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Elementary, She Read
- Narrated by: Kelly Clare
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
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A Body in the Village Hall: An Utterly Gripping Cozy Murder Mystery
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- Written by: Dee MacDonald
- Narrated by: Jane McDowell
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Kate Palmer has relocated to Cornwall for a quiet life. Moving into picturesque Lavender Cottage with her sister, Angie, the little village of Lower Tinworthy should be the perfect place for their fresh new start. But within weeks of their arrival, there’s a death in the close-knit community.... A woman is found dead in the village hall, with her own kitchen knife next to the body, covered in blood. Kate, a practice nurse at the local medical center, begins to piece together the clues.
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A nice cozy mystery told by a very good narrator
- By Annie Laflamme on 2023-01-19
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Murder by the Book
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Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library - she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn't expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town....
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Enjoyed the story
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The Kensington Kidnap
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Epiphany ‘Pip’ Bloom is down on her luck. She can barely afford cat food, and just because Most has three legs doesn’t mean he eats any less. So she absolutely can’t afford to mess up her latest temp job. But when she walks through the door of the private investigation firm, her new boss mistakes her for a missing persons expert. He then charges her with finding Matty Price - the teenage son of two A-list celebrities - who has mysteriously disappeared from his home in Kensington.
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Evans Above
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Evan Evans is a young police constable who has traded in the violence of city life for idyllic Llanfair, a Welsh village tucked far away from trouble. Nestled among the Snowdonia mountain range, Llanfair looks to Constable Evans like a town forgotten by time, but he quickly learns that even the bucolic countryside has its share of eccentric - and deadly - characters.
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A trip to Wales
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Books Can Be Deceiving
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Lindsey is getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a New York editor visits town, creating quite a buzz. Lindsey's friend Beth wants to sell the editor her children's book, but Beth's boyfriend, a famous author, gets in the way. When they go to confront him, he's found murdered - and Beth is the prime suspect. Lindsey has to act fast - before they throw the book at the wrong person.
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Murder in Galway
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Tara never imagined her introduction to Ireland like this - carrying her mam's ashes to honor her final request: "Tell Johnny I'm sorry.... Take me home." She's never met her mam's estranged brother, Johnny Meehan, who owns an architectural salvage business in Galway. Although Tara is immediately charmed by the medieval city, the locals seem wary of strangers, and a gypsy warns her that death is all around. When Tara arrives at her uncle's stone cottage, the prophesy seems true. A dead man lies sprawled over the threshold in a pool of blood.
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I can’t listen.
- By Wendy Taylor on 2023-07-05
Written by: Carlene O'Connor
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A Body in the Village Hall: An Utterly Gripping Cozy Murder Mystery
- A Kate Palmer Novel, Book 1
- Written by: Dee MacDonald
- Narrated by: Jane McDowell
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Kate Palmer has relocated to Cornwall for a quiet life. Moving into picturesque Lavender Cottage with her sister, Angie, the little village of Lower Tinworthy should be the perfect place for their fresh new start. But within weeks of their arrival, there’s a death in the close-knit community.... A woman is found dead in the village hall, with her own kitchen knife next to the body, covered in blood. Kate, a practice nurse at the local medical center, begins to piece together the clues.
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A nice cozy mystery told by a very good narrator
- By Annie Laflamme on 2023-01-19
Written by: Dee MacDonald
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Murder by the Book
- Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery, Book 1
- Written by: Lauren Elliott
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
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Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library - she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn't expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town....
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Enjoyed the story
- By Angela George on 2023-06-06
Written by: Lauren Elliott
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The Kensington Kidnap
- Epiphany Bloom Mysteries, Book 1
- Written by: Katie Gayle
- Narrated by: Alison Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
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Epiphany ‘Pip’ Bloom is down on her luck. She can barely afford cat food, and just because Most has three legs doesn’t mean he eats any less. So she absolutely can’t afford to mess up her latest temp job. But when she walks through the door of the private investigation firm, her new boss mistakes her for a missing persons expert. He then charges her with finding Matty Price - the teenage son of two A-list celebrities - who has mysteriously disappeared from his home in Kensington.
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Evans Above
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Evan Evans is a young police constable who has traded in the violence of city life for idyllic Llanfair, a Welsh village tucked far away from trouble. Nestled among the Snowdonia mountain range, Llanfair looks to Constable Evans like a town forgotten by time, but he quickly learns that even the bucolic countryside has its share of eccentric - and deadly - characters.
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A trip to Wales
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Written by: Rhys Bowen
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Books Can Be Deceiving
- Written by: Jenn McKinlay
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
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Lindsey is getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a New York editor visits town, creating quite a buzz. Lindsey's friend Beth wants to sell the editor her children's book, but Beth's boyfriend, a famous author, gets in the way. When they go to confront him, he's found murdered - and Beth is the prime suspect. Lindsey has to act fast - before they throw the book at the wrong person.
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Murder in Galway
- Written by: Carlene O'Connor
- Narrated by: Heather O'Neill
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
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Tara never imagined her introduction to Ireland like this - carrying her mam's ashes to honor her final request: "Tell Johnny I'm sorry.... Take me home." She's never met her mam's estranged brother, Johnny Meehan, who owns an architectural salvage business in Galway. Although Tara is immediately charmed by the medieval city, the locals seem wary of strangers, and a gypsy warns her that death is all around. When Tara arrives at her uncle's stone cottage, the prophesy seems true. A dead man lies sprawled over the threshold in a pool of blood.
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I can’t listen.
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Death of a Gossip & Death of a Cad
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- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
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This set includes the first two books in the Hamish Macbeth cozy mystery series set in the Scottish Highlands. Death of a Gossip: When society widow and gossip columnist Lady Jane Winters joined the fishing class, she wasted no time in ruffling the feathers—or was it the fins?—of those around her. Death of a Cad: When Priscilla Halburton-Smythe brings her London playwright fiancé home to Lochdubh, everybody in town is delighted…except for love-smitten Constable Hamish Macbeth. Yet his affairs of the heart will have to wait.
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Death of a Gossip and Death of a Cad
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Written by: M. C. Beaton
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Meet Your Baker
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- Unabridged
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After graduating from culinary school, Juliet Capshaw returns to her quaint hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to heal a broken heart and help her mom at the family bakery. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is bringing in lots of tourists looking for some crumpets to go with their heroic couplets. But when one of Torte's customers turns up dead, there's much ado about murder.
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A Cupcake Bakery Mystery Bundle, Books 1-3
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In the first book of the series, Sprinkle with Murder, Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaurae are finally the proud owners of the Fairy Tale Cupcakes bakery, but their first big client is a nightmare. She's a bridezilla who wants 500 custom cupcakes for her wedding.
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Death Overdue
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Carrie Singleton is just about done with Clover Ridge, Connecticut until she is offered a job as the head of programs and events at the spooky local library, complete with its own librarian ghost. Her first major event is a program presented by a retired homicide detective, Al Buckley, who claims he knows who murdered Laura Foster, a much-loved part-time library aide who was bludgeoned to death 15 years earlier. As he invites members of the audience to share stories about Laura, he suddenly keels over and dies.
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Fair
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A Beachfront Bakery Cozy Mystery Bundle (Books 1 and 2)
- Written by: Fiona Grace
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- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
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A bundle of books one (A Killer Cupcake) and two (A Murderous Macaron) in Fiona Grace’s Beachfront Bakery cozy mystery series.
Written by: Fiona Grace
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Tea and Treachery
- Tea by the Sea Mysteries, Book 1
- Written by: Vicki Delany
- Narrated by: Sandy Rustin
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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As the proud proprietor and head pastry chef of Tea by the Sea, a traditional English tearoom on the picturesque bluffs of Cape Cod, Roberts has her hands full, often literally. But nothing keeps her busier than steering her sassy grandmother, Rose, away from trouble. Rose operates the grand old Victorian B & B adjacent to Lily’s tea shop...for now. An aggressive real estate developer, Jack Ford, is pushing hard to rezone nearby land, with an eye toward building a sprawling golf resort, which would drive Rose and Lily out of business.
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Meh!
- By Ann Smrecicu on 2021-02-22
Written by: Vicki Delany
Publisher's Summary
Gemma Doyle, a transplanted Englishwoman, has returned to the quaint town of West London on Cape Cod to manage her great uncle Arthur's Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium. The shop - located at 222 Baker Street - specializes in the Holmes canon and pastiche and is also the home of Moriarty the cat.
When Gemma finds a rare and potentially valuable magazine containing the first Sherlock Holmes story hidden in the bookshop, she and her friend Jayne (who runs the adjoining Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room) set off to find the owner, only to stumble upon a dead body. The highly perceptive Gemma is the police's first suspect, so she puts her consummate powers of deduction to work to clear her name, investigating a handsome rare books expert, the dead woman's suspiciously unmoved son, and a whole family of greedy characters desperate to cash in on their inheritance.
But when Gemma and Jayne accidentally place themselves at a second murder scene, it's a race to uncover the truth before the detectives lock them up for good.
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What listeners say about Elementary, She Read
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Victoria J. Mejia-Gewe
- 2017-09-12
A terrific cozy mystery regarding Sherlock Holmes
Gemma Doyle, who owns the Sherlock Holmes Book Shop and Emporium, located at 220 Baker St., West London in Massachusetts, contains the same observation skills as her detective hero in Elementary, She Read by Vicki Delany. Noticing every detail around her, Gemma spots a magazine that does not belong to the shop amid the books. Looking at it, she gets excited but alarmed to discover what looks like a first edition of the magazine that carried A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes book, which is the most valuable magazine in the world, with only 31 in existence. Using her deductive skills, Gemma figures out who left the magazine there and tracks the woman to a local hotel, where she and her business partner, Jane, find the woman strangled.
As the lead detective arrives on the scene, Gemma is startled to see that he is Ryan Ashburton, the man she almost married, who moved to Boston but was lured back to West London for the lead detective job. His junior detective, Louise Estrada, shows lots of suspicion toward Gemma's seemingly unreasonable knowledge of the case and wants to arrest Gemma. Thus, Gemma decides she must use her incredible deductive skills to locate the killer before she and Jane get locked up for the crime themselves.
Especially since the intense popularity of the TV series Sherlock, there has been a rekindling of interest in Sherlock Holmes, spurring the creation of many pastiches on this detective. In general, I dislike such works, as they seem to rely on the fame of the name to make themselves successful instead of creativity of writing. However, this book has turned out to be an exception to my general distrust, and I am glad to have read it.
Gemma seems to channel Holmes's genius without trying to be him. I especially enjoyed the fact that Gemma narrates the book, giving her detailed observations of everything and everyone she encounters. With the exception of a few Sherlock Holmes stories towards the very end of Conan Doyle's life, it is extremely rare to find the extraordinary detective narrate. Instead, almost all such books and stories follow the same pattern of having the much less cerebral assistant tell the story in order to make the detective seem particularly remarkable. Thus, this book is very refreshing in showing us every step of her mental processes. In addition, Gemma shows a greater degree of humanity than Holmes ever does.
I did find a couple problems with details of this book. First, it contains periodic inconsistent details, such as saying that Gemma went home to walk her dog and then met Jane without having gone home after work. This is sloppy, something the author and her editor(s) should have noticed, especially when the inconsistencies occur within a minute of each other. It is also weird for two characters to share the same name. The bartender, who is a minor character, is named Ryan, the same name as the detective in the case. This doesn't really cause any confusion, but it does seem strange to me when the author could have chosen so many other names.
I appreciated the audio performance of Kelly Clare, who does a terrific job with accents. My experience is that British narrators often have difficulty with most American accents, and accents figure importantly into this book, as Gemma comments on people's accents. However, Clare does a good job of adjusting her character accents. She also is well-suited to play the part of Gemma.
Despite my stated concerns, I really loved Elementary, She Read. People familiar with the Sherlock Holmes books and stories will appreciate this book the most. Delany clearly is well-versed in not just them, but also the various pastiches and especially likes to reference the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King, which made me smile. I give this book five stars!
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9 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2017-10-03
Great listen
Good story, characters well developed. Excellent narration. There was no sex and no bad language. There was also no graphic violence. In other words, perfect cozy mystery. Searching now for the next book in this series,
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8 people found this helpful
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- TK
- 2019-12-05
A great read, but only for some
This is one of those books that you will either love or hate. Personally, I couldn’t put it down.
Looking at the reviews of this book, they seem to be scattered all over the map and I can understand why, even if I don’t agree with some of the opinions.
This book feels like it was written by a real Sherlock fan which can be good or a bad thing depending on your point of view.
Delany does a great job of creating a Sherlockian character without actually using The Great Detective himself. She is observant, detail oriented and very matter-of-fact. She uses abductive reason to come up with solutions and is fairly knowledgeable and intelligent. She also has no filter and lacks social skills. As a result, she can also be very crass and standoffish. She’s also not above lying or using deceit to achieve her goal.
I think this is the lynchpin of whether a reader will like the book or not; because the main character is not very associable. But I don’t think she was supposed to be.
The author obviously wanted to create her own version of Sherlock, which I think she succeeded in doing better than most. If you’ve read the original Holmes canon, you’ll understand what I mean. Holmes himself also lacked a filter, often proclaiming things in a crass manner. On learning of the Copernican Theory from Watson he replies that “Now that I know it, I shall do the best to forget it!” And basically tells Watson that it’s completely useless information to him.
So to that extent, I think the author succeeded. But I also think this may turn a lot of readers away, especially since most Cozy Mystery heroines are nice, cheerful and get along with nearly everyone in the community. Gemma isn’t quite the exact opposite of that, but she’s close.
As for the mystery itself, it’s fairly well structured. With a nice tie into the history of the stories of Conan Doyle. The twist at the end is both poignant and makes perfect sense once explained.
All of the supporting cast are likable and contributes to the story, no one seems to be taking up lines just for the sake of it.
There are a couple writing issues. Like having a supporting character and a background character having the same name but nothing that takes away from the overall story.
Another nice touch to this series is that the author cites other, real Sherlock contemporary novels. As the protagonist owns a bookstore it makes sense and helps to make a more immersive story. It’s also a nice way to learn about other books to read. Though this happens more often in later novels in the series.
Overall, I would recommend this book to Sherlock fans and mystery fans that can handle a slightly abrasive protagonist.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Beatrice
- 2017-06-21
Don't Bother
This might be the most obnoxious, self-righteous, judgemental , pretentious character ever created. I couldn't get beyond chapter 4 because of the way she spoke to people, the judgements she made about people and her general attitude towards everyone. I returned this book and will not read another in this series.
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5 people found this helpful
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- TB
- 2018-03-11
Disappointing
I expected a light, fun mystery. Instead, this was repetitive and tedious. The worst part, however, was the thoroughly unlikable heroine—a carbon copy of Bones or House but without any redeeming charms.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Art Lover
- 2022-11-17
Clever new twist on Holmes
A protagonist who runs a Sherlock Holmes bookshop but doesn't particularly show much interest in Holmes, and fails to realize that her manners and methods are amazingly like those of Holmes.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Gerald
- 2021-12-09
Reviews are totally wrong, this title is terrible.
Main character and to an extent the story is totally unlikable and absurd. Don’t waste your time. You have been warned.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2020-03-05
Good Offshoot of Holmes, Best for Teen Girls
I liked the cleverness of tying this story to the overall Holmes canon, as lead character owns and operates a Holmes-related book store. Good story progression. The primary characters and the writing seem aimed at the female teenager market, but I enjoyed it nonetheless...but no so much that I'm inclined to listen to the next books in the series. Enjoyably narrated.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Vanessa
- 2019-10-28
Sherlock Holmes inspired cozy mystery
Being a Sherlock Holmes and cozy mystery fan, I decided to give this series a try. The plot was interesting and made you think about “fairness” but the main character, Gemma Doyle, is just not likable. I understand the author’s attempt to give Gemma the same fabled powers of observation as Sherlock Holmes but her demeanor is off-putting and brusque. I did not find myself rooting for her to win. The other characters held my interest more than Gemma. I enjoyed the reader, Kelly Clare. Since the plot had a few fun twists and turns I might be willing to give the second book a chance.
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- Cppieces
- 2019-01-16
A nice listen!
I am always up for a Sherlock "Holmesian" story, and this one was enjoyable, but not so engaging that I wish to pursue the series. Narrator does an excellent job and the story is makes an excellent use of parts of the Homes Canon, but I really did not connect with the characters in a way that makes me want to pursue it further.
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