorgeous cover of #AStockingFullofSpies! Illustrated by @janbiel.bsky.social and published by @puffinbooksuk.bsky.social on 11th September this year! Pre-order from @waterstones.bsky.social now … www.waterstones.com/book/the-min...

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

The cover of A Stocking Full of Spies is … gold! And all will be revealed next week …

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

And for your next mission … can you guess the colour of A Stocking Full of Spies’s cover before all is revealed on Friday?

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

And the title of Ministry of Unladylike Activity 3 is … A Stocking Full of Spies! Out on the 11th of September 2025! And keep an eye out for the full cover, being revealed very soon …

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Let the games begin! Please find attached a clue to the title of Ministry of Unladylike Activity 3, out from @puffinbooksuk.bsky.social in September. It’s hidden in the first paragraph of the book … can you unscramble it in time for the big reveal on Wednesday?

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Reposted by Robin Stevens

John @johnjbooks.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

New books. @redbreastedbird.bsky.social @matthewhubbard.bsky.social Hannah Hendy Uketsu Sosuke Natsukawa

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

It’s Daisy Wells’s birthday, and to celebrate @puffinbooksuk.bsky.social have released this lovely special edition of Arsenic for Tea! With stencilled edges & a brand new intro from me, it’s available from all good bookstores, including @waterstones.bsky.social! www.waterstones.com/book/arsenic...

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Reposted by Robin Stevens

Nic @neoden.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

@redbreastedbird.bsky.social I made a Murder Most Unladylike cake for my son’s birthday. Hope you like it! #MMUL

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

That guide includes a free printable crest but if you want to go ham and actually buy something, may I suggest my official MMU merch from @litpinsandco.bsky.social? The range is GORGEOUS and includes an iron-on Deepdean patch! litpinsandco.com/collections/...

litpinsandco.com

Officially Licensed - Deepdean School Crest Patch | Murder Most Unlady

Be part of Deepdean School for Girls with the officially licensed school crest with this exclusive patch - ready to attach to any jumper, blazer or bag.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

One week to go until #WBD2025 and if YOU, like me, are a parent panicking about your child’s costume, may I suggest one of my characters? They just wear normal school uniforms with a hat and a magnifying glass, and I have a full guide in this post from 2020: robin-stevens.co.uk/dress-like-t...

robin-stevens.co.uk

Dress like the Detective Society for World Book Day 2020! - Robin Stevens

It's almost World Book Day 2020! The official date is 5th March, but schools will be celebrating all that week - and so will I!

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Look what arrived! My officially licensed #MurderMostUnladylike pins from @litpinsandco.bsky.social! I think they are unbelievably fancy and beautiful and you can order yours from litpinsandco.com/collections/... now!

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Yes, she would have been! She was the only journalist with them - she didn’t make it all the way up but she broke the news they’d done it.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

That is so great! I must say there’s a lot of misgendering on old articles about her, so it’s really nice when people do get it right!

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

It always just makes me so emotional. What a force their relationship had to have been!

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Here they are, in their garden, in the later years of their lives.

Elizabeth and Jan Morris, two old ladies with white hair, smiling together in an English garden.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Jan and Elizabeth have always stayed in my mind as an example of what love can be. Of course, no one can really know the truth of a relationship apart from the people in it. I’m sure it was messy and hard. But at the same time, the record is clear: two marriages, 59 years apart, to the same person.

About
Born: 2 October 1926, Clevedon
Died: 20 November 2020 (age 94 years), Ysbyty Bryn Beryl
Hospital
Spouse: Elizabeth Tuckniss (m. 2008), Elizabeth Tuckniss (m. 1949)
Children: Twm Morys, Henry Morris, Suki Morys, Mark
Morris

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

To love someone so much you would divorce them! To care about another person’s happiness to that extent! To love someone’s soul, not just their body, and to stay loyal to each other even when everything else changes around you. It boggled my mind then, but I think I understand it now.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

I remember hearing about this (I didn’t know about the renewed vows part, that hadn’t happened) and being so deeply struck by it. I was trying to understand what love was, how it worked and how far it might stretch, and this seemed to me like one of the clearest answers I had come across.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Now, what I am *not* saying is that they separated. They didn’t. They lived together for the whole rest of Jan’s life (she died in 2020). They were re-married in a civil partnership service in 2008 (4 years after civil partnerships were created in the UK, 5 years before gay marriage was legal).

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

She had married Elizabeth, her wife, in 1949, and the couple had five children together. Of course, though, you couldn’t be a woman married to a woman in the 1960s. If Jan wanted to legally become a woman, she couldn’t be married to Elizabeth. So the pair made the decision to divorce.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Jan began transitioning in 1964, in the middle of her career, when she was already pretty famous (she was in the 1953 party who summited Everest - if you think you don’t know her work you probably do) - hers was really one of the first well-known transitions to happen in the UK.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

However! One woman got through, and her name was Jan Morris. Now, Jan was an Oxford native, and a graduate of my primary school. She was an immensely successful journalist, and so she was brought up a lot to us as an old pupil who had done great things. She was *also* a trans woman.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Background to this: I grew up in Oxford in the 1990s. This was a time when it would absolutely not have occurred to most adults that kids might need or want queer role models - and, of course, when even supportive adults had to navigate section 28.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

In honour of Valentine’s Day, I would like to present my favourite historical love story.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Alive but in Hong Kong, which May feels very upset about!

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Reposted by Robin Stevens

Rashmi Sirdeshpande @rashmiwriting.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Proud to be supporting READ IT FORWARD. 10% of all children's book sales go to @booktrust.org.uk & @scottishbooktrust.bsky.social on @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social in February. I've got a BIG list of book recommendations for inspiration right here: uk.bookshop.org/shop/rashmis... #KidLitUK

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Oh that poor man. This is so funny.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Did I think I was doing this? No. Was I aware of this as a holistic project at all? No. Did my father die in 2021, as I was writing the first book in the series? He did. . I wrote a tragic dead dad series and *I didn’t even notice.* Don’t ever bother interviewing me again just read my books.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

One thing I really believe strongly is that we should NOT listen to creators too carefully when they tell us what they think their works are about. My evidence for this is the fact that I realised TODAY that all three of the main characters in MUA have arcs about losing their fathers in some manner.

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Reposted by Robin Stevens

Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

The takeover of Twitter was a preview of what we're all living with now and a stark example of why you can't let any one person have too much money: they go insane and make themselves everybody's problem

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

I am very, very careful about getting details right in my books until it comes to military ranks or British peerages. Captain? Major? Commander? Lord? Baronet? Whatever, I don’t care, knowing this feels like narc behaviour.

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

There are 128 other people in the world who always start Wordle with ROBIN and I want to know who they are.

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Reposted by Robin Stevens

Dr Andrew McInnes @drbeard79.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Wilbur is relaxing on his 😂 cushion, contemplating one of @redbreastedbird.bsky.social’s Murder Most Unladylike puzzles

Our black cat Wilbur atop a yellow cushion

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Robin Stevens @redbreastedbird.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Signing off for Christmas. Be good, don’t be weird, I’ll be back in 2025.

Me in a red jumper with Christmas lights lit up all over me

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