Rebecca Tope Books in Order

Heavily pregnant yet still running her Keswick flower shop, Simmy Brown agrees to deliver an unusual bouquet to remote Eskdale. There she meets three generations of women, and when one is murdered the next day, she and her friends confront artists, fractured families and buried Lake District secrets.

Four months pregnant and juggling home and her Windermere flower shop, Simmy agrees to deliver flowers to textile expert Eleanor Padgett in Dacre. A peaceful churchyard visit ends with the discovery of a young man’s body, drawing Simmy, Ben and Bonnie into a complex new investigation.

As High Gates House in Borrowdale is cleared for auction, Christopher Henderson encounters heir Jennifer Reade, who discovers a corpse in the cellar and pressures him to keep silent. When she herself is murdered, Simmy must solve a double mystery involving hidden histories and ruthless greed.

Invited to a Christmas party in Glenridding, Simmy Henderson expects seasonal cheer, not a dead man in the beck and an abandoned newborn baby. Caught between suspicious villagers and rising tensions, she works with DI Moxon to find a killer in the darkest days of the year.

At a funeral in Askham, near Ullswater, Simmy Henderson quietly admires the flowers on the grave and meets a young academic and a ninety-year-old matriarch. When the older woman is found dead on the fell the next day, Simmy is named prime suspect and must clear her own name.

Visiting a church near Cirencester with her stepdaughter Stephanie, Thea runs into old friend Emmy, now married to a local farmer. Asked to help find Emmy’s missing niece, she soon stumbles across a freshly killed woman, uncovering a sinister link between the disappearance and the murder.

On a glorious summer day in Threlkeld, Simmy Brown marries Christopher Henderson. After the guests leave, a young man is found badly injured nearby, and strained police resources fuel rumours. As speculation hardens into a sinister theory, Simmy and friends work to uncover what really happened.

Thea Osborne’s latest assignment seems routine until a shocking betrayal in the small community leads to violence. As loyalties shift and neighbours turn on one another, she must decide who deserves her trust while tracing the hidden grievances that sparked the crime.

Now living in Hartsop with Christopher and their new baby, Simmy is planning a wedding when an old acquaintance of Christopher’s reappears with a demand linked to a decade-old promise. Events turn deadly, and Simmy must confront secrets from his past to protect their future.

Returning to house-sitting after upheavals at home, Thea finds that a new Cotswold village carries disturbing echoes of earlier cases. When a body is discovered, familiar patterns of silence and suspicion reappear, forcing her to distinguish coincidence from a deliberate repetition of past crimes.

Pregnant and hoping for a quieter autumn, Simmy Brown is drawn into danger when a lodger at her parents’ bed and breakfast collapses in her arms, apparently poisoned. The trail leads to a controversial building project near Patterdale, destroying any chance of a peaceful run-up to Christmas.

House-sitting over the festive season with her stepdaughter Stephanie, Thea expects little more than winter walks and family tension. A death close to their temporary home turns their Christmas into a hunt through village feuds, seasonal resentments and long-held grudges.

Back from a rare holiday and newly engaged, Simmy hopes for calm until Christopher discovers his friend, antique dealer Jonathan Woolley, strangled in a Grasmere house. As old grudges against Jonathan surface, Christopher’s evasive behaviour leaves Simmy fearing that the man she loves is hiding something.

In 1846, Charity Collins and her bold younger sister Fanny join a wagon train heading for Oregon. Rivers, deserts and clashing ambitions test every traveller, and by the time they reach the new territory, Charity’s surprising choice of future and Fanny’s ventures have reshaped both families.

Thea and Drew take on another Cotswold village, expecting nothing more than everyday work and neighbourly chatter. When a sudden death exposes tangled histories, they peel back layers of gossip, half-truths and family scandals to learn whose secrets were dangerous enough to kill for.

This full-length biography traces the energetic life of Victorian clergyman and author Sabine Baring-Gould, from his vast family and parish work to more than a hundred books, hymn writing and folk-song collecting, drawing on years of archival research and personal papers.

Juggling her florist shop, her father’s failing health and a serious relationship with Christopher, Simmy Brown takes an order for a retirement party in Staveley. When a daughter accuses her own mother of murder, Simmy, Ben and Bonnie are pulled into their most divisive case yet.

A routine burial in Broad Campden exposes poisonous secrets, drawing Drew into a bitter family feud at his funeral business. Thea, restless in married life, is soon involved, even as another crisis threatens Drew’s other work and a charming newcomer tests the strength of their relationship.

Winter in Windermere brings the death of Frances Henderson, an important figure from Simmy’s childhood. An unexpected bequest and the subsequent murder of Frances’s husband reveal old betrayals and family quarrels, while introducing auction specialist Christopher Henderson into Simmy’s complicated life.

Newly married to Drew and living in Broad Campden, Thea is trying to settle into domestic life when she discovers a neighbour’s body. Doubting the police’s swift conclusion, she risks her marriage and safety by probing deeper into local friendships, feuds and lies.

Summer work supplying flowers to a hotel in Hawkshead should boost Simmy Brown’s struggling business. Instead she discovers a body in the lake and her friend Ben vanishes, apparently kidnapped. Following Ben’s cryptic clues, Simmy battles family worries and a ruthless criminal at the same time.

In Chedworth, Thea and her fiancé Drew are cataloguing the possessions of Rita Wilshire, recently moved into a care home. When Rita’s son is found dead in a barn, questions of suicide, inheritance and old grievances strain Thea and Drew’s relationship as they search for the truth.

This collection of twelve short mysteries returns to Thea Osborne’s Cotswolds, where suspicious funerals, deadly trips to garden centres and country walks ending at hidden corpses show that murder can intrude even on the most tranquil lanes and villages.

After a huge funeral for well-loved Barbara Dodge, Simmy Brown finds herself drawn into the complicated legacy of the dead woman. As old grievances and buried affairs surface around Troutbeck, another crime forces Simmy, Melanie and Ben to decide whom they can trust.

In Daglingworth, Thea’s latest house-sit seems gentle, with only an elderly corgi and a hibernating tortoise to mind. A firebomb pushed through the letterbox and a body found in a quarry expose eco-activists, risky alliances and a vengeful plan that puts Thea in serious danger.

Spending Christmas house-sitting in the village of Stanton, Thea wants only quiet walks and pub meals. Her arrival coincides with a local businessman’s funeral, and when another villager is brutally murdered, she is once more at the heart of a tense police investigation.

Told through the eyes of a devoted mother, this novel imagines the life of Dark Ages saint Cuthman, who pushes her across southern England in a homemade cart. Their rough journey through strange communities leads to a new church, claimed miracles and a hard-won faith.

In 1846, young Charity Collins joins a wagon train on the Oregon Trail, watching families of every kind chase new lives in the West. As they face deserts, disease and clashing tempers, she learns how fragile hope can be when the landscape itself seems indifferent.

Valentine’s Day brings a rush of flower orders for Simmy Brown, some with unsettling reactions from their recipients. When a man is found dead in Coniston, her deliveries and a surprise visit from an old friend leave her piecing together obsessive messages, jealousies and a fatal confrontation.

Running her Windermere flower shop, Simmy Brown delivers a bouquet with a strange message to an elderly woman in Ambleside. Dark family secrets and a second death draw her into danger, especially when a suspect names Simmy as his alibi and DI Moxon fears for her safety.

Agreeing at short notice to house-sit in historic Winchcombe, Thea hopes for time to think about her mother’s new romance and her own feelings for Drew. Feeding wild birds near the cottage, she discovers a body in the garden and uncovers shadows from past traumas reaching into the present.

Florist Persimmon "Simmy" Brown moves to Windermere seeking calm, then lands a lucrative society wedding. When the bride’s brother is found murdered in the lake, Simmy becomes a key witness and is pulled into a grieving family’s scandals, secrets and dangerously close-knit circle of friends.

Thea’s new assignment in the cluttered Hyacinth House at Snowshill feels uneasy from the moment she arrives. After mischievous local boy Stevie is strangled outside, suspicion falls on his eccentric mother, and Thea races with Sonia Gladwin and Drew Slocombe to expose a much wider web of malice.

House-sitting a grand home in secluded Cranham, Thea expects a peaceful summer minding Harriet Young’s reptiles. Instead she meets an unsettling cast of villagers and realises the geckoes in the basement are not the only cold-blooded creatures as deception and murder surface around her.

Undertaker Drew Slocombe travels to Broad Campden for a burial, worrying more about work and home than crime. When a council worker opposing the funeral is found dead near Thea Osborne’s house-sit, Drew becomes the prime suspect and must join forces with Thea to clear his name.

Thea Osborne’s latest house-sitting job in a Cotswold hamlet promises nothing more than animal care and country walks. When a brutal killing shocks the village, she finds herself sifting through farm disputes, local gossip and simmering feuds to understand who turned to violence.

Snowbound in the tiny hamlet of Hampnett, Thea faces a lonely winter month with only animals and her spaniel for company. Strange tracks in the snow and the discovery of a dead man in a field drag her into a chilling mystery of abandoned pets, troubled children and desperate neighbours.

In Temple Guiting, Thea and detective partner Phil Hollis confront a mystery when a skeleton is uncovered under an old beech tree. Rumours of Knights Templar ancestry, village rituals and possessive families swirl as Thea learns the countryside is never as peaceful as it looks.

Staying in Blockley to look after the Montgomerys’ house and dogs, Thea Osborne is certain nothing can go wrong this time. A death next door pulls her into local legends, celebrity neighbours and quiet enmities, proving the village is far stranger than its pretty streets suggest.

House-sitter Thea Osborne hopes for quiet time with DI Phil Hollis in Cold Aston, but pagan spinner Ariadne narrates a darker tale. A body laid out on an ancient barrow at Samhain reveals how pagan rituals, village secrets and old crushes can turn lethal.

Restoring a historic garden at Lyvedon Manor, Rosemary and Laura are drawn into a mystery when a family member is thought drowned, then seen alive. With ex-prisoners working alongside them, they must untangle mistaken identities, inheritance fears and a carefully staged masquerade.

Hired to restore a churchyard garden before a village fête, Rosemary and Laura are shocked when an unpopular local is found dead with an arrow in his chest. Surrounded by archers and old feuds, the gardening duo dig through village history to uncover a killer.

On her second house-sitting assignment, Thea Osborne stays in Frampton Mansell, minding pets and an elderly pony near an old canal. When a man apparently kills himself in a barn, Thea and DI Phil Hollis find the death tied to buried mills, debts and divided loyalties.

Plant expert Rosemary Boxer and former police officer Laura Thyme meet at a country estate where diseased trees, a sickly owner and a fatal car crash seem oddly connected. Their shared love of gardening leads them to expose a murderous plot rooted in poisonous plants.

Newly widowed Thea Osborne takes her first house-sitting job in the pretty village of Duntisbourne Abbots, expecting only quiet walks with her spaniel. After a local farmer is murdered, she finds the supposedly idyllic community riddled with secrets, grudges and dangerous gossip.

Karen Slocombe’s commitment to local food turns dangerous when a bomb explodes at a supermarket she has just left, followed by a shooting at the farmers’ market. As she and Drew investigate, they find motives tangled up with supermarket power, activism and village rivalries.

In a quiet corner of East Devon, undertaker Drew Slocombe and policeman Den Cooper join forces when an apparent abduction and killing surfaces. Among bee stings, family quarrels and the lingering damage of foot-and-mouth disease, they uncover how far people will go to protect their own.

Herdsman Sean O’Farrell is brutally killed in a Devon farm building, and DS Den Cooper happily casts suspicious eyes on farmer Gordon Hillcock, now dating Den’s ex-fiancée Lilah. As disease scares and financial pressure bite, Den must separate personal anger from the truth.

Drew Slocombe hopes his new natural burial ground will solve his money worries, until a hidden grave containing an unknown elderly woman is uncovered. With blunt assistant Maggs and the unsettled Genevieve Slater, he probes a family’s secrets and an old injustice.

When hunt protester Nina Cattermole is killed by a horse in rural Devon, the death is ruled an accident. After another saboteur dies at her funeral, DC Den Cooper investigates a village split by animal-rights battles, Quaker loyalties and long-buried resentments.

Trainee undertaker and ex-nurse Drew Slocombe is uneasy when health-obsessed Jim Lapsford dies of an apparent heart attack. With cremation days away, Drew races to untangle conflicting medical evidence and a tangle of mistresses and relatives before a killer’s tracks vanish.

On a remote Devon farm, bad-tempered Guy Beardon dies in his slurry pit and most neighbours are glad to see him gone. Only his daughter Lilah and local policeman Den Cooper suspect murder, uncovering grudges rooted in money, livestock and family loyalties.