Rona Parish
6 primary works • 8 total works
Book 1
Rona Parish is a successful biographer who is asked to write the life story of Theo Harvey who led a most colourful life. As she begins to delve into his life and death it becomes apparent that she has been handed a poisoned chalice.
Book 2
Rona Parish is back, ready to embark on an assignment to write a series of articles to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the local market town of Buckford. One interview soon raises unresolved questions about a recent murder and Rona's investigative antennae are instantly on the alert.
Book 3
Book 4
After the success of her articles on adopted children, journalist Rona Parish is eager for a fresh challenge. A chance encounter with an old friend, Kate, now married into the Tarlton family who own the oldest jewellery shop in Marsborough, sows the seed of a new series. Rona will research the histories of several long-established family firms in the town, notably Tarltons and the Clarendon Hotel. Then, Kate enlists Rona's help in getting to the bottom of sister-in-law Freya's terrifying nightmares, which seem to hint at a buried childhood memory, and Rona finds herself drawn into the complex web of relationships linking the two families. At the same time, she has problems of her own: her recently separated parents are both making demands on her; sister Lindsay is - as usual - torn between two equally unsuitable men, and Rona's artist husband Max is becoming worryingly involved with one of his young students.
Book 7
The new Rona Parish mystery Rona Parish is asked to write a biography of reclusive artist Ellie by her concerned sister. Ellie hasn't been seen or heard from for over a year and there is much speculation as to what might have happened to her. While Ellie's star had been waning before she vanished, the mystery surrounding her whereabouts has fuelled interest in her work. Rona discovers that Ellie's closest friend from their schooldays, Chloe Pyne, had committed suicide a couple of years previously, apparently torn between the demanding and self-centred Ellie and her new boyfriend Nathan Tait. Could Ellie, wracked by guilt, have finally been driven to do likewise?
Book 8
Who was this person and why would someone want to hide his or her identity? Rona sets out to uncover the secret and soon finds that the school in question closed down many years ago due, it was rumoured, to a long-forgotten scandal. Could this be the link that will solve the mystery? Meanwhile, a visit to a stage hypnotist results in more than Rona and her friends bargained for...
James Markham's family are shocked when he jilts his fiancee for a woman about whom he appears to know very little. When they meet Abigail they are swayed by her beauty and charm, but puzzled by the aura of mystery that surrounds her, and her reluctance to answer questions about her past. Callum Firbank is successful, with a loving family and a comfortable home. But he has always been evasive about his childhood, and his wife realises she knows little about her husband's upbringing or family. Jill Irving runs a hotel in Dorset with her third husband Douglas. She has everything she could wish for: plenty of money, a leisurely lifestyle and opportunity for occasional illicit encounters. But she, too, has secrets in her past, and the facade she presents to the world masks a woman who lives in fear of discovery. What links these three very different people, and who is the mysterious stranger whose appearance in their lives seems to cause such terror?
Looking for a new subject for her popular series on local family businesses, Rona is pleased when her friend Georgia offers to engineer an introduction to Julian Willow, of the long-standing furniture emporium. Julian and his wife Felicity welcome Rona's interest, and offer her all the help she needs to write her article. Unusually, given Rona's propensity for uncovering dark secrets, there seem to be no skeletons in the Willow family cupboards.But this time it seems there may be a mystery closer to home. Rona's new neighbours, an elderly couple with a daughter, are unnervingly reserved and uncommunicative. When the young woman, Louise, comes to Rona with a plea for help, all her journalistic instincts are aroused. Against her better judgement - and husband Max' advice - Rona is once again drawn into a complex and disturbing sequence of events...