Welcome
Welcome to my website, as autumn takes hold here in Yorkshire. "Back-endish" we call it. Heavy rains and strong winds batter our gardens by day, and cold nights give a foretaste of winter. Well, if I'd wanted a tropical climate, I shouldn't have chosen to live in Yorkshire! And whatever the season, it's always the perfect weather for losing oneself in a good book...especially if it's a good mystery.
My books will take you travelling back in time two thousand years, to explore mysteries set in the Roman Empire. The latest book is a collection of short mysteries, A PINCH OF PURE CUNNING, and my innkeeper Aurelia Marcella appears in several of them. It's published by Matador here in the UK, in both paperback and ebook versions. AND I'm selling signed copies from this website. I can post them out to pretty well anywhere in the world, and for UK readers, there's a very special 2023 discount. Visit my short stories page for more details.
My Aurelia Marcella novels tell of life and death in first-century Roman Britain. The turbulent province of Britannia on the very edge of the Roman Empire makes a good background for murder and mayhem. They all feature innkeeper Aurelia as a reluctant sleuth, who just wants to live a quiet life, at peace with her neighbours. Does she manage it? I'll give you one guess! The books are published in the USA and Canada by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, and in the UK, Australia and New Zealand by Head of Zeus. They are available in print and as ebooks: the choice is yours. You can buy them individually in all ebook formats, and there's a box set of the first three of Aurelia's adventures in a single ebook collection, published by Head of Zeus in London.
In SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT, the first in the sequence, we learn how Aurelia was originally drawn into solving crimes, and the danger she found herself in as a result. We meet her family at their mansio (inn) near York, and encounter the varied mixture of people who live in northern Britannia: Roman settlers and soldiers, native British tribesmen, some friendly and some hostile…and of course several characters who are not at all what they seem. SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT is published in hardback, trade paperback and all formats of ebook in the UK. The print versions are not all that widely available, sad to say, but don't panic: you can buy signed copies direct from my website. Full details are on my Buy Books page. Whet your appetite by reading the book’s first few pages.
UK print versions of the later Aurelia books aren’t out yet, but all of them will continue to be published in the USA by Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks. They are still available from on-line bookstores, and UK readers can buy signed copies from my Buy Books page. And if you like to read by listening, the first three in the series are available as MP3 audiobooks from this website.
As well as my own short story collection, I have some short stories published in crime-themed anthologies. There are Roman tales, and some modern-day mysteries too. Short story anthologies are a wonderful way to sample the work of writers you haven't read before, and of course writers you already know and want to read again.
If you'd like to get in touch, my email address is jacopsey@gmail.com. (Sorry, to prove you're not a robot, please cut and paste this into your browser.) Or you can find me on X (formerly Twitter). Don't be shy about dropping me a line. I love hearing from you.
Paginae renovatae IV Kal Nov MMDCCXXVII A.U.C.