Rebecca Tope

A Discovery in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope unfolds as Thea Osborne reconnects with her friend Emmy during a visit to the church in Baunton, near Cirencester, with her stepdaughter Stephanie. Emmy, now married to local farmer Nick Weaver, asks Thea to help them find their missing niece, Ginny. However, before Thea can start her search, she stumbles upon the...

Nestled in the fertile hills of the Cotswolds, the village of Duntisbourne Abbots is a well-kept secret: beautiful, timeless, and quintessentially English. When recently widowed Thea Osborne arrives to house-sit for a local couple, her only fear is that three weeks there might prove a little dull. Her first night's sleep at Brook View is broken by a piercing scream...

A handsome, if slightly shabby, stone house in Upper Oddington is home to Umberto Kingly, as well as his three dogs, and will be Thea Slocombe's latest house-sitting assignment. Without even a local shop, Thea expects the location to be one of her quietest, until the serene atmosphere is shattered with a fatal hit-and-run. The ensuing high-profile police investigation plunges...

Thea Slocombe is trying to settle into normal family domestic life with Drew and his two children in Broad Campden. But any sense of cosy domesticity is shattered when Thea finds the body of a neighbour. No longer a house-sitter, Thea has no choice but to stay in the village and deal with whatever happens next, even when this risks...

Thea Osborne is thanking her lucky stars. After two disastrous house-sitting incidents in which she unwittingly became embroiled in murder and mayhem, she is only too happy to have a bit of time to concentrate on her blossoming relationship with DI Phil Hollis. But the bad luck that plagues the hapless Thea and her beloved spaniel Hepzibah is never far...

Set in the picturesque town of Askham, near Ullswater, the story opens with the funeral of Humphrey Craig, the builder who converted Simmy's new house in Hartsop. The following day, when Simmy goes back to look at the grave and the flowers on it, she meets two women: Lindsay Wilson, an academic in her late twenties who is writing a...

Two days before an auction of the contents of High Gates House in Borrowdale, Christopher Henderson bumps into Jennifer Reade, the heir to the entire estate, and the expected recipient of the proceeds of the house clearance sale. She discovers a dead man in the cellar of the house but threatens and cajoles Christopher into remaining silent about it until...

But when a former acquaintance of Christopher's reminds him of a promise he made a decade previously, their lives soon take a sinister—and deadly—turn. Yet even with a young baby to consider, Simmy cannot ignore her instinct to investigate, especially with the personal link to her soon-to-be husband. Ably assisted by her would-be detective friend Ben, can Simmy puzzle out...

As Christmas draws nearer, Simmy Henderson is invited to a party in Glenridding at the heart of the Lake District. However, the festivities are overshadowed by two alarming discoveries: a man's body in the beck above the village and a vulnerable newborn baby, apparently abandoned by its mother. Caught in the crosscurrents and tensions of the inhabitants of Glenridding, Simmy...

Simmy Brown is four months pregnant, working partly from home, partly from her Windermere florist shop and very much feeling her age when her husband, Christopher, asks her to deliver flowers to Eleanor Padgett. As an expert in antique textiles, Eleanor has been a considerable help to him at his auction house. The visit out to the charming Lake District...

On a glorious July morning in the pretty Lake District village of Threlkeld, Simmy Brown and Christopher Henderson celebrate their wedding day. While the event passes off without undue calamity, when most of the guests have departed a severely injured young man is found nearby. Pressure on police resources compromises the investigation and speculation is rife. Was it an accident...

Summer has come to the Lake District town of Windermere, where Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown runs her own florist shop. But there's no time for her to stop and smell the roses with the shop struggling for money, so a contract to provide floral displays for a hotel in Hawkshead couldn't have arrived at a better moment. However, Simmy's association with...

Once again, there's death on her doorstep. Thea throws herself into house-sitting for Babs and Cedric Angell in Lower Slaughter following her beloved father's death—anything to keep her busy and away from some of her rather difficult relatives. Although it's lonely, she has her spaniel Hepzie for company, and keeping the house in order, along with looking after the Angells'...

In the wake of a series of unfortunate experiences in the Cotswolds, Thea Osborne, accompanied by her spaniel Hepzibah, is perhaps over-optimistic about the English summertime and the possibilities of her latest house-sitting assignment in the secluded village of Cranham. Despite the ease with which Thea's new job begins, looking after Harriet Young's reptiles, she soon finds a dark side...

Secrets in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope follows Thea Slocombe, who is struggling to entertain her stepchildren through the long summer holiday while her husband, Drew, works. She keenly accepts a new job house-sitting in Barnsley, near Bibury. However, her commission proves to be far from relaxing when she stumbles across a woman hiding among some bushes. The woman's story...

Thea and Drew have been married for a year and are settled in the village of Broad Campden, but Thea is chafing at the domestic routines she is expected to devote herself to, missing the novelty and adventure that house-sitting used to bring. When a routine burial exposes the secrets of the deceased, Drew finds himself caught in the middle...

Trouble in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope sees Thea Osborne hoping to spend a quiet Christmas house-sitting for the Shepherds in the picturesque Cotswold village of Stanton. She imagines walks in the local countryside with the dogs and perhaps a meal in the pub as all the excitement she desires. However, her plans take a turn when her arrival coincides...

The peace of a small West Country village is rudely shattered when a bomb explodes in the local supermarket. Karen Slocombe, a member of the Food Chain Group and staunch supporter of local produce, would not normally care for the loss of a supermarket, but she does take offence to such violence and the fact that she and her daughter...

Winter has arrived in the town of Windermere, bringing with it the death of Frances Henderson, the best friend of Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown's mother. Having known the Henderson family all her life, Simmy must cope with the loss of an important figure from her childhood, as well as the confusion of being bequeathed something in Frances's will. When Frances's husband...

Following a personal tragedy, florist Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown has moved to the beautiful region of the Lake District, content to lose herself in her work. But the peace she has found is shattered when, at the wedding of a millionaire's daughter, the bride's brother is found dead in the lake. As the wedding florist, and one of the last people...

With the approach of autumn, a heavily pregnant Simmy Brown is anticipating the imminent arrival of her new child and juggling the move of her florist business to Keswick. A bouquet order to be delivered to the beautiful but remote Eskdale is an awkward addition to Simmy's to-do list. There she encounters three generations of women - and the next...