To celebrate National Crime Reading Month in May, and to promote her new historical crime novel In Two Minds, author Alis Hawkins is going on #IndyBookTourCymru2019 – a promotional book tour that will take in every independent bookshop in Wales.

All of them. As long as they sell English-language novels.

Kicking off in Machynlleth on May 1, Alis and her #IndyBookTourCymru2019 are taking in cities as different as Cardiff and St David’s, towns as culturally diverse as Caernarfon and Chepstow. In each of Wales’ 25 independent bookshops, she is meeting with booksellers and readers and, in 13 of the shops, Alis she’s taking part in signing events organised by the booksellers, speaking to book groups and entertaining audiences at special events.

Alis’s Teifi Valley Coroner series follows the sleuthing careers of two very different young men – blind ex-barrister, Harry Probert-Lloyd and solicitor’s clerk, John Davies - in the period after the Rebecca Riots. When Phil Rickman interviewed Alis on his BBC Radio Wales book show ‘Phil the Shelf’ in 2017, he described None So Blind, the first in the series, as ‘the best historical crime creation of the year’.

As well as writing historical crime, Alis works hard to promote the diverse and vibrant Welsh crime writing scene. In 2017, with two other Welsh-based writers, - Matt Johnson and Rosie Claverton - she founded Crime Cymru, a collective of Welsh crime fiction authors. Crime Cymru now has a membership of more than two dozen writers, whose works can be found online at Crime.Cymru. Alis aims to bring Crime Cymru and its authors to a wider audience as part of #IndyBookTourCymru2019.

She said: “If Iceland can become a sexy setting for crime fiction, so can Wales.”

#IndyBookTourCymru2019 comes to Pembrokeshire in the last week of May – the half term holiday. As well as popping in to say hello at Seaways in Fishguard and Tenby bookshop, Alis will be taking part in the following events:

On May 28 she will be at Victoria Bookshop in Haverfordwest from 11.30 – 1pm where she will be chatting to readers and signing books.

On May 29, Narberth Mueum’s Chapter One bookshop welcomes Alis at a special evening event where she will be speaking about the series and In Two Minds in particular over wine and nibbles.

May 30 sees her visiting festival city, St Davids, where she will be signing books and chatting to readers at St David’s Bookshop, from 11am – 12.30pm

Though Alis would be delighted to sign a book if you buy one at any of these events, there’s no compulsion to buy, she would simply be delighted to have the opportunity to talk about her work and about #IndyBookTourCymru2019.