Beyond Belief is a fun story that felt more like a murder mystery party than just an ordinary thriller. From the very beginning, we're thrust into the heart of the mystery and find ourselves immersed in the lives of several oddball characters all drawn together to the Beyond and Belief conference at a seaside resort by the impending fate of magician Edmund Zenon.

As far as main characters go, Emily isn't the most interesting, and it was a bit bizarre that her main qualification for the job was her "connection" to her dead dog, but the rest of the side characters surely made up for it. Composed of a mismatched group of philosophers, magicians, psychics, and religious fanatics, each character has their own eccentricities and beliefs that made their interactions enjoyable to read about. I particularly liked Bobby Blue Suit, an endearing psychic, and his three dogs with a few special tricks you don't see in other dogs. I'm not sure yet if there will be more books in the Emily Castles Mystery series, but if there are, it would be really nice to see if Bobby Blue Suit were to make another appearance in the future.

The beginning was a bit heavy on exposition, but it's forgivable considering most of it was used to build up the backgrounds of many of the key players. The story really starts to pick up halfway through the book when the body count starts to rise, and by that point, I was fully engrossed in the mystery. Who is this murderer? Why are they killing certain people? Why are they so focused on Edmund Zenon? And what is the password? I found it difficult to put the book down in anticipation to the answers to all my questions. Helen Smith actually managed to answer them all with an ending I didn't expect. I wish the climax of the story could've been more exciting instead of just Emily explaining everything, but I was satisfied with the answers.

As I said before, the story reminds me of a murder mystery themed party. You have a group of random people thrown together for a short time (one weekend) at a relatively isolated place (Hotel Majestic in the small town of Torquay) who are united and forced to work together to solve a murder. As someone who has always wanted to participate in such a party, this style worked for me. I especially like the touch of humor Helen Smith added to her writing that kept this book from getting too dark, so if you're a casual reader of mystery thrillers who would prefer something lighter without the gore and violence, then this book is for you.

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Beyond Belief’s cover makes me think we are off to the carnival and that seems to be true.

I thought with the quirky characters, the psychics and fortunetellers, the psychic wiener dog (LOL) and the humor, horror, murder and Emily, I thought I may have a roller coaster ride coming. Alas, that was not the case. I don’t know if it was the writing style, which seemed dry to me, or my expectations were too high, but I felt something was lacking and I found it unsuspenseful. I did finish reading it, because I was curious about the murderer and I try to finish every book I pick up. Sometimes the ending will make it worth the read for me. Not this time.

I did not find Beyond Belief by Helen Smith a worthy read, but reviews are subjective so you may want to check this out for yourself.

The 84 Amazon ratings go from 5 to 1 with an overall average of 3.8 out of 5 stars. ( )

Beyond Belief by Helen Smith is an entertaining enough read. There is a likable but somewhat eccentric group that all gather at the England’s Belief and Beyond Conference in Torquay, a lovely little seaside town, Some are there to prove to famous skeptic Edmund Zenon that the paranormal is real, and collect the fifty thousand pounds he has offered to whoever can do this to his satisfaction. His criteria is a mystery, and some are skeptical that the skeptic will actually deliver. Some, like Bobby Blue Suit and his three possibly psychic dachshunds are just there to try to score more gigs on the psychic circuit.

Poor, quite Emily and her notebook tend to disappear into the crowd.She has come along at the request of her friend Dr Muriel, who has convinced her friends Gerald, and Perspicacious Peg of the Royal Society for the Exploration of Science and culture to hire Emily as Future Crimes Investigator. This came about after Peg had a premonition that the famous Edmund Zemon would die at the conference...or if not Zemon, that someone certainly would.

What follows their arrival in Torquay is a rather madcap adventure, where the original group accompanying Muriel and Emily, attract other convention attendees, including a poor young magician and his very limber girlfriend, a couple whose son passed away, and the psychic medium who has convinced at least the mom that he in in touch with the deceased Liam, and a group trying to save Edmund's soul.

You get the picture. Someone does indeed get all wet, but as for the premonition, does it come true? IS Emily able to use her notes to discern if a crime is occurring and if yes, just what it might be? And what about Muriel? Are there shenanigans affot? OR is there at least a flirtation? Well, you will have to read it to find out. If I told you, it would spoil it all, wouldn't it? ( )

For the first hundred pages or so, "Beyond Belief" was more like a slice of British life, albeit with folks who might or might not believe in extra-sensory perception or other paranormal talents. It was interesting, that is, it held my interest, but as it continued with nary a dead body, I found myself wondering when the mystery was going to start. Once folks started dying, however, the bodies piled up and the last one hundred pages were a solid mystery.

I found the premise fun and interesting, with a magician offering a reward to anyone who can prove their paranormal talents are real. There was quite a large cast of people involved, and I sometimes mixed up some of the secondary characters, particularly Sarah and Hilary. The main character, Emily, was kind of lackluster. In fact, I found her boring and her constant writing down of mundane things in her notebook was incredibly irritating to me by the end of the story. Personally, I liked her friend, Dr. Muriel better. She was much more fun and interesting as a character. She seemed smarter, too, and generally more likable and less of a drip.

All of that sounds a lot more negative than it should. It really was an enjoyable British mystery. Fans of cozy mysteries will probably not be disappointed. ( )

This British flavored mystery has just the right mix of the endearingly quirky characters and reserved/absurd humor to make reading it a delight. I thought I was in for a treat when I read the premise: murder at a seaside gathering of skeptics and believers including psychics, philosophers, astrologers, ethicists, magicians, psychologists, and anthropologists. Beyond Belief didn’t let me down.

When several psychics predict a death by drowning at the Belief and Beyond conference and police won’t take this not-yet-committed crime seriously, they actually have the gall to snigger, conference organizers turn elsewhere. Emily Castle is a very amateur sleuth, most of the time she has a boring desk job that suits her just fine, thank you very much, but now she is getting a free weekend at the conference’s spa resort location to be a “future crimes investigator”, which the psychics believe she is qualified for because she’s a vegetarian, she has a dead dog that she thinks about a lot, and she always carries a notebook to jot down her thoughts.

More than half of the book goes by before there is a murder, but I was having such a good time with the characters debating beliefs in oceanside cafés, warding off evil in positivity circles, and seeking guidance from the indifferent dead in séances that I didn’t mind the delay. This is not the first book in this series, but that caused me no difficulty as I was reading. ( )