Showing results by author "Rebecca Tope" in All Categories

Thea Osborne and her trusty spaniel, Hepzie, have been asked by the Montgomerys to look after their house in Blockley while they take a much-needed holiday. Their elderly mother, Granny Gardner, shouldn't be any trouble - although she is slightly forgetful. Thea's got far more to worry about when a body is discovered in the house next door.

Thea Osborne sets off to Frampton Mansell with confidence. Despite her first disastrous house-sitting venture, which drew her into a murder investigation, Thea, and her spaniel Hepzibah, are sure of a wonderful stay at the relaxed country estate of the Philipses. But it seems that she’s jinxed. Busying herself with her duties, she finds a body hanging from the rafters of one of the barns. Detective Superintendent Phil Hollis oversees the subsequent investigation and is more than a little surprised to find Thea once again at the scene.

After an eventful year, Persimmon "Simmy" Brown is adjusting to life in Windermere, running her florist shop and trying to put her tragic past behind her. But just when Simmy thinks her life is quietly coming together, it begins to unravel at the seams. With the delivery of a bouquet of flowers to an elderly lady - complete with mysterious message attached - old secrets come creeping into the light. When another old woman is found murdered in her own home, Simmy is drawn into the centre of a murder investigation.

Nestled in the hills of the Cotswolds, the village of Duntisbourne Abbots is a well-kept secret. When Joel Jennison is found slaughtered in the same field where his brother’s corpse had lain ten weeks previously, a whole community falls under suspicion. Was it a family feud? An act of revenge?

It’s Christmas, and things are looking good at the Slocombe house. Thea’s daughter Jessica has come to stay, much to her stepdaughter Stephanie’s delight. But then things take a turn for the worse. A local family, the Frowses, finds themselves increasingly harassed by an aggressive landlord. When Beverley Frowse goes missing, Thea and Stephanie both feel they should do their best to help her husband and son to solve the mystery.

Following a string of disastrous house-sitting assignments, and with recent troubles in her personal life, Thea Osborne is understandably apprehensive about her latest commission: a wintry month in an isolated farmhouse with only an assortment of animals for company. With the summer lushness of the Cotswolds turned icy grey, Thea spends her first few days exploring more of the surrounding area.

Thea Osborne and her spaniel, Hepzie, are house-sitting in the quiet village of Temple Guiting. Detective Superintendent Phil Hollis is looking forward to visiting for a night or two and celebrating the couple's anniversary. A few days into their stay, a pile of human bones is discovered at the base of an uprooted tree. The locals all have their theories about their identity and rumours abound. Thea and Phil discover that the village turns out to have more than its fair share of secrets.

Thea Osborne and her canine companion Hepzie travel to the isolated village of Snowshill for their next assignment, house-sitting Hyacinth House for the mysterious Yvonne Parker. Something doesn't feel right to Thea, who is ill at ease in the village, and soon her intuition is proved to be right. A local boy, Stevie Horsfall, is found brutally strangled, with his mother as prime suspect.

In the wake of a series of unfortunate experiences house-sitting in the Cotswolds, Thea Osbourne, accompanied by her spaniel Hepzibah, is perhaps over-optimistic about the possibilities of her latest assignment – house-sitting for transatlantic reptile breeder Harriet Young. However, yet again, the region’s bucolic charms prove to be more than deceptive, and Thea is thrust once more into the heart of a Cotswolds mystery....

Thea Osborne has just lost her beloved father and retreats to her next housesitting assignment in Lower Slaughter to deal with her grief. The tranquillity is a welcome backdrop and there's a whole host of animals to help stave off her loneliness. As Thea settles down to two weeks of solitude, her biggest challenges are jigsaw puzzles and fighting off bats in the bedroom - until reality catches up with her.

Thea is tired of having to entertain Drew's children during the summer holidays, so she accepts a commission to watch over a house in Barnsley. On her first day there, she rescues a fugitive woman she finds hiding under some bushes. The woman's story is thin and incoherent, but Thea gives her sanctuary for the night only to find her dead the next morning. The police are impossibly busy with a big investigation into the trafficking of rare animals and Thea is effectively on her own, trying to make sense of the murder.

Thea Osborne agrees to do a second spell of house-sitting for Lucy Sinclair in her new home in Northleach. Lucy is scheduled for an operation on her back in Oxford and needs Thea to look after things for a few days. Thea is glad of the change of scene and soon meets several of the townsfolk, and it appears that few of them have any liking for Lucy. When a man is found dead in a Northleach house and turns out to be Lucy's stepson, Thea is once again at the very heart of a police investigation.

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, Persimmon "Simmy" Brown's flower shop near Lake Windermere receives a string of anonymous delivery orders. But each one causes their recipient great distress, and Simmy suspects that the messages they contain mask a sinister intent. Then one of the recipients disappears…. As if that isn't enough, Simmy's friend Kathy turns up, on the trail of her wayward daughter Joanna, who has grown unhealthily close to her university tutor.

As undertaker Drew Slocombe drove to Greta Simmonds’ burial in Broad Campden, deep in the heart of the Cotswolds, thoughts of his troubles at home and at work played on his mind. The last thing he was worried about was becoming a murder suspect. Thea Osbourne becomes Drew’s unlikely friend and defender when the council worker opposing the burial is found dead just minutes from Thea’s latest house-sitting assignment: the Cotswold home of the late Mrs Simmonds.

Winter has arrived in the town of Windermere and has brought with it the death of Frances Henderson, the best friend of Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown's mother. Simmy must cope with the loss of an important figure from her childhood as well as the confusion at being bequeathed something in Frances' will. When Frances' husband is violently murdered, Simmy must face the fact that the family she was once so close to as a child holds some dark secrets.

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 of a family feud, in which he feels he is on the wrong side, and Thea's inquisitiveness and penchant for solving crimes draws her in, too.

A handsome, if slightly shabby, stone house in Upper Oddington is home to Umberto Kingley 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 by a fatal hit-and-run. The ensuing high-profile police investigation plunges Thea deep into the victim's complicated family dynamics and the rift that had already torn it apart. And she cannot help wondering if the reverberations of scandal have led to a deliberate and murderous assault.

Following a personal tragedy, florist Persimmon “Simmy” Brown has moved to the Lake District to be nearer her parents. But her peace is shattered when, at a wedding, the bride's brother is found brutally murdered. As the florist of the wedding and one of the last people to talk to Mark Baxter alive, Simmy gradually becomes involved with the relatives. When events take another sinister turn, Simmy finds herself at the heart of a murder investigation.

When Thea Osborne agrees at the last minute to house-sit for Oliver Meadows, she expects a few days of peace. Uncomfortable with her mother's sudden involvement with an old flame, and unsure of how to deal with her feelings for Drew Slocombe, Thea hopes that some time alone will help to clear her head. But with the disturbing discovery of a dead body in the gardens, she finds herself at the heart of a mystery.

Thea Osborne reconnects with her friend Emmy while on 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. Before Thea can get started, she stumbles upon the recently killed body of Alice, a woman they had briefly seen in Cirencester the day before.