What is the title of your latest release?
MURDER AT THE CHRISTMAS EMPORIUM
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Seven seeming strangers are trapped in a quaint London shop on Christmas Eve. What looks like an innocent mistake turns deadly when they find a body in Santa’s grotto and realize a killer is among them.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
A while ago, my editor Kelly Smith visited Liberty of London, a famous shop in London’s West End which is built in a mock-Tudor style, all wood panels and creaky floorboards. Liberty is beautiful and not in the slightest bit creepy but got her thinking – then it got me thinking too. So often in Christmas crime stories people are snowed in at remote locations, but I was intrigued by the idea of being trapped in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world. Nobody lives in central London any more, and the place is like a ghost town over Christmas so the chance of rescue is actually pretty slim. The Emporium was such a creepy setting, I really enjoyed creating it.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
I know some people find Merry Clark a little spiky, but I do like her even if she’s a bit duplicitous. The reason she’s so underhanded is because she grew up with the belief that nobody would listen to her if she asked for something outright, so she had to try and manipulate situations to get what she wanted. I think she’d be quite good company provided I didn’t force her to wear a festive sweater. Fran, my other narrator, would be great company.
What are three words that describe your hero?
Merry is sneaky, manipulative and lonely. Fran is well-meaning, guilty and lonely.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
As soon as I’d decided on the department store setting I wanted to add lots of Victoriana to it, and decided to include a (possibly) haunted automaton. I spent a lot of time trawling the internet for the creepiest and most intricate automata, although almost none of what I’ve learned is included in the book. Another feature of the store is that the original gas-fueled lighting system is still installed and when the power goes out, they light up the shop the old-fashioned way. I had to know how the systems would work, how to light the lamps and whether my characters would lose their eyebrows when lighting it. Funnily enough, searching ‘gaslighting’ online did not help, so I contacted the National Gas Museum (yes, that’s a real thing!) and they hooked me up with an expert who explained it all. There is plenty of the other kind of gaslighting in the book too.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Murder at the Christmas Emporium was written to a tight deadline so after writing a quick and very fuzzy outline I jumped straight in, editing as I went. It went well until it didn’t, and I ended up rewriting the first 30,000 words. No problem, it’s all part of the process. (I am typing that last part with gritted teeth.)
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Christmas food of course! I am very partial to fresh gingerbread but I am too lazy to make it myself.
Describe your writing space/office!
I sit in my bedroom window looking out over my street. I know when all my neighbors go out, who’s visiting them, when they went shopping and where. I promise I’m not a creepy stalker. Honest.
Who is an author you admire?
At the moment I’m binge-reading books by Janice Hallett (The Appeal, The Killer Question.) She writes in an updated epistolary style – using emails, letters, text messages and police interview transcripts to unfold a story. She does it so well, with so many twists and so much wry humor. It’s very clever.
Is there a book that changed your life?
Quite a few! Not always in the way the author intended. There’s one book called Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby (later made into a movie of the same name.) In it, the main character is agonizing over whether she should throw her boring-but-safe life away and relocate to the US and eventually she just shrugs, says ‘f-ck it,’ and books a flight. I read it while I was in a horrible work situation and it made me realize that I wanted to say f-ck it too and just leave. Sometimes the right book gives you the right message at the right time.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I think it took me a long time to absorb the fact that I was going to have a book published. My first book was The Girl Who…, a psychological thriller about a teenager who became famous as a victim of crime. I have a vague memory of my editor telling me on the phone, and I remember jumping around a lot and my husband buying me Champagne. But it still didn’t feel real. It was only when my editor started telling me about all the people around the office who had been up all night reading it, and then when I got feedback from early reviewers that reality started to creep in that I had actually written a book that people wanted to read. Even now my books don’t feel real until they’re out there with people reading them so every time someone reads my books, it makes them more real to me.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I genuinely can’t pick one, I leave no genre unmolested. I read a lot of crime, sci-fi, fantasy and magical realism though. Creepy stuff, impossible emotional situations, gorgeous escapism, high stakes – that’s what I love.
What’s your favorite movie?
Spirited Away. Creepy stuff, impossible emotional situations, gorgeous escapism, high stakes. And I just love that it’s about a scared kid who gets thrown in at the deep end and just copes, because she’s basically a decent person.
What is your favorite season?
I think I kind of have to say the holiday season! I’m very much a fan of staying cozy, curling up with a good book and enjoying amazing meals with my family.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
With food, friends and family. I would love someone else to organize a surprise party for me but nobody ever does. (HINT HINT.)
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Slow Horses, the Apple TV show based on the books by Mick Herron, about a group of bumbling MI5 spies, exiled to a satellite office under a drunken, obnoxious boss. It’s so well written – each character has their own reason for doing what they do and it’s never just because they are heroes who want to save the world. Be warned, it’s very, very sweary though.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Italian food just like Nonna used to make. My family is from Emiglia Romagna in the North and we specialize in pastas that are an incredible hassle to make. Her anolini involved two different types of meat, pre-cooked – that in itself took a day – then blended together with herbs and cheese and fashioned into bite-sized ravioli parcels. Then you have to make a broth or sauce! They’re absolutely glorious but nobody has time to make that stuff now. It’s a dying art.
What do you do when you have free time?
I don’t make anolini, that’s for sure.
What can readers expect from you next?
Another Christmas mystery! This one is set in Victorian London and the detective is Ebenezer Scrooge. It’s a year after his haunting by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future and all he wants to do is be a good man (whatever that means), have a Merry Christmas and never, ever see another ghost as long as he lives. Suffice to say things do not go according to plan.
If you love all things crime and festive, find me online I’m on Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky and my website.
MURDER AT THE CHRISTMAS EMPORIUM by Andreina Cordani
In this brilliant follow up to The Twelve Days of Murder, a group of Christmas shoppers discover the doors have been locked and that they’ve been trapped by someone who knows their darkest secrets.
It’s Christmas Eve at the Emporium, a bespoke gift shop hidden in the depths of London’s winding streets, where a select few shoppers are browsing its handcrafted delights.
But when they go to leave, they find the doors are locked and it isn’t long before they realize this is no innocent mix-up. The shoppers have been trapped here by someone who knows their darkest secrets, someone will stop at nothing until they have all been unwrapped—and there is a gruesome gift waiting in Santa’s grotto . . .
For those that survive the night, it will be a Christmas to remember.
Mystery Cozy | Mystery Private Eye [ Pegasus Books, On Sale: November 4, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9781639369935 / eISBN: 9781639369942 ]
Buy MURDER AT THE CHRISTMAS EMPORIUM: Amazon.com | Kindle | BN.com | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | Books-A-Million | Indie BookShops | Ripped Bodice | Libro.fm | Audible | Walmart.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About Andreina Cordani
Before writing The Girl Who… I was a freelance writer, book reviewer and journalist. I’ve interviewed some amazing people about their incredible lives. I have written for women’s magazines including Cosmopolitan, Grazia, Good Housekeeping, Prima, that’s life!, Stylist and Real People. I have been Books Editor for Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Reclaim. I live on the South Coast with my lovely family. I spend most of my time avoiding them to try and write.
No Comments
Comments are closed.