Alisa Krasnostein 
Murder and good cooking don’t often go together, but Tasmanian author Livia Day has combined the two in her first crime novel “A Trifle Dead”, a fun murder mystery set across the city centre and suburbs of Hobart, due for release in March 2013.
The book will be launched by Stephanie Smith at the Hobart Bookshop in Salamanca Square on Thursday 28 March at 5:30 PM. TehaniWessely will MC the event.
A Trifle Dead is narrated by Tabitha Darling, a young cafe owner with a penchant for gossip, as she is caught up, perhaps not quite unwittingly, in a series of crimes in her neighbourhood.
Livia Day is the crime-writing pseudonym of Tasmanian author Tansy Rayner Roberts, author of the award-winning ” Creature Court” series published by Voyager, and the internationally acclaimed “Love and Romanpunk” published by Twelfth Planet Press.
“A Trifle Dead” is also the first novel to be published by Deadlines, the new imprint from Australian boutique publisher Twelfth Planet Press. “A Trifle Dead” and other Twelfth Planet Press books can be purchased online attwelfthplanetpress.com.
MORE ABOUT LIVIA DAY, TANSY RAYNER ROBERTS & A TRIFLE DEAD
Tasmania has caught international attention in recent years as a tourism destination and a centre of the arts. New crime novel A Trifle Dead by Livia Day was designed to show what an energetic and dynamic Hobart is to live in these days.
“When I was growing up, so many novels I found using Tasmania as a setting were pretty grim,” says Roberts. “I wanted to put the Hobart that I knew on the page – a place of creativity and indie fashion boutiques, crazy art projects, social media and delicious food. It’s not all convict history and ghosts around here. Since I first started writing this book, the outside perception of Hobart has changed a lot – even Lonely Planet thinks we’re a great place to visit! Our fiction should reflect that, and I’m doing my bit to show a more positive Tasmania than I got to read about when I was younger.”
Tansy Rayner Roberts sold her first novel at the age of nineteen. Mostly writing in the fantasy genre, she has had six novels published by major publishing houses, and a boutique short fiction collection, Love and Romanpunk from Twelfth Planet Press.Twelfth Planet Press is an independent publishing house based out of Perth, Western Australia. In recent years they have published works by such notable speculative fiction authors as Margo Lanagan, Lucy Sussex, Robert Shearman and Marianne de Pierres.Tansy and Twelfth Planet Press have had a successful working relationship for many years: the novelette “Siren Beat,” in which mythological creatures invaded the city of Hobart, won the prestigious international Washington SFA Small Press award, and only last year Tansy’s story “The Patrician” from Love and Romanpunk won the same award, making her the first author to win it twice.
Now Twelfth Planet Press are launching a crime imprint, Deadlines, with A Trifle Dead, and Tansy is launching a new pen-name, Livia Day, to mark her shift in genres.Twelfth Planet Press hope to publish many more novels in this range. Livia Day is already contracted for a sequel, Drowned Vanilla, set in a fictional town near Huonville and there will be further announcements about Deadlines later in the year.
Tansy is an award-winning blogger and an accomplished audio presenter. Last year, she received a Hugo nomination for Galactic Suburbia, a podcast about the publishing industry. Her upcoming public speaking events include a presentation at the Stranger With My Face film festival in Hobart, a panel at the Anime Island convention, and a Sisters in Crime event in Melbourne in June.
A Trifle Dead by Livia Day
Paperback • 300pp • RRP $19.95
ISBN 978-0-9872162-9-8
Livia Day’s website: http://www.liviaday.com/
Tansy Rayner Roberts’ blog: http://tansyrr.com/
Twelfth Planet Press: http://www.twelfthplanetpress.com/
