This page is for tropes that have appeared in Aunt Dimity.
For the rest:
- Gasp!: During the first dinner at Dundrillin Castle in Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea, Sir Percy recounts a local ghost story, and he's just relayed a creepy detail when the lights go out. Lori's reaction: "I gasped, nearly stabbed myself in the face with a forkful of lamb, and knocked over my water glass."
- Ghost Fiction: Well, obviously.
- Ghost Story: The islanders on Erinskil have a local ghost story about Brother Cieran, the sole survivor of a Viking raid on a local monastery; he had gone to a small nearby island to meditate, so the Vikings didn't kill him, and after attending to the dead, he returned to island to die, pushing the boat away and haunting the place ever since. They also claim to hear the cries of the murdered monks at the monastery ruins. Sir Percy tells this tale to Lori over dinner at Dundrillin Castle; predictably, the lights go out just after he recounts a creepy detail, Lori is startled, and Sir Percy's face reappears in the gloom illuminated from below by a lighted match.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Oh yes they do, and it's not just girls. In this universe, Dimity is responsible for many of them. A partial list:
- Lori's childhood pal is Reginald, the pink flannel rabbit with the grape juice stain on his face (Lori says he tried her grape juice once and spat it out). Sadly, he was shredded when her apartment was burglarised, and Lori kept his remains in a shoe box, but Aunt Dimity magically repaired him. Reginald sometimes assists Dimity in drawing Lori's attention to things or prompting characters to go to specific places.
- In Aunt Dimity and the Duke, the six-year-old Nell Harris carries around a stuffed bear she refers to as "Bertie," who has aspects of both a security blanket and an imaginary friend. The two sometimes appear in matching outfits. Like Reginald, Bertie plays a small part in subsequent stories.
- Dimity provides Lori with a stuffed tiger to give to Rainey Dawson for her birthday in ''Aunt Dimity Digs In". On unwrapping her present, Rainey announces, "Edmund Terrance. His name is Edmund Terrance."
- Major Ted, a stuffed bear in a British officer's uniform who once belonged to the daughter of the house at an old Northumberland estate, features in Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil.
- The epilogue of Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince describes a photo of young Daisy Pickering with her reunited parents in Australia holding a koala bear.
- In Aunt Dimity and the Summer King, Hargreaves' granddaughter Harriet gives a stuffed unicorn to Lori's infant daughter Bess. It joins Reginald on the library shelf until Bess is a little older.
- Elderly retired attorney Thomas Willis (Gerald's father) enjoys the company of a well-worn giraffe named Geraldine in Aunt Dimity's Good Deed, and Kit Smith has a stuffed horse named Lancaster after the real horse he had to give up when his family moved to London from the country. Like Lori herself, both received their companions as gifts from Dimity.
- Rob and Will get a series of themed stuffed animals (matching, of course): baby seal pups from Peter Harris and his girlfriend Cassie, buffalo in Colorado, dragons from King Wilfrid's Faire, kiwis from Lori's trip to New Zealand, bats from Charlotte DuCaral. The Donovans' Aunt Augusta anonymously bestows her stuffed lamb (yet another gift from Dimity) on Willis Sr., who names him Frederick after the author of Notes on Sheep, a copy of which was found among the items hidden in the stables.
- In Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince, Lady Barbara personally returns Mikhail's Cossack-shirted teddy bear to him.
- In Aunt Dimity and the Buried Treasure, when Lori finally meets the man Dimity knew only as "Badger", she sees on his desk the stuffed badger Dimity once gave him "as a silly gift, a small token of my gratitude for the many wonderful hours we'd spent together."
- Good Samaritan: Lori and her family play the Good Samaritan to the man they find collapsed in their driveway at the beginning of Aunt Dimity's Christmas; Willis Sr. even calls out an RAF helicopter to airlift the man to hospital when the roads are blocked by snow.
- Gossipy Hens: Much of the population of Finch could fall into this category. One of the residents calls the village "the Olympic training center for the sport of nosey parkering."
- Got Volunteered: A Running Gag in reference to Finch's organizer Peggy Taxman (formerly Kitchen), as well as her Colorado counterpart Maggie Flaxman; fall afoul of her and you're likely to find yourself volunteered for one of the dirty or boring jobs at the next local festival. Try to get out of one assignment (as Bill did in Aunt Dimity Digs In), and her alternative "suggestion" won't be much better.
- Gratuitous French: This trope is played with periodically in the case of Nell Harris. She is depicted as unworldly, verging on CloudCuckoolander-territory, but is in fact both intelligent and wise. In Aunt Dimity's Good Deed, she disguises herself as a French girl who is Willis Sr.'s ward and speaks French as a part of the cover, getting information from locals about Gerald Willis. Years later, she falls for Kit Smith, then her father's stable master and twice her age (She's 16, he's 32). He doesn't want to take advantage of her youth and tells her so, but he sneaks into her grandfather's estate to see her after her riding accident in Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday. When he goes to leave her bedside, he says, "I...I should go. Good-bye, Nell." She replies, "Au revoir, Kit." The French phrase can be literally translated as, "until our next meeting," making it clear she still loves him.
- The Greys: In Aunt Dimity Digs In, the Peacocks have a new sign painted for their pub, depicting two faces on a dark background: "One face was slightly larger than the other, but apart from that, they were identical: hairless, triangular, and delicate, with enormous eyes, plug holes for nostrils, and thin slits for mouths. They wore dark brown hoods, and their skin was a pale shade of greenish-gray." Naturally, the new name of the pub is "The Green Men".
- Groupie Brigade: The Bowenists who follow the botanical artist Mae Bowen in Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch.
- Guilt by Coincidence: In Aunt Dimity Digs In, several people see two hooded figures in the vicinity of the vicarage the night an old pamphlet is stolen from the vicar's desk. Throw in fog, lights, and a Crop Circle, and Hilarity Ensues.
- Harp of Femininity: In Aunt Dimity and the Duke, Grayson's grandmother played a harp, and its removal for sale prompted the crisis that opens the book. There's also a painting depicting the twelfth Duchess of Penford seated at her instrument, and it is among the items Grayson repurchased after making a fortune portraying crass rock star Lex Rex.
- Haunted Castle: The neo-Gothic Wyrdhurst Hall in Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil.
- Haunted House: Lori, Annelise, and the twins have no competition for the use of the luxurious cabin in Aunt Dimity Goes West because the owner's wife and daughter think the place is haunted. Strictly speaking, it is but the danger isn't from the mild-mannered ghost, but rather a living neighbour with a century-old grudge.
- Heir Club for Men: In Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince, Tappan Hall actually belongs to Lady Barbara Booker's great-nephew due to an entail. Even so, he declines to be addressed by the title "Lord" while she's still alive, insisting that she should rightfully have it.
- Hello, Attorney!: Bill Willis had a beard, a paunch and thick horn-rimmed glasses when Lori met him. He lost all three and Lori describes him as being "quite literally, tall, dark and handsome." Cousin Gerald Willis, an attorney in the English branch of the family firm, is also described as a handsome man.
- Heroic BSoD: Nicholas Fox, Lilian Bunting's nephew, flees the meeting near the end of Aunt Dimity: Detective and stands in a thunderstorm without a coat. At first, Lori cannot get him to speak or take his coat, but she does manage to get him inside the vicarage and wrapped in a blanket before a fire. At length, he explains that he couldn't stand the villagers' callous attitudes toward Prunella Hooper's death from an accidental blow to the head. He worked as an undercover cop and saw his partner brutally beaten to death several months previously.
- Hope Is Scary: Bree's initial reaction to the news of her great-grand aunts' actual existence at the end of Aunt Dimity Down Under is best summed up this way. She learns from their attorney that they have revised their will and she will inherit everything they own, including the trust fund set up by their black sheep brother nearly a century before. She is reluctant at first to go along with the idea, but Lori and Cameron convince her to go to England and meet Ruth and Louise.
- Identical Twin ID Tag:
- Identical twins Ruth and Louise Pym are difficult to tell apart and always dress alike. Eventually, Lori realizes that Ruth (the elder) always speaks first, and that Louise is slightly more soft-spoken than her sister.
- Lori doesn't explicitly state how she can tell her sons apart, but in Aunt Dimity Digs In young Rainey Dawson claims to be able to see the difference in their souls by looking in their eyes, even citing a difference in colour: "Rob's is silvery blue and Will's is sort of golden.".
- Impoverished Patrician:
- Aunt Dimity and the Duke opens with just such a scenario: young Grayson has been upset to learn his impoverished father (the thirteenth Duke of Penford) has been selling off family heirlooms and dismissing staff, and he seeks advice from Dimity Westwood (still very much alive at this date, some twenty years before the rest of the book's events). Grayson himself grows up planning to restore his family's fortune, and does so by creating a crass rock musician alter ego with the help of his former staff. They make a fortune, then "kill off" the musician so they can retire to the ducal estate and live on income from the proceeds and other endeavours.
- When Lori and Bree dig in to Daisy Pickering's tale of the Lost Prince, Dimity confirms that some wealthy Russians fled to Britain in such a state, both directly after the Russian Revolution and during World War II. Also, the snobbish blue-blooded Boghwells make ends meet by renting out their creepy-looking estate to film crews for low-budget horror films.
- I'm Your Worst Nightmare: Early in Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea, Bill shows Lori a printout of a threatening email he received earlier that morning, the latest in a series. The note came with photos of the cottage, Lori, their nanny Annelise and the twins on their ponies. The text reads:You came like a thief in the night to cast me into the abyss. You chained me in darkness, but no earthly chains can hold me anymore. I have risen.
Behold, I am coming soon to repay you for what you have done. All that you love will perish. I will strike your children dead and give your wife a like measure of torment and mourning. I have the keys to Death and Hades, and I will blot your name from the book of life forever.
Your nightmare has begun. There is no waking.
Abaddon - In Defence of Storytelling: The underlying Aesop for Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince: an imaginative little girl makes up stories about actual people she meets, and Lori takes her stories seriously enough to investigate, which permits all the happy results of the book Lady Barbara and Mikhail being reunited after so many decades, Skeaping Manor getting a sponsor and a proper security system, Bree meeting her favourite author and finding a bit of purpose in her new life, Tiffany and her children getting out of the city and discovering joy in life among others.
- Internal Reveal: Lori and Dimity together do this in Aunt Dimity's Death. Lori has just discovered Dimity is writing to her from beyond the grave, and Bill finds her just after the first time this happens. Lori tells him about it and shows him the journal page, which looks blank to him. Then Dimity writes something to Bill which only he can read. Later in the series, Lori demonstrates the journal link to Emma Harris, and Dimity addresses herself to her as well.
- Invented Individual: In Aunt Dimity and the Duke, the late Charles Alexander King aka Lex Rex was a persona invented by the duke and his staff in order to make money as a successful pop star. The duke has fun at Emma and Derek's expense by confessing to Lex Rex's murder before explaining that he wasn't real.
- Invisible Writing: In Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince, young neighbour Bree Pym shows Lori's young twins how to write invisibly with lemon juice and reveal the messages with the heat of a lightbulb. It's part of her unexpected arsenal of talents for entertaining kids, a bag of tricks that includes juggling, acrobatics, yoga and sleight-of-hand magic.
- It's for a Book:
- When Lori goes to question George Wetherhead and Miranda Morrow in Aunt Dimity Digs In, she claims to be helping the vicar's wife with background for her book on the village's history.
- When Lori and Bree visit a series of large estates in Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince, they pose as journalists to interview the homeowners. Bree subsequently writes a couple of actual articles and shops them around to make amends for harbouring suspicions about them.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The tongue-in-cheek opening sentence of Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil reads: "It was a dark and stormy afternoon on the high moors of Northumberland." Of course, at the time Lori is driving en route to an Old, Dark House in Hostile Weather...
