Really excited to let you all know Venom in the Blood, the first book in my new Dr Vanessa Marwood crime series, will be coming out in July! It's about a forensic entomologist who uses her knowledge of insects to solve gruesome crimes. I can not WAIT for you to read it and here's a little teaser for you...

If you love the sound of this, you can:
Pre-order it here: mybook.to/VenomInTheBlood

Add it as Want to Read here: Venom in the Blood

And if you love it, vote for it in this list

And here's an extract:

Prologue

There’s a trick to handling spider silk, especially when placing it into the fresh wound of a living man. Spiders have the advantage of an entire organ dedicated to the challenge. The spinneret, a cluster of nodules protruding from the abdomen like fleshy petals. Instead, we humans must use our stubby fingers for the task. One must respect the silk’s unique strength, understanding it can ensnare your fingers in mere seconds. I find performing a strange little dance with my fingers works.
This is a particular challenge right now, in the clogging heat of summer. Still so warm, even at night, as the moon casts a silvery glow over the long grass and tangled weeds before me. The chirrup of crickets seeks to distract me. The cloying stench of bluebells blurs my mind.
I take a deep breath to calm myself. Then I lift the scalpel and slice, gently, gently into the skin. I can see from the glow of my flashlight that the slit I make is barely an inch long. I wiggle the scalpel so the flesh is loosened in a way that will eventually allow the silk to fold in with grace.
There is a moan from the host as I do this, a moan that sends a shiver through me. I refuse to allow it to distract me and focus instead on replacing the scalpel with forceps, carefully extracting the silk from the phial. I take a strand between my latex‐covered thumb and forefinger. It dangles above the wound. Then I lower it towards the bloody gash, rotating my hand (the dance, remember?) so the silk disappears within the folds of flesh until all that is left is a whisper of exposed spider thread.
All done.
I stand and admire the three hosts before me, mere moments from taking their final breath. So glorious in their helpless beauty. I allow myself a few seconds to enjoy my work and then I walk away. They are no longer mine. Instead, it is time for them to be returned to the people of Greensands, and to one person in particular: Dr Vanessa Marwood.

Chapter 1

Dr Vanessa Marwood observed the lock of chestnut-brown hair before her. She liked the fact that the officers had preserved it for her. Though the fly and maggot specimens were appreciated, having something personal in her possession made the scene feel more alive in lieu of being present at the scene of the crime.
Alive seemed a strange way to describe a death scene. But death could be dynamic with all those maggots – or larvae as she preferred to call them – squirming and flies buzzing. Even this lock of hair was alive. Glossy after death. Filled with hints and clues of life. Clearly dyed, and recently too. There were no split ends either. This hair had been well cared for.
Vanessa smoothed her gloved finger over the lock. In response, the wings of a dead fly unfurled from its hiding place. Vanessa skilfully used her gold-plated forceps, a gift to celebrate her ten years at the university, to remove the decaying fly. She then placed it under the microscope. Pressing her eye against the lens, she needed a mere second to confirm it was a Calliphoridae adult or, as it is best known, a blowfly. Beneath the microscope, its metallic sheen unfolded into a network of intricate patterns, the dense complexity of its compound eyes sparkling like tiny polished gemstones.
Vanessa reached across the large aluminium table that dominated her lab for a small plastic container, and placed the specimen within on top of some lab paper to stop it growing mouldy. She then popped the lid back on and added it to the other container that had arrived from the crime scene, crammed with larvae at different stages of the life cycle, their pastel colours – white, cream and pink – giving the impression of a macabre assortment of sweets. She placed them to the side, the model of a scarab beetle her father gave her before he died watching over them like a disapproving mother. A little family of sorts, Vanessa thought.
There was a knock on the lab room door, but she ignored it, instead turning her attention to the photos she’d been sent from the crime scene. There were several of them, printed at her request to A3 size, all spread out beside her microscope.
She didn’t look at the photo of the deceased first, as other observers might. She preferred to begin by imagining them as they had once lived. So she focused on a photo of the kitchen, noticing magnetic polaroid-style frames carefully arranged on a blue Smeg fridge, all smiles and landmarks. Each featured a wavy-haired brunette who looked to be around forty, like Vanessa. The lack of any photos of children or a partner also made the two women similar. Were her reasons for having neither the same as Vanessa’s?
Unlikely.
Vanessa studied the woman’s smiling face, a face that wouldn’t seem out of place in a yoghurt advert. The laptop on the side and thick brown leather organiser hinted at a busy professional life. But from the photos on the fridge, it was clear that when the deceased wasn’t working, she made the most of her free time.
Yes, they really were similar. Except Vanessa was alive . . . and this woman was dead.
Vanessa was now ready for the photo of this woman’s last destination: her deathbed. She drew the photo towards her and sighed as she stared at the deceased woman. Her once-pretty, smiling face was in active decay stage, those rosy cheeks now blackened by putrefaction. It seemed such an insult. Death’s way of scribbling out a face in a photo. She lay at an awkward angle on top of her bed, clothed in an elegant, expensive-looking navy suit. Two apparent gunshot wounds made morbid stars in her neck and shoulder.
Vanessa studied the photos of the kitchen. Its white-tiled walls and soft pine surfaces were a crime scene investigator’s friend, making the pattern of blood on the door frames and ceiling lamp instantly stand out. There were more examples of blood matter in other photos too, spread across the walls and windows of the kitchen, hallway and bedroom of the two-bed Thameside apartment. Such a distribution of blood might suggest to less experienced eyes this was low- and medium-velocity blood spatter, implying a fight. Maybe a violent burglar was disturbed? And yet there were no other signs of a fight. No tables overturned. No broken vases. Everything was in its place. So what happened? This was where Vanessa’s unique skill set came in, called upon by the detective in charge of the case. Her thoughts
were interrupted by another knock at the door.
She reluctantly dragged her eyes away. ‘Yes?’
‘Sorry to disturb you, Doctor Marwood,’ called a soft voice. Olivia.
One of the PhD students. ‘I know you’re not to be distracted when working on a case. It’s just that he says it’s urgent.’
‘Who says it’s urgent?’ Vanessa called back through the door. ‘DCI Paul Truss. He says he’s your friend. He’s called three times now.’ Vanessa frowned. Paul Truss was an old school friend. They’d
stayed in touch during the twenty-two years since she’d moved away from their childhood village of Greensands, often having dinner when he was in London. But still, this was unexpected.
She pulled her mobile phone from the pocket of her lab coat. Ten missed calls. A WhatsApp message too. She read it.
Jesus, your staff are like the Maginot Line in France! Need your help with a case in Greensands. Serious one. CALL ME.
Serious and Greensands. Two words Vanessa didn’t like to see together. She closed her eyes and saw thistles as tall as her waist. She smelt the scent of summer so very specific to her childhood home – that intoxicating mix of arable weed petals and the rotting carcasses of baby birds pushed from their nests by magpies. She could almost feel the long grass whisper against her shins and the stern buzz of dragonfly wings in her ears. She glimpsed her brother, too, running through the grass ahead of her. One minute there, the next . . . gone. Her heart clenched as it always did when she allowed her mind to drift back in time, guilt and sadness vying for attention.
‘Doctor Marwood?’ Olivia called through the door. ‘Is everything OK?’
Vanessa snapped her eyes open, letting the memories drift away. ‘Come in, Olivia,’ she said.
The door opened and Olivia walked in, weaving between some moving boxes that were scattered around the room. She looked younger than her twenty-five years, like a juvenile deer, with her gangly legs and her soft auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail. There was a nervous look on her face as she approached the doctor. In response, Vanessa gave her a reassuring smile.
‘Holding Paul Truss off three times is impressive,’ Vanessa said. ‘He’s a persistent little bugger. I’ll call him back in a moment. But first, look at this.’
Olivia’s green eyes lit up with interest as she walked towards the table. Olivia had arrived at the university’s Forensics department the September before to focus on the influence of insects in the decomposition of charred bodies. Vanessa admired her enthusiasm. Officially, it was out of term, but here she was.
‘The context?’ Olivia asked.
‘A woman found dead with gunshot wounds in an apartment in Chelsea Harbour.’ Vanessa gestured to the photo of the kitchen, the sleeve of her lab coat riding up to expose the tattoos that crawled up her right arm. ‘What do you see?’
‘Blood spatter? Possibly from a medium-velocity impact?’ ‘Look closer. Describe it to me.’
Olivia took the dome magnifier from the side and placed it over
the middle of the spatter, leaning down to look through the glass. ‘Tadpole-like structure with random directionality.’ A satisfied smile crossed her face as it hit her. Good, Vanessa thought. She really is learning.
‘It’s not blood spatter, it’s insect speck, possibly from blowflies,’ Olivia said. ‘The flies fed on the deceased then regurgitated the blood later around the apartment, giving the impression of blood spatter.’
Vanessa nodded, feeling her own sense of satisfaction at watching a junior research assistant learn so quickly. ‘Got it in one.’
‘So what does this mean?’
‘It’s not really our job to answer that question. But between you and me, I think it’s more than likely that this woman’s life was taken by an execution-style shooting rather than the surprise attack the blood distribution first suggested.’
Olivia raised an eyebrow. ‘Execution. But that’s usually associated with drug crimes.’
‘Hmmm. It is, isn’t it?’ They both looked at the smiling photos of the pretty woman on the fridge again.
Vanessa sighed. ‘As I said, luckily it’s not our job to figure out the whys, which is just as well as I have an impatient friend to call back. You’ve had your lunch break already, right?’
Olivia nodded.
‘I’ll take my break now.’
‘You must be starving,’ Olivia remarked.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll make up for it this evening with a wildly
extravagant airport dinner. These curves don’t come from nowhere.’ Olivia’s face dropped. ‘It’s a shame you’re leaving. I get why. The New York lab looks amazing. But—’ She shrugged. ‘We’ll miss you.’ Vanessa looked around her at the tired lab and the hints of the past ten years: photos of her with students and other academics at various gatherings as her laptop’s screensaver. Small gifts of thanks she’d received too: various lab notebooks, usually insect-themed. A cute stopwatch shaped like a ladybug. Yep, she would miss this place too. But the job offer to lead entomology at a brand-new forensics lab in New York was just too much to resist. As much as she loved academic life, it was time for a change. And she’d always loved the idea of living in New York. Her mother had gone to art school there, and Vanessa had always been fascinated by her stories and the old
photos she had of her time there.
‘I’ll miss you all, too,’ she said. ‘At least you’ll have a contact if ever
you want a job in New York, right?’ Vanessa shrugged her lab coat off and replaced it with the vintage cherry-patterned raincoat she’d found at a boutique online the week before. As she got to the door of the lab, she paused and turned back towards Olivia. ‘In fact, why don’t you have a go at writing a draft of the report yourself? Only if you have time, and want to.’
The young student’s face lit up. ‘Absolutely!’
Vanessa smiled. The girl’s response brought back memories of how it felt when her own mentor, Professor Cornisen, had asked her to advise on a case while she was studying for her PhD fifteen years ago.
‘Obviously, we’ll go through it together after,’ Vanessa said. ‘It’ll be a good learning exercise. You’ll find all the details in the shared area entitled Hafferty. There are more photos in there. Print them out and track the movement of the flies from the deceased throughout the house so we get a more holistic view.’
Vanessa strode to the door, and down the corridor, the square heels of her black Mary Janes signalling to any other colleagues spending their summer months researching that she was passing by. Many looked up, some waving through their glass-fronted labs. Before leaving the floor, she ducked into the break room and grabbed the two fish cutlets she’d made, using her mother’s old Sri Lankan recipes, from the fridge.
When she stepped out of the tall grey building that housed the university, she pulled her hood up and dashed across the drenched road towards a small garden square. Relieved to find the bench where she often sat was free, she spent a moment breathing in the rain-soaked air. Petrichor was the proper term. Caused by the impact of raindrops on porous surfaces like grass and plants, inviting that exquisitely scented aerosol to rise. She unwrapped one of the cutlets and took a quick bite before returning Paul’s call.
‘Vanessa!’ His familiar voice exploded from the earpiece. ‘You took your time.’
She was instantly wrenched from the grey of the city and back into the greens and yellows of Greensands as birdsong and breeze sounded out in the background of his call.
‘Bugs? You there?’
Bugs. Not exactly original, but it was a nickname that had stuck since that day in primary school when she’d kicked him for killing a woodlouse in the playground.
‘Yes, I’m here,’ Vanessa responded as she went to take another bite of her cutlet. ‘I had a job on, you impatient twit. What’s going on?’
‘We’ve found three bodies on the grounds of the old butterfly farm.’
Vanessa sucked in a breath and carefully placed the cutlet back in its container. She didn’t have an appetite anymore. ‘Who?’
‘Remember Michael Regan?’
Michael’s freckled face swarmed into Vanessa’s mind. ‘Of course I do. He’s Sharon’s son. He used to work in the butterfly farm’s gift shop. My God, poor Sharon. Who else?’
‘Simon Taylor. He worked in the café? And then Tim Holmes, he used to drive the truck.’
Vanessa remembered them all. A few years older than her, all young men at the time, working at the butterfly farm together.
‘How did they die?’ she asked.
‘We don’t know yet. No obvious signs except . . .’ Paul sighed. ‘There were small slits cut into the men’s stomachs, just below their belly buttons. And we found something in the wounds. It’s the reason I’m calling you.’
Vanessa’s nerves tingled. ‘Tell me.’
‘I swear it’s spider’s silk.’
Vanessa found she couldn’t speak for a moment.
‘Vanessa?’
She snapped out of her reverie. ‘Are you sure? Has it been tested?’ ‘Not yet. But I’ve been around you long enough to know spider
silk when I see it. We need you here.’
‘Paul, I’m flying to New York tonight.’
‘Jesus. Has it come around that quick?’ Paul hadn’t been
delighted when she’d told him the news. The offer of free New York accommodation for him, his wife and their twin girls whenever they wanted it wasn’t enough to bring him around, either. The idea of them living in different countries, in different time zones, seemed to pain him. She understood. But she had to move on.
‘If you need a spider expert, I can recommend one,’ she said, trying not to dwell on that pain. ‘I know another great forensic entomologist, too. He’s on the NCA database, actually.’
‘Come on, are you serious? It has to be you, Vanessa.’
‘But this isn’t the way it’s done, Paul. You can’t just make a phone call and I turn up. There are official channels.’
‘Bollocks to the official channels!’ Paul shouted.
Vanessa pressed her fingers into her temples as they throbbed. ‘I know what this is about,’ Paul said, voice softening. ‘I know how
hard it’ll be to come back.’
‘Come back to Greensands? Paul, I have a British Airways flight booked this evening, and I’m picking up the keys to my new apartment tomorrow afternoon.’
‘When does your job start?’
‘Next week, but—’
‘That’s plenty of time. Delay your flight by a couple of days. I’ll
even pay the bloody British Airways service charge if there is one.’ ‘Helen will love you for that,’ Vanessa said, referring to his wife. ‘I don’t care. I need you, Vanessa. The families of these three men
need you. Sharon needs you. It can’t be anyone else. It has to be you.’ Vanessa closed her eyes. She knew he was right.
‘Fine,’ she blurted, before she could regret it. ‘I’ll be there in three
hours. Do not move the bodies.’
After she hung up, Vanessa watched a bee sucking pollen up
from a meadow cranesbill plant, trapping it in the small sac in its stomach. She hadn’t thought Greensands had much more to take from her. But it looked like she’d been wrong.