The Book Stops Here

A Bibliophile Mystery

By: Kate Carlisle

Narrated by: Susie Berneis

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Brooklyn Wainwright is thrilled to be appearing on the hit TV show, This Old Attic as a rare-book expert. Her first subject is a very valuable first-edition copy The Secret Garden. Its owner, Vera, is eager to have Brooklyn recondition it for resale. But a furious man viciously accosts Brooklyn, claiming that Vera found the first edition at his garage sale, and he wants it back - or else. Randolph Rayburn, the handsome host of This Old Attic, is terrified by the man's threats. He confides in Brooklyn that he fears he is being stalked. In the days that follow, Brooklyn visits Vera's flower shop…and discovers her dead. Brooklyn had better find the clever killer soon or more than her chance at prime time may be canceled…permanently.

©2014 Kathleen Beaver (P)2014 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Prefer the original narrator

Enjoying this series very much, but strongly Eileen Stevens to Susie Berneis as narrator. Ms Berneis’s voice just seems too harsh compared to Ms Stevens for this type of book. Otherwise, I find the series, including storylines and insights into the world of bibliophiles, highly enjoyable.

enjoyed the story

If you could sum up The Book Stops Here in three words, what would they be?

decent story

What three words best describe Susie Berneis’s voice?

she CANNOT do the the male voices and that British accent just ruined the boyfriend.

Any additional comments?

this book and stories like it would be better served with a male and female.

It's okay....

The story itself was good enough and held my interest. A professional book binder goes on a tv antiques appraisal show in her capacity as specialist in valuing books. A woman brings in an old copy of "The Secret Garden," which Brooklyn Wainwright identifies as quite valuable, and Vera--it's happy owner-- confesses she purchased it recently at a garage sale and expresses interest in Brooklyn restoring it for her so she can sell it. Then things get dicey, because a violent man who says he had owned the book tries to frighten Brooklyn into giving it back to him, things are kind of tense in the studios where Randolph--who is in charge there--believes someone is trying to kill him. A murder does occur, and Brooklyn is drawn into helping to solve it.

I recognize that I read this book out of order in a series, so I'm just not going to comment much about the characters (though they seemed interesting and appear to be well-developed). What might keep me from going back and reading earlier ones, though, was the narrator. In most respects she was adequate--but she really did have a terrible time trying to do men's voices. I cringed at her reading of Derek (Brooklyn's significant other), because he was British, and she just could not capably capture either a man's voice or a British accent. If I do read another, it will be because I want to follow up on the story line--not due to the narrator.

Queen of Filler

The characters are 3 dimensional and for the most part I cared about what happened to them. The story was compelling despite being highly unlikely.

But the amount of filler is remarkable! For example; the process of restore each book mentioned was listed in minute detail. 10 or more full minutes of it. If I had to guess at a percentage of filler to actual story I’d guess 10-15% filler. The price should reflect content.

The narrator’s narrative/first person voice was excellent. Her delivery of the character voices was laughable. Overly dramatic, overly simplistic, confusingly similar, and finally she kept mixing them up. Make notes!

Good enough to listen to a second book but...

What did you like best about The Book Stops Here? What did you like least?

Some unnecessary chanting at a high pitch, wasn't needed as the situation was overly explained

If you’ve listened to books by Kate Carlisle before, how does this one compare?

First one, will listen to one more and decide on whether I will listen to another one at that time. It was written well enough to warrant a second book, but if there isn't much more in the next it will be the last.