About the Author
Rebecca Tope
Author of three popular murder mystery series, featuring Den Cooper, Devon police detective, 
Drew Slocombe, Undertaker and Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds. Also "ghost writer" of the novels based on the ITV series Rosemary and Thyme.
In total, I have had seventeen books published, with another due in September 2010 - A GRAVE IN THE COTSWOLDS. The most recent is FEAR IN THE COTSWOLDS which is earning some very enthusiastic feedback. One reader described it as 'haunting' which is one of the best accolades I could wish for. The paperback of SLAUGHTER IN THE COTSWOLDS is due in February 2010. Regular glances at my Amazon ranking suggests that sales are rising steadily for all the Cotswolds titles.
My publisher is Allison & Busby Ltd, 13 Charlotte Mews, London W1T 4EJ
My US Distributor is:
International Publisher’s Marketing
22841 Quicksilver Drive
Dulles
VA 20166
USA www.internationalpubmarket.com
Email: ipmmail@presswarehouse.com
Besides writing novels, I am also the proprietor of a small press - Praxis Books. This was established in 1992, and specialises in the writings of Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) a man of very many highly interesting parts. See the PRAXIS BOOKS page of this website.
As for why I do it, well, I always wanted to write - from early childhood, I have filtered everything through the written word. Nothing and nobody is entirely safe from my habit of collecting anecdotes and experiences to be processed into a novel. However, the Cotswold series marks a change from this habit. The books are set in real villages (Duntisbourne Abbots, Frampton Mansell, Blockley, Temple Guiting, Lower Slaughter, Cold Aston and Hampnett, so far, with Broad Campden the setting for the current work-in-progress) and a kind of "anti research" has been employed. I have made sure I never speak to anybody from those villages, so nobody can claim to be featured in one of the novels. I do make sure I visit all the pubs, and walk many of the footpaths.
I grew up on farms, first in Cheshire, then in Devon. It was a childhood full of powerful elemental experiences. Cruelty, death, frustration alternated with idyllic summer days, the teamwork of the harvest, the delight of the young animals. No two days were quite the same. Some of these memories have found their way into A Dirty Death, my first novel.
I live in rural Herefordshire, on a smallholding situated close to the beautiful Black Mountains. I have Cotswold sheep and Tamworth and Berkshire pigs - all rare breeds - and I produce all my own meat, as well as large quantities of excellent wool. Evenings are spent spinning, knitting and weaving, and commissions will be taken for big warm pure wool throws and blankets.
Book News There is a new printing due soon of A COTSWOLD KILLING, in larger size type, which will please a lot of people. I'm hoping to spot the rogue mistakes that one or two readers have pointed out, so this is a new improved version. The paperback of SLAUGHTER IN THE COTSWOLDS is available now. I'm doing several signings and talks around the Cotswolds area over the next few months, starting with The Cotswolds Bookstore in Moreton-in-Marsh on Saturday 13th February. This is the first book to include a map of the area, showing how the different settings connect to each other and to the larger towns. This map is planned to feature in all the books from now on. Book number nine in the series is nearing completion. This is DECEPTION IN THE COTSWOLDS, and is scheduled for spring 2011. Thea is in Cranham, which is not such a typical Cotswold village as most of the others, dominated as it is by extensive beech woods, where Henry VIII once hunted. Or so they say.
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More about Praxis Books - see also separate page on this website.
The majority of Praxis titles are reissues of novels by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924). He wrote 130 books, fiction and non-fiction, and was a great Victorian figure, very often claimed as the greatest individual ever to be born in Devon. The latest production is a new edition of John Herring, a novel set on Dartmoor and the north Cornish coast.
See www.sbgas.org
I am currently working on a biography of Sabine Baring-Gould, which will aim to put him firmly into context as a prominent Victorian, known as novelist, hymn writer, folksong collector, traveller, father of 15 children and very much more. The book progresses slowly, but it could be completed this year, with a major final push over the summer. There are over 40 boxes of material by and about him and his family at the Devon Record Office in Exeter, which is providing exciting new insights about the man and his work.
I am the membership secretary of the UK Crime Writers Association. LINK: www.thecwa.co.uk