Three Sisters (Emily Castles Mysteries) [Kindle Edition]

Helen Smith (Author)

Book Description

"Fast-paced, funny, and mysterious." Socrates' Book Reviews

Three Sisters introduces twenty-six-year-old amateur sleuth Emily Castles in this popular new British mystery series.

Emily has been invited to a party in the big house at the end of her street in London. How could she know, as she left her house that evening, that she was making an appointment with death?

Readers of M C Beaton or Alexander McCall Smith will enjoy discovering a new mystery author in this entertaining 70-page novella.

"Fast-paced and unusual, I highly recommend this one." Eva's Sanctuary

"It grips you from the very beginning." Books Bistro

Editorial Reviews

Review

I thought this was a great read from start to finish. Booked Up

Fast-paced, funny, and mysterious. Socrates' Book Reviews

Fast-paced and unusual, I highly recommend this one. Eva's Sanctuary

It grips you from the very beginning. Books Bistro

From the Author

Emily Castles is a twenty-six-year-old Londoner who lives in Brixton, south London, where I live. The London that you'll find in the Emily Castles Mysteries has familiar locations and landmarks. But it has a village feel that is typical in cozy mystery books (and not very typical of a big city like London): neighbors know each other and help each other out.

I started out reading Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Arthur Conan Doyle, and I go back to their stories time and again, both on the page and on TV and film. Miss Marple has to be one of my all-time favorite characters in a book! More recently, I have enjoyed mysteries written by Charlaine Harris, Alexander McCall Smith and M C Beaton.

With the Emily Castles Mysteries, I wanted to create stories that use some of the enduringly popular ingredients from the golden age of British crime writing. But I have set them in the present day, so there's a little urban grit mixed in with the fun. Emily herself, with her dimples and her dark brown hair, her sweet nature, her good humor and her love of solving mysteries, is partly based on my daughter, who is around the same age. Unlike my daughter, Emily will never get older... only a little wiser, perhaps, and a little more adept at sleuthing as the series develops.

Like all my books, the Emily Castles Mysteries feature strong, interesting female characters, and plenty of funny lines. But unlike the other books, there's no profanity. There are no drug references or sexual references. These are clean, comic mysteries that can be enjoyed by readers of any age. They're slightly camp and very British. They're not to be taken too seriously. I hope readers will enjoy them and keep coming back for more.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 208 KB
• Print Length: 90 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0956517072
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Tyger Books (February 5, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004M5HK0M
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,374 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #40 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > British Detectives
  • #45 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > British Detectives

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fabulous Start to a Mystery Series February 7, 2011

By Dr. Amour

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought "The Three Sisters" before the product description was even up, because I am a big fan of Helen Smith and all her books, and I was not disappointed.

Helen manages, as always, to convey humour in even the most mysterious circumstances... in this case, a missing woman at a fabulous, yet freakish party... Helen? If you attend parties like this one, I want an invitation!!! (except for the disappearing part...)

At 70-ish pages, this story is longer than your average short story, yet even in a short space, Helen manages to create a sympathetic and likeable main character, Emily Castles. I look forward to reading the further adventures of Emily.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Short Cozy Story February 21, 2011

By Yvonne Reviews

Format:Kindle Edition

Emily Castles is grieving the loss of her beloved dog, Jessie. She's feeling quite emotional and all alone in the world. Emily is invited to a neighborhood bonfire party by her new neighbors. This isn't your typical party and one thing Emily never expects is to witness a murder.

Readers are treated to a crazy evening complete with an eccentric group of performers who give Emily a run for her money. She's sure one of them has been murdered, but who could have done it? To make matters even more confusing, there's no dead body and she begins to wonder if anyone really died.

This is a short story, approximately 70 printed pages and a very quick read. Talk about leaving readers wanting more. This is the first of a series of Emily Castles mysteries set in London. It's fast-paced, funny, and mysterious all at the same time. I've never read anything by Helen Smith before, but she's a new-to-me author that I will be looking for in the future. I can't wait to see what Emily's next adventure will be.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Start February 10, 2011

By D. Love

Format:Kindle Edition

This was a good short story. We meet Emily on her way to a neighborhood party, this after the death of her dog. She gets roped into a performance play, only is it real or not? We watch through Emily's keen observation, the actions of the party-goers as Emily searches for the truth.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A great, fast, read for cozy mystery lovers March 27, 2011

By Erika Nelson

Format:Kindle Edition

Emily is sad because her dog dies but decides to go to the party anyways. Her neighbor has hired a performance troop and everything seems...different. For these people are putting on a show, but everything else they're doing in-between performances can be part of the act too. So when Emily sees two of the performers fighting before their knife-throwing performance and one of them "accidently" stabs the girl in the chest, she's not sure if she should believe her miraculous resurrection or not.

This story was so fun to read! The tone was dark and mysterious, yet it really held on to a cozy vibe at the same time. I loved her reminiscing about her dog and in the end how that helped her to solve the mystery. The whole performance troop thing was really fun too. Some of the characters refused to talk to her about the mystery until their performance was over and she had to figure out what to do in order for their performances to stop. Overall it was a good, fast, read that I would recommend to all cozy mystery lovers.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I want to visit Helen Smith's London March 3, 2011

By Beth O

Format:Kindle Edition

I've been to London, twice, but I've never been to Helen Smith's London--and I really want to go! The London I visited had double decker buses, and cute red phone booths, and all the tourist sites and museums. But Helen Smith's London is someplace else entirely. Helen Smith's London is filled with knife throwers, fire jugglers, performance artists, giant, floating papier-mâché heads, and "squarish women the color of cement" (a Raymond Chandler worthy description, IMO). Now that's a party I'd like to be invited to!

Yes, this book is a murder mystery set at a party at the house of a neighbor of Emily Castle, the story's protagonist. But that's the plot. I don't fall in love with stories because of their plot. I fall in love with stories because of their characters and the author's narrative style. And that's why I fell in love with this story--the quirky characters and the unique world they inhabit that I suspect exists only in Helen Smith's imagination. I wish it existed in the real world because I'd love to visit. But since it doesn't, I'll have to resign myself to waiting for the next installment of the Emily Castle Mysteries.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I want more of Emily Castles, please! February 10, 2011

By ~DJ Faz~

Format:Kindle Edition

I really MUST preface this review with a proud proclamation: I am a huge Helen Smith fan! I have read Alison Wonderland and Being Light and The Miracle Inspector, and I loved each book. I loved Three Sisters, as well.

In Three Sisters, we're introduced to Emily Castles, a perfectly normal woman who just happens to pay a little more attention to what's going on around her than most. This interesting trait leads Emily into the world of sleuthing, and the reader can't help but follow on her heels--wondering all the while what danger she might be getting herself into.

Helen Smith's descriptions are clever, creative and richly-textured, and her dry, understated wit never fails to bring a smile to my face.

I look forward to more Emily Castles adventures!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast Fun Read February 8, 2011

By Shari

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This was my first novel I have read by this author, although I do have a couple in my to be read pile :). This was a fast, short fun read..The author created a character that we like in Emily, and meeting her eccentric neighbors was great! Makes me look forward to seeing them in future books as well. I will have to admit to a major DUH on figuring out the Murder even though its very obvious in well I wont say... dont want to spoil it any...but yes Emily did figure it out before I did....then I had my well Duh moment like helloooo it was obvious lol...I would like to see maybe a little romance between Emily and Chris seeing as how she thinks his smile is sexy...

It was really sad though how Emily had just lost her beloved dog and I felt her pain in talking about her.

I will be pulling her books out of my TBR now since I found a new great author :)

Shari

More 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

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#74 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery

#87 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#74 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery

#87 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery