The first in thehistorically rich, atmosphericmystery series featuring female exorcistReverend Merrily Watkins

The new vicar had never wanted a picture-postcard parish or a huge and haunted vicarage. Nor had she wanted to walk into a dispute over a controversial play about a 17th-century clergyman accused of witchcraft, a story that certain long-established families would rather remained obscure. But this is Ledwardine, steeped in cider and secrets. A paradise of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. And also as Merrily Watkins and her teenage daughter, Jane, discover a...

Reverend Merrily Watkins finds herself replacing a retiring exorcist who is determined to make the transition as unpleasant as possible

Diocesan Exorcist: a job viewed by the Church of England with such extreme suspicion that they changed the name. It's Deliverance Consultant now. Still, it seems, no job for a woman. But when the Bishop offers it to Merrily Watkins, parish priest and single mother, she's in no position to refuse. It starts badly for Merrily and gets no easier. As an early winter slices through the old city of Hereford, a body is found in the River Wye, an ancient church...

Exorcist Reverend Merrily Watkins is challenged bya modern day witch hunt, in her third adventure

When a redundant church is bought by a young pagan couple, the local fundamentalist minister reacts with fury. In an isolated community on the Welsh border, a modern witch hunt begins. Diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins is expected to keep the lid on the cauldron, but what she finds out will seriously test her beliefs. Also, there's the problem of the countrylawyer who won't be parted from his dead wife; the mystery of five ancient churches all dedicated to St. Michael, slayer of dragons; and...

Merrily Watkins faces multiple occult threats in her fourth outing

In Herefordshire's hop-growing country, where the river flows as dark as beer, a converted kiln is the scene of a savage murder. When the local vicar refuses to help its new owners cope with the aftermath, diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins is sent in by the Bishop. Already involved in the case of a schoolgirl whose mother thinks she's possessed by evil, the hesitant Merrily is drawn into a deadly tangle of deceit, corruption, and sexual menace as she uncovers the secrets of a village with a past as twisted as the...

In Merrily's fifth outing, a serial killer appears to be on the loose and Merrily has her doubts about the detective in charge of the case

After half a century of decay, the village of Underhowle looked to be on the brink of a new prosperity. Now, instead, it seems destined for notoriety as the home of a psychotic serial killer. DI Francis Bliss, of Hereford CID, is convinced he knows where the bodies are buried. But Merrily Watkins, called in to conduct a controversial funeral, wonders if Bliss isn't blinkered by personal ambition. And are the Underhowle deaths really linked to perhaps...

The sixth Merrily Watkins mystery finds her daughter embarking on a first job, and running into a dark local legend

A crumbling hotel on the border of England and Wales, asuggestion of inherited evil, a strange love affair, and the long-disputed origins of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Fascinating for young Jane Watkins, flushed by the freedom of her first weekend job. But the sinister side becomes increasingly apparent to her mother, Merrily, diocesan exorcist for Hereford. Then come memories of a child-killer, blood in the fresh snow."

Merrily is called to investigate a possible ghost sighting in her seventh fascinating adventure

In the affluent, historic town of Ludlow, a teenage boy dies in a fall from the castle ruins. Accident or suicide? No great mystery--so why does the boy's uncle, retired detective Andy Mumford, turn to diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins? More people will die before Merrily, her own future uncertain, uncovers a dangerous obsession with suicide, death, and the afterlife hidden within these shadowed medieval streets.

Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum and Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford, heads for the Malvern Hills to investigate an alleged paranormal dimension to a spate of road accidents in the sleepy village of Wychehill.

Merrily is called in when two people are killed in a head-on crash that is also linked to the revamped local pub which, it seems, has injected the valley with a shattering, strobing surge of inner-city nightlife... and drugs. When a dealer is found savagely murdered below the great earthen hillfort of Herefordshire Beacon,...

Directed by the Bishop of Hereford to investigate, deliverance consultant Merrily Watkins discovers ancient connections between the house and the nearby church, built by...