Thursday, December 19, 2013

Brilliance Audio presents Invitation To Die by Helen Smith narrated by Alison Larkin!!!

AUDIO BOOK REVIEW!



Brilliance Audio presents Invitation to Die by Helen Smith performed by Alison Larkin. 


Published : 2013

Listening time : 6 hours : 20 minutes.

Adult fiction priced at $14.99 in CD or on Audible $5.45

Blurb 

As the Romance Writers of Great Britain gather for their annual conference in a London hotel, an American tourist is founded murdered nearby. Emily Castles teams up with eccentric philosophy professor Dr. Muriel to investigate.

This entertaining British mystery is the debut novel in a new series featuring twenty-six-year-old amateur sleuth Emily Castles.

My review

Romance Writers of Great Britain is convening in a hotel.  With a cast of characters as diverse and eclectic like the setting itself it becomes the scene of a murder.  Is this the only murder? Other questions arise regarding the murder most foul…who and why were the poor woman murdered? 
Emily, an assistant at the event soon finds herself in the role of sleuth. 
I really love the way that the author plays with words use satire to make a sub culture into a force to be reckoned with.  It occurred to be during the listen of this audio book that a sub culture is only a subculture until it becomes a persons' life.  It then becomes mainstream and in this story I was constantly reminded of the Indie communities struggle against main published groups since even though these are not Indie authors…the implications of authors needing reviews desperately, the bloggers fights.  The One Star club etc had me in fits of laughter since I come across these almost daily in my own subculture.  I think the true appeal of this book will be towards others like me who live and love a subculture. 
As to the sleuth part; Emily is a really fun character who makes notes and ponders over the weirdest and mostly too literal interpretation of statements by police and possible subjects.

The narrator, Alison Larkin did a splendid job with accents and change of voice and pitch to denote the characters to make all of them as individual as their characters needs be.  I think the narrator truly added to the story.
I am also glad that the book did not have any sound effects to accompany it.  Although these many times add to the story line, in this particular story where the emphasis is on satire as much as a love of word, I believe it would have distracted. 

All in all a 4 * read and listen.  

About the author

Helen Smith is a member of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, the Crime Writers Association and English PEN. She traveled the world when her daughter was small, doing all sorts of strange jobs to support them both--from cleaning motels to working as a magician's assistant--before returning to live in London where she wrote her first novel. Her work has been reviewed in The Times, the Guardian, The Independent, Time Out and the Times Literary Supplement. Her books have reached number one in the bestseller lists in the Kindle store on both sides of the Atlantic.
Invitation to Die, the debut novel in her Emily Castles mystery series, is published by Thomas & Mercer.
She blogs at: 
http://www.emperorsclothes.co.uk. Sign up here to receive an email alert when a new book is published: http://bit.ly/U5KAF0
About the narrator

 Alison Larkin

Click on the pic to learn more about this amazing narrator.

Amazon purchase link
 Amazon



Click on the pic to go to amazon to get your copy

Audible purchase link

 Audible

Click on the pic to go to Audible to get your copy




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