Beatrice Ashby Regency Paranormal Cozy Mystery

The World of the Series

Welcome to Wexcombe

where the living keep their secrets & the dead keep complaining

A fashionable spa town in the green folds of Somerset, Wexcombe is all elegant terraces, healing waters, and impeccable manners, with rather more murder beneath the surface than its visitors' book would care to admit.

People come to Wexcombe to take the waters, mend a fortune, or marry one. They promenade in the Spa Gardens, gossip in the Pump Room, and dance until dawn in the Upper Rooms. It is a town built on appearances, which makes it the perfect place for secrets to fester, and the worst possible place to be a young woman who can see exactly who is lying, living or dead.

The Cast

Henrietta Hetty Crewe Portrait

The Sleuth

Henrietta "Hetty" Crewe

Wexcombe's most sought-after matchmaker, of good name and reduced means. She can read a room in a heartbeat and broker a love-match before supper, and she can see the dead, a gift she would very much prefer to keep to herself.

Mr. Frederick Hartley Portrait

The Romantic Foil

Mr. Frederick Hartley

A gentleman-magistrate: by-the-book, quietly decent, and thoroughly maddened that this matchmaker is forever three steps ahead of him, and that he can never, ever work out how.

Sir Crispin Fanshawe Portrait

The Resident Ghost

Sir Crispin Fanshawe

A Restoration-era rake, dead some 140 years and bound to Hetty's front parlor. Appalled by Regency primness, gleefully unhelpful, secretly lonely, and the keeper of a mystery all his own.

Mrs. Sophia Fenwick Portrait

The Confidante

Mrs. Sophia Fenwick

The one living soul who knows Hetty's secret: warm, loyal, and good for both an alibi and a cup of tea. The beating heart of Hetty's growing found family.

The Dowager Lady Marbury Portrait

The Social Arbiter

The Dowager Lady Marbury

Wexcombe's formidable gatekeeper, whose favor can make or break a reputation, and a matchmaker's livelihood. A recurring obstacle slowly, grudgingly, becoming an ally.

Mrs. Drusilla Wycliffe Portrait

The Rival

Mrs. Drusilla Wycliffe

A rival matchmaker with a genius for turning up where she is least wanted, a fund of self-serving gossip, and an unerring instinct for the wrong end of the stick. Comic thorn in Hetty's side.

A Tour of the Town

An illustrated map of the spa town of Wexcombe, showing the Crescent, the Pump Room, the Upper Rooms, Cross Street, the River Wex, Cleeve Bridge, and the Cleeve
The fashionable spa town of Wexcombe.
The Pump Room

The Pump Room

The beating heart of Wexcombe's social life. Here, the fashionable gather to drink the warm, mineral-rich waters, exchange the latest gossip, and arrange their morning walks. Beneath the high ceilings and elegant chandeliers, secrets are traded as easily as pleasantries.

No. 4 Cleeve Terrace

No. 4 Cleeve Terrace

Hetty Crewe's genteel but faded townhouse. Behind its respectable Georgian facade lies a quiet front parlor where Sir Crispin Fanshawe has spent the last 140 years grumbling about the decline of English manners and the absolute lack of decent wine.

The Spa Gardens

The Spa Gardens

A beautifully landscaped park with gravel walks, shaded arbours, and ornamental lawns. By day, it is a peaceful retreat for reflection and quiet conversation; by night, it plays host to grand illuminations and the occasional late-night meeting that is best kept out of sight.

No. 4 Cleeve TerraceHetty's genteel townhouse, and the one address in England Sir Crispin cannot leave.
The Pump RoomTake the waters, see and be seen. Gossip central, and the daily social ritual.
The Upper RoomsThe assembly rooms: balls, card-tables, and the true matchmaking battlefield.
St Aldhelm'sThe parish church, weddings, funerals, and a churchyard with stories to tell.
Mowbray's Circulating LibraryBooks, subscription lists, fresh gossip, and a shelf of lurid Gothic novels.
The Spa GardensWalks, public breakfasts, and illuminations along the Promenade.
Cross StreetThe principal shops: modiste, milliner, confectioner, and apothecary.
The AngelThe coaching inn, every arrival, departure, and conveniently-timed alibi.
The CrescentThe grand curved sweep of honey-stone houses where the best families take the air. Cleeve Terrace keeps its modest place at the end.
The River WexThe river winding below the town, past the weir and the wooded cliff, the Cleeve, that gives Cleeve Terrace its name.
Cleeve BridgeThe graceful arched bridge over the Wex, between the genteel heights and the bustle of the waterside.
The Old WellsThe ancient spring-head where the healing waters first rose, older and humbler than the Pump Room above.
Market SquareThe market cross and awnings of the lower town, where Wexcombe does its less elegant business.
The TheatreThe town's little playhouse near the Upper Rooms, for an evening's diversion when the cards grow dull.
The QuayA small wharf on the Wex in the Lower Town, where the river barges tie up.
Lower TownThe humbler quarter across Cleeve Bridge: workshops, washing lines, and excellent gossip.

The Rules of the Uncanny

Hetty's gift points and pressures, but it never solves the case for her. Every murder is fair play: the clues that catch the killer are on the page for you, too.

  • She sees only the violently dead with unfinished business, the peaceful pass on, unseen
  • A ghost cannot name its own killer, nor recall the moment of its death
  • Spirits are bound to a place; they cannot roam the town to spy
  • A ghost is only as honest as it was in life, a scoundrel will lie to you from beyond the grave
  • A murdered soul crosses over only when someone stands in the gap and sees justice done
  • Spend too long with a forceful spirit and its temper begins to "bleed" into prim Hetty, to comic, and perilous, effect

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