Books like Aunt Dimity by Nancy Atherton

A charming and clever women detective, Precious Ramotswe, solves mysteries in Botswana's small town of Midsomin, South Africa, from 1986 to 1997, facing dangers and love in the process. The novel is beloved by readers worldwide for its clever dialogue and characters who are as flawed as the rest of us. The book is a bestseller and has been translated into 45 languages, including Polish, German, and Japanese, among others. It was also voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.

Harold Fry, recently retired, embarks on an unlikely 250‑mile journey from Kingsbridge to Berwick‑upon‑Twed to visit a dying friend, and in doing so discovers his own past and the meaning of love.

In 1888 East London, tea‑factory worker Fiona Finnegan and her lover Joe Bristow dream of owning a shop. After tragedy forces her into New York, Fiona rises from a modest storefront to a top tea‑industry magnate, only to confront her past to secure her future.

"In the 23rd installment of the bestselling Aunt Dimity series, a dark and stormy night kicks off a ghost chase in rural England On a dull and dreary October day, Lori Shepherd and her husband Bill set off for the historic town of Rye, on the southeast coast of England, for a quiet weekend together without the kids. Bill must first pay a visit to a reclusive client--but after Lori drops him off, a powerful storm drives her off course and leaves her stranded in an ancient, rambling inn called The King's Ransom. When Lori is spooked by ghostly noises in the night, Aunt Dimity reminds her rather tartly that not all ghosts intend to harm the living. But the longer Lori is stuck at the inn, the stranger things seem. She learns that the inn was once a hangout for smugglers, and that it's riddled with secret tunnels the smugglers used to reach a network of hidden caves. Then there's the inn's cook--a brawny, gruff ex-con--who seems to have a beef with a mysterious French guest. Are the noises Lori hears made by the spirits of long dead smugglers? Or should she be more worried by the inn's living inhabitants? Joining forces with her new friend Bishop Wyndham, and guided by Aunt Dimity's wise counsel, Lori sets out to discover once and for all who--or what--is haunting The King's Ransom"--

A modern mystery spins when Lori Shepherd must travel to New Zealand to find a long‑lost brother for her dying neighbors, with the aid of Aunt Dimity’s uncanny guidance.

Fiction, Ghost story, Setting - England

After a breakup, amateur gardener Emma Porter embarks on a summer road trip through England’s gardens, where she discovers Penford Hall and a duke hunting a powerful lantern. With Aunt Dimity’s ghostly help, she uncovers secrets and finds unexpected love.

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950--and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. "I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life."To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story--of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school's tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder--but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse....An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions--and a rich literary delight.From the Hardcover edition.

A contemporary Scottish writer uncovers a secret from 1708 involving a Jacobite invasion and a long‑lost tragedy, as a haunting ancestral memory threatens to unleash the buried truth for all to see.

Lori returns to her small Cotswold town after a stay in the US, only to find her close friend Prunella "Pruneface" Hooper dead. Panicked by the gossip, she takes on the case when her aunt, a sleuth, steps down.

Lori Shepherd inherits her aunt’s honey‑colored English cottage, setting her on a supernatural mystery through Cornwall that unravels family secrets, mistaken identities and a hidden treasure.