Jill Churchill Boeken

As a child, beautiful red-haired Mary Beecham was plucked out of poverty and placed in the lap of Victorian luxury. But her illegitimate birth branded her as a woman apart-and her brains and spirit made her reject playing a woman's role in a world of wealth and power run by men. This is her spellbinding story...of her rise to rule the vast spice trade that united might England with the romantic East...of her searing passion for a man whom it was scandalous to desire...of a marriage that turned into the greatest trial a woman could face...and of the gamble she took and reward she reaped when she staked all on a love she had never dared dream would be hers.

They Have Inherited a Lovely Upstate Mansion. . .The crash of 1929 has ended the party for high-living New Yorkers Lily Brewster and her brother Robert and takes them from the upper echelons of the idle rich and deposits them to the lowly depths of the disillusioned poor. However, rescue arrives in the form of their recently deceased great-uncle Horation who bequeaths to them Grace and Favor "Cottage" which is really a great sprawling mansion. And there's a fortune to go with it, but only if they reside there for ten years. And an Inconvenient Corpse With no other alternative, the spirited Manhattanites move to a quiet and quaint Hudson River community and try to fit in. But they soon find out that great-uncle Horatio didn't die peacefully. He was murdered while on an elaborate sailing party on the Hudson River aboard his yacht -- and Lily and Robert are suspects. But when another corpse appears in the kitchen of the mansion, the siblings are determined to clear themselves. Without a clue how to begin, Lily and Robert start snooping, unaware that their savvy sleuthing could make them the killer's next targets.

Despite a full schedule, frazzled suburban single mom Jane Jeffrey has agreed to help out during a two-day gathering of her friend Shelley's former high school girls' club. So while the reunited ladies are dishing dirt, Jane is sweeping it up - and inadvertantly becomes privy to all sorts of interesting gossip and long smoldering resentments. But then a corpse turns up among the one-time student body. And unless Jane gets to the bottom of a nasty senior-year scandal, more alumnae will die at the hands of a calculating classmate who's majoring in murder.

It's So hard to Kill Good Help These Days. . . With three kids to raise on her own, Jane Jeffry sometimes needs a hand with the housework. But many of her complaining neighbors believe that the Happy Helper cleaning lady they all share wouldn't know a dustball if she was choking on it. That hardly seems reason enough, however, to do the disreputable domestic in. So when the charwoman in question is discovered strangled to death with a vacuum cleaner cord, Jane decides to dig up the real dirt--if the tenacious single mom can find any time to spare between her PTA meetings and car-pooling duties. But despite her busy schedule, Jane is determined to tidy up the whole murderous mess--even if it means provoking a killer who may live as close as next door.

In 1932, a brother and sister sharing a mansion on the Hudson River--the Grace and Favor Cottage--are faced with a party gone fatally wrong when one of their paying weekend guests is strangled.

It's beginning to look a lot like murder'Tis the season to jolly and suburban mom Jane Jeffry's in a mad scramble to finish her cookie baking and household chores before her teenage kids arrive home. Also expected are two moms-both the late husband's mother and the disapproving mater of Det. Mel VanDyne, Jane's significant other. The kitchen is a disaster zone, the dog has decorated the house with hair, and the earsplitting racket coming from the neighbors tacky, music-making Christmas display is driving Jane crazy. Now she has to get the green icing out of her hair and be ready to host her post-caroling dinner party.One thing Jane isn't ready for is a surprise visit from a muckraking TV "action reporter," disguised as Santa Claus. The nasty old St. Nick is out to wrap a happy holiday caroling into a package marked "scandal," but before he has a chance to color the event with yellow journalism, his red-suited body slides off the neighbor's roof to land, silenced forever, on the horns of a plastic reindeer. It looks like Santa's mishap is no accident and, with the help of her friend Shelley, Jane finds plenty of suspects. The phony Santa has an ex-wife and a female assistant who both hate him, and plenty of nice people ruined by tales of naughtiness. Now Jane has to find the Grinch who thought murder was a way to save Christmas before the holiday turns into the unhappiest day of the year.

Pompous, pig-headed attorney Robert Stonecipher is a major pain in the ham hocks. So no one is terribly upset when he's fatally mashed by a falling rock of hams at the new deli where suburban single mom Jane Jeffry's son works part-time.But when Stonecipher's most obnoxious employee meets an equally appropriate end, Jane knows the fat's really in the fire. And though her homicide detective honey Mel VanDyne disapproves, Jane is determined to dive headfirst into this deadly daze of swine and neuroses -- and hunt a hog-wild murderer despite her own killer agenda as homemaker/PTA/church/community busyperson.

Jane investigates a murder connected to her new gardening class with the help of her police detective boyfriend.

Lucy Stone finds a new mystery to solve when Christmas in Tinker's Cove turns deadly during the annual Cookie Exchange after Tucker Whitney, recently accused of stealing Lee Cummings' cookie recipe, is found murdered. Reissue.

Sister and brother Lily and Robert Brewster may not have a penny to their names, but at least they're in good company––times couldn't be tougher in the Hudson River Valley during the Great Depression, and even the much–revered Chief of Police has lost his home. Their poor town has been stripped of its Post Office, too; now mail gets dumped off the trains steaming up the Hudson River, and people have to rummage through the bags to find their letters and packages. When Robert helps a young widow and her newly–arrived German grandfather haul the old man's trunks to his granddaughter's shop, he thinks he may have found a new set of friends––especially the kind train porter who helps them out. But when a red swastika is found painted on the widow's shop window, and the train porter is found dead, Robert knows that something much deeper, and much darker, is happening in his sleepy little town. Even back at Grace & Favor Mansion, where Lily and Robert live, things are falling apart. The Chief of Police has just unearthed a very, very old skeleton––right on the grounds! Could the two murders be related? It's up to Lily and Robert to find out the truth, before their quiet community is town apart by hatred, secrets, and a killer who may have set his sights on Grace & Favor...

If Lily and Robert Brewster no longer have a penny to their names, at least they have a roof over their heads in this bleak Depression November of 1932 -- the sprawling estate of their late great-uncle in Voorburg-on-Hudson. But then a badly disguised stranger offers to pay generously to hold a very secret meeting there shortly before the national election. And soon one of the mystery guests is murdered in his bath, a local grade school teacher goes missing, and a little boy is kidnapped. With Pretty Boy Floyd rumored to be somewhere near, the nasty business smacks of underworld activity -- or possible political conspiracy aimed at sabotaging Roosevelt's election. Either way, Chief Howard Walker has nowhere to house all the suspects except at the local Hospital for the Criminally Insane. And the Brewster siblings are going to have their hands full tying the various ends together . . . and ferreting out the killer who abused their hospitality.

Here comes the bride! Suburban supersleuth Jane Jeffry and her detective beau Mel VanDyne have finally decided to tie the knot. While Jane's planning the wedding of her dreams—with no overbearing mother-in-law to steamroll the entire event and tell her what to wear—Mel convinces her and her best friend Shelley to take a women's self-defense class. But before Jane and Shelley can learn the karate kicks and mean moves to fight off even the perfect purse-snatcher, their class is cut brutally short . . . when two participants are murdered. Between her new writing project, an addition to the house, and battling mothers-in-law, she's got her hands full. But she'll have to make time to help Mel find the killer if she wants to walk happily—and safely—down the aisle.

Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, siblings Robert and Lily Brewster find themselves living in their late great-uncle's mansion, embracing a life of elegance despite their financial struggles. With Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration signaling a new era, Robert, fresh from witnessing the event, is quickly taken to a nursing home where the Brewsters have committed to assist the staff. This story explores themes of resilience and family support during challenging times.

Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, Lily and Robert Brewster navigate their new life in a small town after losing their fortune. Their routine is disrupted when Robert uncovers a mummified corpse in their estate, leading Lily to collaborate with the charming Chief of Police, Howard Walker. As they investigate, a second body emerges, deepening the mystery and entangling the siblings in a web of deception and danger, all while a killer lurks nearby.

You can't judge a book by its cover. Suburban homemaker Jane Jeffry, who seems an unlikely candidate for murder investigation, has become an expert after encountering numerous corpses and unmasking killers. Accompanied by her best friend Shelley Nowack, Jane heads to a nearby mystery writers' convention to network with literary crime figures and promote her own manuscript. The event features editors, agents, and renowned authors, including Jane's favorite, Felicity Roane, and her partner, Detective Mel VanDyne, as a guest speaker. However, trouble brews with the presence of a malicious literary critic, Zac Zebra, and self-published author Vernetta Strausmann, whose loud personality raises eyebrows. As expected, a mystery unfolds when a prominent editor collapses at the podium, poisoned by an unknown assailant. The situation escalates when a loathed journalist is violently attacked in the parking lot, suggesting a real-life murderer is among the attendees. Suspects abound: the gossiping "Ms. Mystery," a local bookseller, and an overly inquisitive reader. Jane and Shelley dive into the investigation, determined to uncover the killer, who proves to be more elusive and dangerous than they anticipated.

Popular detective Jane Jeffry's quiet domesticity is shattered when Hollywood comes to suburbia. The tension starts when a film crew becomes intent on using Jane's backyard as a primary location. When the set manager is stabbed to death, Jane must solve the crime fast--before the killer strikes again.

Jane Jeffry, suburban sleuth extraordinare, and her friend, Detective Mel VanDyne, have braved a blizzard to join her friend Shelley at a Colorado ski resort. In spite of having all their kids along, Jane and Shelley imagine a few mindless days of relaxation. But their hopes are dashed on their first attempt to ski when Jane careens into a snowman that hides a very real -- and every dead -- body.The slopes are littered with suspects -- a convention of genealogists led by a political fruitcake who thinks she's going to put her hand-picked Tsar on the Russian throne, a mysterious crimson-clad skier who's always on the horizon, and ex-stockbroker who's hiding from his investors, and an irate tribe of Native Americans. Jane has to take a census of the suspects and make some grave assumptions about who was vacationing with malicious intent.

Life is hectic enough for suburban single mom Jane Jeffrey this Christmas season--what with her having to survive cutthroat church bazaar politics and finish knitting the afghan from Hell at the same time. The last thing the harried homemaker needs is an unwelcome visit from old acquaintance Phyllis Wagner and her ill-mannered brat of a teenage son. And the Wagner picture becomes even more complicated when a dead body is woven into the design. Solving a murder, however, is a lot more interesting than knitting, so Jane's determined to sew the whole thing up. But with a plethora of suspects and the appearance of a second corpse, this deadly tapestry is getting quite complex indeed. And Jane has to be very careful not to get strangled herself by the twisted threads shes attempting to unravel.

The latest delectable cozy from Agatha Award winner Churchill has suburban single mom Jane Jeffry sleuthing again when a wedding she is planning at a monastery-turned-hunt club turns into a killer affair.

Wealthy old Auguste Caspar Snellen, the legendary Pea King, is long gone, but his greatest legacy lives the Snellen Museum, an institution dedicated to the glorification of local lore and legumes. But at this years annual Pea Festival, the museum sustains a terrible loss when its able, innovative director, Regina Price Palmer, is shot to death during a noisy reenactment of a Civil War battle. Suburban single mom Jane Jeffrey was a costumed participant in the deadly pageant. Now her part-time work at the museum has put Jane and best friend Shelley Nowack in the midst of a veritable podful of murder suspects. And its up to Jane and Shelley to determine who fatally beaned poor Regina--before another victim is planted six feet under.

Set in a Wisconsin resort, a suburban Chicago widow finds herself in a culinary conundrum when a corpse, seemingly bludgeoned by a frying pan, turns up during her rustic getaway. As the body mysteriously vanishes and the victim reappears, she embarks on a quirky investigation to uncover the truth behind the bizarre events. With her aversion to cooking and a love for food, Jane navigates a comedic mystery in the wilderness, blending humor and intrigue.

Die alleinerziehende Witwe Jane Jeffry aus Chicago steckt mitten in den Vorbereitungen zu einem Weihnachtsbasar, veranstaltet von der Witwe eines bekannten Rockstars, als ihre alte Freundin Phyllis und deren Sohn in einem Haus in der Nachbarschaft ermordet werden.

Offenbar scheint es einen Mörder zu geben, dessen Spezialität es ist, Putzfrauen mit dem Staubsaugerkabel zu töten. Jane Jeffrey, unerschrockene alleinerziehende Mutter, beschließt, dem Täter das Handwerk zu legen.