The joys of starting a band and reading are both at the heart of a new book series from the Ōtautahi Christchurch based Rachael King, and she knows a fair bit about both.
Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Missing Stuff is the first in an Allen and Unwin series aimed at readers aged 7 to 11 with illustrations by Phoebe Morris.
In best Nancy Drew fashion, mysteries are to be solved in each book as a new school band of tweens learn to play their instruments and make their way through BandChamps competitions.
Rachael King learnt to play the bass for her first band Battling Strings aged 15, and as a teenager went on to be part of several high profile Flying Nun groups, among others.
As a reader King is the former programme director of Word Christchurch Festival and a book reviewer. And as writer she is the author of four previous novels, two of them for younger readers. Her last, 2024's The Grimmelings has won Booklovers and Storylines Book Awards.
2012's Red Rocks meanwhile is now a TV series, The Secrets of Red Rocks, which has recently started streaming on Neon.
And Violet and the Velvets isn't just a book series its also turning into a series of songs.
