Poppy and Daniel are heading to the pictures this evening. Rudolph Valentino is starring in The Sheik showing at the Electric Cinema, Chelsea, just over the road from Aunt Dot’s house.  Not quite sure what she’ll think of a plotline involving the kidnapping of a young woman who then falls in love with the desert prince. Of course, Poppy does not yet know about Stockholm Syndrome …

We can get all nostalgic about past eras and I’m the first to admit I focus on the glamour of the 1920s. But in The Jazz Files and its sequels I try to also show the darker underbelly of the period. In The Jazz Files there’s the long shadow of WWI, the Spanish Flu, the torture of suffragettes, domestic abuse, the dreadful living conditions of the poor and the forced institutionalisation of women with ‘mental health issues’. In Book 2(to come out in September 2016) there is the displacement of millions of people after the Russian Revolution and the plight of injured and unemployed servicemen in London. In Book 3, which I’ve just started, I’ve come across my first piece of misery: Pea Soup Fog! This lethal mix of mist from the Thames and noxious by-products from coal fires caused the ill-health or death of tens of thousands until the Clean Air Act of 1956 started to reverse it. Click here to see a picture of a policeman at Charing Cross in the early 1920s trying to direct traffic through the ‘pea soup’. Imagine poor Poppy having to live through that!

Blown away by the latest review of The Jazz Files on Day 5 of Poppy’s blog tour. This reviewer has seen things in the book – things I’ve layered deep into the text – that (so far) no other reviewer has seen. I’m delighted! Rather Too Fond of Books

The Yellow Wallpaper which she refers to is a short story by the feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gillman who wrote the story in light of her own post natal depression in which a woman imagines someone crawling behind the wallpaper in her convalescent room. It is a powerful story of insanity that could have been prevented if women and their ‘problems’ were treated differently. You can read it for free on the Project Guttenberg website.

… well Darlington, anyway. Check out this 60 second film about Poppy Denby filmed at the Darlington Railway Museum with actress Amber Leigh Irish playing Poppy and author Fiona Veitch Smith as the suffragette. Filmed by: Tony Glover Film & Video. Music: ‘The Black Bottom Stomp’ my Jellie Roll Morten.

I know Book 2 in the Poppy Denby Investigates series is only coming out next year, and Book 3, if the publisher likes it, the year after that, but we authors need to work in advance. In my research for book 3 which may very well be set in New York, I have found this spiffing photograph of a policeman measuring the length of women’s bathing suits in Washington DC in 1922. If Poppy and Delilah go to the beach on their Stateside jaunt this may very well happen to them http://ghostsofdc.org/…/bathing-suit-police-a…/1172/view.jpg

Here are some pics from a film shoot we did for a book trailer for The Jazz Files American launch. I’ll show you the finished film when it’s ready, but for now enjoy these stills of actress Amber Irish playing Poppy Denby as she arrives in London and starts investigating.

My author friend Anne Booth alerted me to this stunning little documentary film of London in the 1920s, shot by filmmaker Claude Friese-Green. As I watched it I imagined Poppy jumping on and off those open-air double-decker buses as she criss-crosses London trying to solve the mystery. Enjoy!

Courtesy of the British Film Institute http://www.bfi.org.uk/

Everyone had a flapulous time at the launch party at Waterstones, Newcastle on the 25 September. Here is a taste of it. You might want to view the pics to the accompaniment of the Tiger Rag by the Original Dixieland Jazzband. At the launch it was played by Yussef Nimer and Jimmy Madrell from Middlesbrough, not Dixie

If you’re in the Newcastle area on Friday 25th at 7pm do come along to the launch party for The Jazz Files. Fiona will be sporting her best flapper frock and reading from the book. You’ll be entertained by the jazz duo The Hornblowers and you will be treated to a free glass of bubbly.

Waterstones, Newcastle, 6.45 for 7pm. See you there!

Today is the day we have all been waiting for: it’s Poppy Denby’s literary birthday! As from today, The Jazz Files will be available in and through bookshops – online and on the high street. If you have not pre-ordered your book already, friends in the UK can get their book today through:

The Hive – an online outlet for independent bookstores (with free delivery on all orders)

Waterstones – even if it says it’s ‘coming soon’, that’s a website error: it is in stock!

In Australia you can order through Booktopia

In New Zealand from Fishpond

In South Africa you can pre-order the paperback from Takealot.com or get the e-book today from Amazon.co.uk (at least I hope you can. If not, you will have to wait until it becomes available in the USA – see below).

In USA – I’m so sorry my darlings, but it is only being released in the USA on 28 November! However, if you really can’t wait – and who would blame you if you couldn’t? – you can order from the UK Amazon site and have it shipped over. It’ll get there long before the 28 November! Amazon.co.uk

I do hope you enjoy getting to know Poppy and her world. Please come back and tell me if you do.

Happy Birthday Poppy!

Fiona