Katie Gayle is not one person. It is the pen name of two South African writers — Kate Sidley in Cape Town and Gail Schimmel in Johannesburg — who between them produce some of the most thoroughly English village mysteries on the shelf. They write two series: the Julia Bird Mysteries, set in the Cotswolds village of Berrywick, and the earlier, broader Epiphany Bloom Mysteries, set in London.
New to Katie Gayle? Start with An English Garden Murder. It is the first Julia Bird book, it sets up Berrywick and Julia’s new life there, and the Julia Bird series is the one most readers mean when they talk about Katie Gayle.
Julia Bird Mysteries in Order
Ten books, all set in and around Berrywick. Julia arrives as a recent retiree from the city with a cottage, a plan to learn to bake, and a best friend at the library; the village and its regulars build up steadily around her from there. The murders are self-contained, but the cast is cumulative, so first-to-last is the better way through.
#1 — An English Garden Murder · May 2022
Julia Bird retires from the city to a cottage in the Cotswolds village of Berrywick, with plans that run to gardening, baking and a librarian best friend. What she finds in the garden is a body. The place to start. View on Amazon →
#2 — Murder in the Library · September 2022
Julia had imagined rural quiet would be soothing after years in the city. Then she finds a dead body in the library. View on Amazon →
#3 — A Village Fete Murder · January 2023
The annual village party at Berrywick House — tea tents, cake stalls, and a body in the maze. View on Amazon →
#4 — Murder at the Inn · August 2023
Julia’s fourth case moves to the village inn, and to the people who pass through it. View on Amazon →
#5 — A Country Wedding Murder · March 2024
A Cotswolds wedding with friends, family, beautiful flowers and, inconveniently, a murder. View on Amazon →
#6 — Murder on a Country Walk · September 2024
Fresh air and green rolling hills are Julia’s idea of a clear head — until the walk turns up a body. View on Amazon →
#7 — A Village Theatre Murder · March 2025
Berrywick’s amateur theatre gives Julia a stage full of suspects. View on Amazon →
#8 — Murder in the Winter Woods · September 2025
The winter book in the series, taking Julia out of the village and into the woods. View on Amazon →
#9 — A Country Meadow Murder · March 2026
Spring in Berrywick, gardening gloves on, first blooms out — and a dead body in the local wildflower meadow. View on Amazon →
#10 — Murder at the Manor House · Out 22 September 2026 — preorder
Julia is as curious as anyone in Berrywick to see inside the famous Greystone Manor. The newest book in the series. View on Amazon →
Epiphany Bloom Mysteries in Order
Three books, written before Julia Bird and pitched broader and more comic — Epiphany is a self-described walking disaster with a cat and a talent for making things worse. London rather than the Cotswolds, and a different kind of funny. The series stopped at three.
#1 — The Kensington Kidnap · December 2020
Meet Epiphany Bloom: devoted cat owner and well-meaning walking disaster, loose in London. The first book of the pair’s earlier, funnier series. View on Amazon →
#2 — The Museum Murder · March 2021
Epiphany’s second outing, and a death at a London museum. View on Amazon →
#3 — Death at the Gates · August 2021
The third and, so far, last Epiphany Bloom mystery. View on Amazon →
Do you have to read them in order?
The mysteries themselves stand alone, so you will not be lost picking up any single book. But the Julia Bird series is really the story of an outsider becoming a villager, and that only works read forward — the friendships, the dog, the standing jokes and Julia’s place in Berrywick all accumulate. Starting at An English Garden Murder costs nothing.
The two series are entirely separate. Epiphany Bloom and Julia Bird never meet, and reading one is no preparation for the other beyond knowing the authors’ sense of humour.
Where to go next
If Berrywick suits you, our guide to British cozy mysteries covers the wider village-mystery shelf and women sleuths picks up the amateur-detective thread. You can browse everything we hold on the Katie Gayle author page, or go straight to the Julia Bird and Epiphany Bloom series pages, where every book is listed in reading order with covers and current prices.