Showing results by author "Dorothy Cannell" in All Categories

Ellie Haskell aspires to live a perfectly normal life with her husband and children in their lovely old house. But bizarre events and outlandish characters keep landing on her doorstep in Chitterton Fells, the charming little village by the sea. Just when Ellie means to escape her hectic life by taking a vacation in France, her long-lost father shows up with the ashes of his lady love in his suitcase. Ellie becomes suspicious as Daddy recounts the details of his storybook romance with Harriet, the platinum-blonde ideal of English womanhood....

Ellie Simons stands to inherit her Uncle Merlin's huge English country house. But on three utterly bizarre conditions. One: she must lose sixty-three pounds (rude!). Two: she must marry the fake fiance she's been passing off as her true love all weekend. And three: she must catch whoever killed Uncle Merlin in the first place.

The men of Chitterton Fells are dropping like flies. And the membership of the Widows Club is growing bigger every day. Newlywed Ellie Haskell (nee Simons, thank you very much) is settling nicely into married bliss in the charming village of Chitterton Fells.

In its three-hundred-year history, there has never once been a scandal at Mullings, ancestral home of the decent but dull Stodmarsh family—until, that is, Edward Stodmarsh makes an ill-advised second marriage to the scheming Regina Stapleton, who insists on bringing her family's “ornamental hermit” to live on the estate.

Married to the man of her dreams and expecting a darling little bundle of joy, Ellie Haskell is excited to put her feet up and play the part of pampered wife for the next nine months. But handsome hubby Ben has other ideas. He whisks her off to America for an exclusive gourmet cooking competition in Mud Creek, Illinois. And worse, they're staying in crumbling old gothic mansion that's straight out of a horror movie!

Recovering from a painful divorce, Sarah Draycott has moved to the picturesque village of Sea Glass on the Maine coast in order to make a fresh start. And it's not long before she becomes immersed in the lives of her charming and eccentric new neighbors: the irrepressible 90-year-old Nellie Armitage; the elegant but troubled widow Gwen; and precocious 9-year-old orphan Oliver. As Sarah finds herself increasingly caught up in the lives of the Sea Glass residents, helping Gwen cope with her desperately ill son, and assisting Oliver in uncovering the secrets surrounding the Cully Mansion, she finds her broken heart beginning to heal.

Before her beautiful bouncing babies came along, Ellie Haskell's life was a fairy tale. Marriage to the gorgeous super-chef Ben was going swimmingly before every day was filled with nappies, bottles, and laundry. Determined to revive her love life, Ellie joins a new local ladies' group, Fully Female, which promises to restore some oomph back to her relationship by way of a Peach Melba Love Rub. But before long, things start going fatally wrong in the charming village of Chitterton Fells.

Chitterton Fells is all of a flutter. Along with every female member of the village Library League, Ellie Haskell has developed a veritable obsession with novels of the romance variety. The steamier, the better. But tragedy strikes when Miss Bunch the librarian is found dead between the non-fiction stacks. Then the local milkman collapses in broad daylight.

Ellie Simons's delightful mother-in-law comes to visit for a simply lovely weekend of crocheted doilies, thinly-veiled insults, and passive-aggressive "suggestions." It's enough to make anyone wish their mother-in-law was dead. But it turns out the ladies of Chitterton Fells should be more careful what they wish for. Only last night Ellie and her friends raised their gin and tonics to toast an end to mothers-in-law the world over. The next day, Pamela Pomeroy's own MIL is found dead.

March 1933, Dovecote Hatch, England. Florence Norris knows she has found a good man in George 'Birdie' Bird, the landlord of the local pub, The Dog & Whistle. They are set to marry in a understated service at the parish church in their beloved village, Dovecote Hatch. But when a mysterious stranger seeks out George, sharing family secrets and talks of an illegal burial years ago, an ominous dread falls over the happy couple. Soon they are pulled reluctantly into this mystery that uncovers unpleasant truths in this idyllic English village.

It’s November 1932, and the peaceful village of Dovecote Hatch is still reeling from the recent murder at Mullings, country estate of the wealthy Stodmarsh family. Now it’s about to be rocked by news of another violent demise. When the body of mild-mannered Kenneth Tenneson is found at the foot of the stairs in his home, the coroner’s inquest announces a verdict of accidental death. However, Florence Norris—the quietly observant housekeeper at Mullings—suspects there may be more to the story than a fall.