A cozy mystery series
The Life List Mysteries
A retired schoolteacher, a stubborn donkey, and a list of birds forty-six years out of date. Every bird she spots leads to a mystery.
Book One on pre-order · 14 January 2027
What it is
Gentle, witty and full of birds
Edie Thorne starts on the road at an age when most people are told to stop. She travels Kelvara by painted cart, and wherever she goes, the birds notice what people would rather she did not.
These are proper mysteries. Several suspects stay in the frame until the reveal, the clues are fair, and the answer is never the one you settled on at the halfway mark. The humour is dry and the tone is kind, and no animal is ever hurt.
The series is set in Kelvara, the same world as Sold as Weeds and Uncharted Skills, and you need nothing from either to start. Verdict, the system that names things, is here too, and it is as literal as ever.
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Book One
Not a Murder of Crows
[Life List: 31.][Notation: the last entry is forty-six years old.][Notation: counting resumes.]
Edie Thorne has rung her last school bell. On the day she retires, her roof falls in. The next morning, a painted cart and an old grey donkey are waiting at her door, with a note that ends: You alwayes said one day.
She has no idea who sent it.
Edie's life list of birds stopped at thirty-one when she was sixteen. Now a dry, very literal voice called Verdict has started counting again. So she takes to the road with Arnold, a donkey with opinions, and Inkwell, a cat nobody invited.
In the first village she reaches, the birds have gone quiet, and a line of black shapes sits on the church roof every evening.
Everyone knows what that means.
Edie isn't so sure.
Gentle, witty and full of birds, this is a cozy mystery for anyone who has ever been told it is too late to start.
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The road party
Four travellers, one cart
Edie did not plan any of them. They are staying anyway.
A retired schoolteacher with a sharp eye, a long memory and a life list that stopped at thirty-one. She notices everything and says about half of it.
An old grey donkey. Stubborn, opinionated and entirely reliable, in that order. He pulls the cart. He decides where it stops.
A green-eyed cat who comes and goes as he pleases. Nobody invited him. Edie has called him a useless pot of ink, and he has not been offended.
The voice that counts the birds. Dry, exact and very literal. It answers the question it was asked and keeps the rest to itself.
The five books
A new book every two weeks
Five books, released two weeks apart, so you are never left waiting long.
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01
Not a Murder of Crows
Ebook Thursday 14 January 2027
Pre-order now -
02
Merely a Mischief
Ebook Thursday 28 January 2027
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03
Pecking Order
Ebook Thursday 11 February 2027
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04
Fly-by-Night
Ebook Thursday 25 February 2027
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05
Who Goes There
Ebook Thursday 11 March 2027
Pre-orders for the later books open as each release gets close. The Quiet Cup will tell you the day they do.
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One letter when there is news, and never when there is not. Release days, early chapters, and the occasional bird with something to say.
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