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.
The Cotswolds titles in order:
A COTSWOLD KILLING
A COTSWOLD ORDEAL
DEATH IN THE COTSWOLDS
A COTSWOLD MYSTERY
BLOOD IN THE COTSWOLDS
SLAUGHTER IN THE COTSWOLDS
FEAR IN THE COTSWOLDS
A GRAVE IN THE COTSWOLDS
DECEPTION IN THE COTSWOLDS
MALICE IN THE COTSWOLDS
The following books are shortly (May 2012) to be reissued:
A DIRTH DEATH
DARK UNDERTAKINGS
DEATH OF A FRIEND
A DEATH TO RECORD
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
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, Broad Campden, Snowshill and Winchcombe - the setting for the 2013 title 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 a great many rare breed pigs - 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.
For more about Sabine Baring-Gould 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.