Rebecca Alexander Books In Order

Publication Order of Island Cottage Books

Publication Order of Jackdaw Hammond Books

Publication Order of Sage Westfield Books

Rebecca Alexander
Rebecca Alexander, having had a career in psychology, decided to take time out to raise and home school six kids, as well as home school herself with an MA in Creative Writing.

“The Secrets of Life and Death” was a runner up in the 2011 novel writing competition with Mslexia and an agent and book deal for three books ensued.

She writes fantasy and crime, with an interest in superstitious and folk beliefs. “A Baby’s Bones” asks the question: is a dark house haunted by all the dreadful violence that was committed there in the past, or could there be a scientific explanation which triggers the darkness in the people that are working there?

Rebecca is also fascinated with the psychology which creates crime, how somebody overcomes a lifetime of societal pressure not to harm somebody. What sort of people find that possible (or, even, easy?).

“A Shroud of Leaves” asks this question, why a young girl would ever be buried in a pile of leaves on some estate which seems haunted by another girl’s disappearance in the past. Yet she’s not the first young person that’s gone missing there. The story explores a family which seems to be haunted by psychopathy.

Rebecca has been interested in fantasy ever since she read her first fairy tale. Once she began writing seriously, as part of her MA in creative writing, fantasy started creeping into what was going to be a crime story. It has since crept into everything that she has written: romance, historical, and mystery. She believes it’s because she continues finding references to magic everywhere. It is our first belief system: a fat man is going to come down your chimney at Christmas, tooth fairies steal your teeth and exchange them for money, and black cats are lucky.

When she was a psychologist, folks came up with beliefs and superstitions which didn’t make any empirical sense but made for a good story. Living on the Isle of Wight then Devon she could not get away from superstitions and their magical history.

Rebecca wrote “The Secrets of Life and Death” out of this love of fantasy and magic. She tried bringing a single element of fantasy into the real world and it seeped out in all directions. Dr. John Dee believed that Sorcery was possible, since it was his idea of technology. Rebecca just wondered if he was right or not? What if a kid’s life could be saved by magic when medicine fails? Then Rebecca had to go back and follow Dee and Kelley, his sidekick, while they did their experiments, and worked through how magic works in Elizabeth Bathory’s castle.

“The Secrets of Life and Death” is the first novel in the “Secrets” series and was released in 2013. Modern day England, Professor Guichard gets called in to identify some occult symbols found on a young girl’s corpse. His investigation brings him in contact with Jackdaw Hammond, a mysterious woman that guards a monumental secret. She’s dead. Or she would be, if not for this magic, which has artificially extended her life. However somebody else knows her secret. Somebody very old and highly powerful, who will not rest until they have taken the magic which keeps her alive.

In Krakow in the year 1585, Dr. John Dee, the Elizabethan Alchemist and Occultist, and Edward Kelley, his assistant, have been summoned by the King of Poland to save the life of the infamous Countess Bathory, his niece. However they quickly realize that the only thing worse than the Countess’ malady, is the magic which may be able to save her.

While Felix and Jackdaw race to reveal the truth about the person pursuing her, it becomes obvious the answers they’re looking for can only be found in Edward Kelley’s ancient diary. Together they have to solve a mystery that’s centuries in the making, or die trying.

“The Secrets of Blood and Bone” is the second novel in the “Secrets” series and was released in 2014. Jackdaw Hammond, after her showdown with Elizabeth Bathory, is on the run from her past, hiding from her future, and hoping she can contain her newfound thirst for blood. Buying this overgrown home out in the middle of nowhere seems like it’d be the perfect place to escape, at least until she finds herself in the crosshairs of a murderous family with a penchant for dark magic and a horrible secret.

At the same time, Felix Guichard (her old ally) has gone off to New Orleans to conduct his own investigation into the nature of blood magic, however is soon sucked into the intrigues of the city’s occult underworld. However Jack’s going to need Felix a lot more than she knows, for the battle for her soul is all set to start.

Her one salvation might lie with the secrets of 16th century master occultist Edward Kelley, and this dangerous mission that he undertook in Venice to confront Elizabeth Bathory’s fearsome power, the Inquisition, and the darkest needs of his own past.

“A Baby’s Bones” is the first novel in the “Sage Westfield” series and was released in 2015. An archaeologist stumbles upon this centuries old crime, and the trail of a modern murderer.

Archaeologist Sage Westfield has just been called in to excavate a sixteenth century well, and only expects to find little more than soil and the odd piece of pottery. However the disturbing find of a woman’s bones and a newborn baby make it obvious that she has stumbled across a historical crime scene, one which is interwoven with an unsettling local legend of unrequited love and witchcraft.

But there’s more to this case than just a four hundred year old mystery. The owners of this nearby cottage have become convinced that it’s haunted, and the local vicar is getting plagued with abusive phone calls. Then this tragic death makes it much too clear that there is a modern murderer at work.

Readers found this storyline and the characters intriguing. The scientific aspects of the story were interesting and easy to understand.