Update: Book 3 is out now!!! (ish)

The launch day for Trouble Takes a Holiday is finally here!! 🥳🥳 Unfortunately, we’re having some issues getting Amazon to approve our print versions, but we’re working on it. Paperbacks are already available through our secondary distributor, and hardcovers should follow soon.

Click here to order the paperback on Amazon.

Click here to order the ebook on Kindle.

Click here to order the ebook on Apple Books.

Click here to order the ebook on Barnes and Noble eBook.

Click here to order the ebook on Kobo.

If you’re a listener of our Bros Watch PLL Too and Headcanon podcasts, you can enter a contest to co-host an episode with us by posting a photo of the book to Twitter and/or Instagram along with the hashtag #TroubleTakesaHoliday or leaving a review on Amazon or GoodReads or other platforms and sending a screenshot to us.

Odds and Ends

Why are we having trouble with the print editions? Because we actually wrote two books, not one, and the second book is printed upside down, so you can flip the book over and read part 2. Amazon is being a pain about it, but trust me, it’s really cool.

Anyway, think of this book as sort of a giant-sized issue or double-album, featuring two stories: Danger in Old Bavaria, and Trouble in Paradise. It’s a lot of fun and we hope you like it. It was a huge pain to lay everything for book two out upside down in Adobe Indesign, but so, so worth it.

Now that the book is out, I feel a great sense of relief washing over me in an awesome wave. I don’t mind telling you, dear reader, that over the past several months I’d become convinced of the absurd notion that I would die in some sort of freak accident before this book was released. Did Jenny incept me with her panic attacks? Or does she have her author to blame for her anxiety? Who can say? But I made it.

A few random details that may interest only me…

This book was written in at least a dozen different Starbucks, Seattle International Airport, and one brewery in Downtown Sacramento, among other locations. All on an M1 MacBook Air. I find it hard to write at home because I also work from home in my day job. The final sprint to finish the last draft was done at a Sbux with tables that were too high, and i gave myself a repetitive stress injury from writing for hours with poor ergonomics :( Albums listened to when writing Trouble Takes a Holiday included: Evermore — Taylor Swift, Screen Violence — Chvrches, Red (Taylor’s Version) — Taylor Swift (but only from The Moment I Knew onward), Formentara — Metric, Emotion‚ Carly Rae Jepsen, and various 80s and 90s alt-rock hits, but especially Common People by Pulp and Don’t You Want Me by the Human League. After sampling German beer for research, I am never touching the American stuff again. Marco and I brainstormed for this book in sessions at the park in the middle of the night in the bitter cold during the winter of 2021, staying far apart, afraid of catching Covid-19. Needless to say, the pandemic does not exist in Jenny’s timeline, though Blondie still released Folklore.

Here is a crude drawing of the castle. Sorry, I’m not an artist.

Schloss Schwarzwald

Update: Cover reveal and Kindle pre-order!

It’s been a long journey, but book 3 of the Trouble: Girl Detective mystery series is almost here. Trouble Takes a Holiday is coming on September 29, 2022. Kindle pre-orders are now available on Amazon. Paperback and Hardcover editions will be available to purchase on the release date. We’re only six weeks away! In the meantime, check out this awesome cover for Trouble Takes a Holiday by artist Michael Manuel, and the book description down below:

Cover art by Michael Manuel

Trouble Takes a Holiday

Jenny Valentine has gone on vacation. While Trouble’s away, the Stranger will play.

Sunscreen? Check! Phone charger? Packed! Flip-flops? Already wearing them! Trouble? …Trouble!? TROUBLE!?!? Where oh where has our itsy-bitsy spy girl gone? Wasn’t it her idea to visit this spooky castle in the Bavarian Alps on the senior class trip in the first place?

With Jenny vanished to parts unknown, her classmates find themselves marooned at fearsome Schloss Schwarzwald. The remote fortress-turned-hotel features luxury rooms with gorgeous, scenic views of the mountain range. Don’t miss out on the five-star amenities, including: a hedge maze, hiking trails, indoor pool, free WiFi, casino, Michelin Star cooking, ancient curses, hidden treasure, vengeful ghosts, and murder!

The Blackbird Springs teens can handle one simple mystery without their Girl Detective, can’t they? Or will they find more Danger in Old Bavaria than they bargained for?

Trouble Lives!

Good News! The first coherent draft of Trouble Takes a Holiday is finally complete!! It’s a massive 136,000 words. I’m exhausted. This was supposed to be a simple little one-off romp: with London Calling, Trouble goes to Europe to solve a spooky mystery in an old castle. Things just got out of hand.

Marco and I brainstormed this one in the Infinite Sadness of 2020’s cruel winter, freezing our asses off at the park, masked up and social distanced with Covid running rampant. But then I hit The Wall. One chapter in, I found it simply impossible to write from home. All Things Must Pass, and hot vax summer, brief though it was, lasted long enough for me to find my groove again. And then we got really ambitious. Shoutout to all the Starbucks I wrote this one in, drinking hot chocolate and masked up, just to be safe.

Thanks to everyone who’s stuck with us while I toiled away. Trouble is still finding new readers all the time, and we can really feel The Love Below every review and comment sent our way. If you liked the first two books, I think you’re going to love this one. There’s still a long road of edits and revisions ahead, but the end is now in sight, and we can’t wait to share it with you. Look for the next chapter in Trouble’s story this summer.

-JT