A wartime life, told in her own words. In November 1939, with the war just two months old, Wendy Scorer married Hugh Farthing — a handsome young RAF pilot more than six years her junior — in a hasty white wedding at her parents’ house in Bowdon. Two years later, Hugh would be shot down by the Japanese somewhere over Singapore, missing presumed dead, leaving Wendy a widow at twenty-eight.Drawing on Wendy’s gloriously frank diaries and a vast cache of family letters ...

Florist Simmy Brown is juggling life with a demanding newborn baby when visitors arrive in the Lake District with questions about a long-forgotten mystery. Thea Slocombe and her brother Damien are searching for the truth about their greatgrandfather, John Armstrong, who vanished without a trace in 1931. He left behind his family and a medal awarded for an act of bravery few now remember. As dormant rumours of murder begin to surface, Simmy's investigative instincts are reawakened. With a r...

'Rebecca Tope does what she does best: she gathers a cast of lively characters and a few red herrings (or not, as the case may be), and weaves them all into a nicely tangled plot against the glorious background of the Lakes' Mystery PeopleFollowing a personal tragedy, florist Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown has moved to the beautiful Lake District to be nearer her parents. Things are going well and Simmy is content to lose herself in her work until she finds hers...

A widow at sixty-four, the matriarch of a vanished England. When Arthur Scorer died of cancer in April 1951, his widow Clare was sixty-four — and just getting started. Over the next twenty-eight years she would bury a son, help to fight a prolonged court case claiming compensation for his widow and children, support her younger daughter in her difficult marriage and instigate her move into a half-derelict Elizabethan farmhouse in Devon with 200 acres needing to be farmed. ...

Following a personal tragedy, florist Persimmon "Simmy" Brown has moved to the beautiful Lake District region to be closer to her charismatic parents. Things are going well, and Simmy is happy 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 brutally murdered in the lake.As the wedding florist and one of the last people to talk to Mark Baxter alive, Simmy gradually becomes involved w...

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 anexpert in antique textiles, Eleanor has been a considerable help to him at his auction house.The visit out to the charming Lake District village of Dacre is squeezed into Simmy's endless to-do list. It is a moment of calm to appreciate the approach of spring and...

This book is a clarion call. An urgent alarm. It purviews beyond the problem of global unemployment, but speaks to economic and social decisions being made by individuals, households, companies and governments. The author seeks to find an intricate balance in between all of these. At least, if a balance was not achievable, he seeks to add his voice as one of those who pulled back the world from extremism. This time, the focus is on economic extremism. As it pertains to jobs, this book tell...

A huge funeral for Windermere's popular resident, Barbara Dodge, is taking place and florist Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown and her new assistant, Bonnie Lawson are busy compiling wreaths in preparation. There's word of a series of sinister dognappings occurring in nearby Troutbeck and whilst taking a walk up Wansfell Pike, Simmy and her father, Russell, stumble on a dog, strangled to death - it's not long before Simmy reluctantly finds herself caught up in a murder investigation .

Following a personal tragedy, florist Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown has moved to the beautiful region of the Lake District to be nearer her charismatic parents. Things are going well, with her latest flower arrangements praised and Simmy 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 brutally murdered in the lake. As the florist of the wedding and one of the last people to talk to Mark B...

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 the hotel soon turns sinister when she finds a body in the lake.To make matters worse, her friend, Ben Harkness - responsible for calling a...

****One of Time’s 32 Books You Need to Read This Summer**An NPR Best Book of 2019An “electrifying” (Publishers Weekly) debut novel from Rhodes Scholar and winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing about a Nigerian family living in Utah and their uneasy assimilation to American life.Living in small-town Utah has always been an uncomfortable fit for Tunde Akinola’s family, especially for his Nigeria-born...

'As Rebecca Tope tells it, every rural idyll is blighted by underlying menace. Such is her writing skill, I'm inclined to believe her' Daily MailWith 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 ge...