Deborah's Books: Blog Tour and Giveaway: Showstoppers, by Helen Smith

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Blog Tour and Giveaway: Showstoppers, by Helen Smith

Showstoppers, by Helen Smith

“Helen Smith is a master story-teller." Socrates Book Reviews

When twenty-six-year-old Londoner Emily Castles helps out at a local stage school, she’s soon mixed up in murder. She teams up with eccentric philosophy professor Dr. Muriel to solve the case.

This 75-page comic mystery novella will appeal to fans of M C Beaton and Alexander McCall Smith.

Print Length: 48 pages
Publisher: Tyger Books (December 5, 2011)

Praise for the Emily Castles Mystery Series
Fast-paced, funny, and mysterious... Helen Smith is a master story-teller.
~Socrates Book Reviews

It grips you from the very beginning.
~Babs Books Bistro

Bright, colorful and full of surprises.
~Amazon Vine Reviewer

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

Praise for Helen Smith
Smith is gin-and-tonic funny.
~The Booklist

My Review:
This is the second Emily Castles mystery book. Three Sisters was the first.

First off, I enjoyed this book quite a bit more than I did the first one. I think the reason for that is because the mystery starts right from the beginning in this story, where as it took a while for it to get going in the first book. I also liked the characters a little more, too. Victoria is funny, self-absorbed, and a little flaky. She makes me laugh.

I enjoyed the overlap of some of the characters. Dr. Muriel returns as a very helpful and amusing sidekick for Emily. The mention of characters and places from the first book was fun, too.

I liked the mystery in this book. It took me a lot longer to guess who the culprit is than in the first book. I still managed to guess correctly long before the guilty party revealed themselves, but it was fun to have suspicions and doubts about their identity.

There were some typos and spelling mistakes, and those always drive me a bit crazy, but the content was clean, humorous, and fun. This would definitely be classified as a "light" mystery. I would read the first book before reading this one, just so you have the background about all the characters. They aren't very long, so it makes for a nice afternoon read.

Amazon | Goodreads | Shelfari | LibraryThing

About the Author:

Helen Smith is a member of the Writers Guild of Great Britain and English PEN. She travelled 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 which was published by Gollancz (part of the Hachette Group).

She writes novels, poetry, plays and screenplays and is the recipient of an Arts Council of England Award. She's a long-term supporter of the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture and mentors members of an exiled writers group to help them tell their stories. She likes knitting but she doesn't like driving. She likes dancing.

Facebook | Twitter | Website

Giveaway!