download iPhone app mobile version available »
Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden, #1)

Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries #1)

3.63 of 5 stars 3.63  ·  rating details  ·  11,406 ratings  ·  807 reviews

Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime-until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other

...more
Hardcover, 175 pages
Published December 1st 1990 by Walker & Company (first published 1990)
more details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
One For The Money by Janet EvanovichChocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne FlukeAbby Cooper, Psychic Eye by Victoria LaurieMurder is Binding by Lorna BarrettThe No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Best Cozy Mystery Series
9th out of 660 books — 636 voters
One For The Money by Janet EvanovichThe No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall SmithCrocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth PetersChocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne FlukeCatering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davidson
Cozy Mystery Series
34th out of 293 books — 981 voters


More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
filter  |  sort: default (?)  |  rating details
The Holy Terror
I decided to read this on a plane trip because it seemed easy to read and get into without having to think too hard, which is good because I get sleepy on planes. I don't often read mysteries but I'm determined to read everything Harris writes. I like her other two mystery protagonists, Lily Bard and Harper Connelly, but I have to say I like Aurora Teagarden the least.

Aurora is pretty plain and boring, even without her being a librarian. She lives alone and doesn't even have a pet. She's 28 and...more
a_tiffyfit
I'm commenting on the entire Aurora Teagarden mysteries series in this one review...

It is an OK series. The plotlines are entertaining, but the editing, in a word, SUCKS.

The names of the characters (last names) get screwed up, the spelling errors are abundant, the prose doesn't flow, and it makes you stutter as you read it.

That being said, I did enjoy the series. I read five of the books in one night. Easy read. Good brain dump.

Harris' Harper Connolly series is much better and with a lot fewe...more
Jensownzoo
I started this earlier this week but just finished it today. Already a bad sign. I thought when I picked this up that it was a mystery novel with a librarian protagonist which was written by someone who's other work I rather enjoyed. Apparently, that was not enough to avoid a bad egg.

This book was sparely written, in descriptions of the setting as well as development of the characters. One or the other I could have forgiven if blown away by the remainder, but not both. It seemed like a book tha...more
Angela
After reading all the Sookie books, and then starting this series out of curiosity, I've realized that Charlaine Harris needs to quit preaching through her characters.

Both female characters, Sookie and Aurora (not sure about the other two), have mentioned more than once about not having a boyfriend and being lonely and envying people who do date, both want babies, neither one feels comfortable sleeping around, both feel they should be more religious than they are, and it gets old really fast. (B...more
Amy
I like reading Harris' Southern Vampire series and I am a librarian so I thought I would give her Aurora Teagarden series a mystery (Aurora is a librarian). At first I was a little overwhelmed with the cast of characters introduced off the bat (12+ characters, some significant, some not so much...). I did like that the murder was discovered within the first chapter or two. It is a drag when the murder happens 1/3 of the way through the book...
Overall I enjoyed this book. I was hoping that Aurora...more
Cody  Pendant
I tried getting into this book. It shouldn't be difficult, right? Wrong! But I just can not do it. Aurora Teagarden is as exciting as watching paint dry. (Which may be a preferable activity over reading this book I might add.) There is nothing likable, or memorable about any of the characters, or situations in this book. The only reason Aurora Teagarden is memorable is because Ms. Harris reminds the reader at least three times per chapter that the main characters name is Aurora Teagarden, you kn...more
Christine
Librarian Aurora (Roe) Teagarden lives in a small suburb outside of Atlanta. She is a member of a local club called 'Real Murders,' a diverse group that gets together monthly to discuss real life crimes. Aurora is excited to present an unsolved case when one of the members is found brutally murdered. Shockingly, the crime is staged just like the murder Roe was about to present. When additional murders start happening to members of the club (which are copycats killings of famous cases) Aurora has...more
Katie Bock
Dec 08, 2012 Katie Bock rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: murder-mystery loving Grandmas
Shelves: fun-meaty-reads
Like many readers, I love reading every book by Charlaine Harris. If I thought it would make her writing more prolific, I would donate $10 out of each paycheck to Ms. Harris..

That said, the Aurora Teagarden series is not the one I'd recommend to first-time readers. In it, I miss the darkness of the Lily Bard novels and the manic fun (and sex scenes!) of the ridiculously famous Sookie Stackhouse novels. However, it is nice to find a Harris novel I could recommend to Grandma - if Grandma liked mur...more
Rhia
I thought I'd give this a try because I'm a fan of murder mysteries and loved the Sookie Stackhouse novels.

It was terribly disappointing.

Aurora is incredibly dull. No, not because she's a small town librarian. There's just no personality there. She doesn't seem to have any habits or hopes & dreams or anything.
I think in the hands of another author, there is a lot of potential for a cute librarian with a quirky name! Sadly, Charlaine did not do this character justice.

Same goes for the two...more
Jeff Cothern

Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime-until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the mem

...more
Damaskcat
Aurora Teagarden – Roe to her friends – is a librarian in Laurencetown. She enjoys her job and is a member of the Real Murders Club which meets once a month to discuss famous murders. When Aurora gets to a meeting of the club and finds one of its members battered to death in the kitchen she recognises the circumstances as being similar to the Wallace case which she was going to talk about at the meeting. Further murders soon follow and all are patterned on famous cases.

All the club members are...more
Grace
Well. I officially spooked myself by knowing all of the cases referred to in this book. This is what happens when you read too much Crime Library in college. Hm.

The Aurora series certainly has the same flavor that Harris used later in the Stackhouse series - a quiet small town with multiple generations and long memories. I like that flavor, so this was an okay read for me. The mystery went along at a good clip, and because I had knowledge of true crimes I was actually able to guess a few things...more
Kristen
This is a "dark horse" of a book. It starts out as a rather ordinary story about "small town" people that becomes shockingly chilling and ultimately kind of terrifying.

Aurora Teagarden is a librarian in Lawrencetown, Georgia. She is also a member of the "Real Murders Society", a group of local folks who get together to discuss and dissect old murder cases.

On the night of a meeting when Aurora is to present a murder she's selected, someone decides to re-create that exact case, murdering another m...more
Dan Thompson
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Roberta
Lawrencetown è una piccola citadina tranquilla, fino a quando una serie di assassinii, modellati su vecchi casi d'omicidio, vengono commessi con efferata crudeltà... Le indagini sembrano coinvolgere i vari componenti di un club alquanto bizzarro: il Real Murders, i cui componenti una volta al mese si riuniscono per parlare di vecchi omicidi del passato...


Una trama degna di Agatha Christie quella di Real Murders, dove non mancano suspense e la giusta dose di adrenalina oltre ad una certa quantità...more
Ste80
"Real Murders Il Club dei delitti irrisolti" è il primo capitolo di una nuova collana, Odissea Novels, inaugurata dalla Casa Editrice DelosBooks, nata dalla penna della ormai nota Charlaine Harris, e pubblicato lo scorso 20 marzo.

Vista la notorietà di Charlaine Harris, conosciuta per il famoso personaggio di Sookie Stackhouse, sulla quale è stata prodotta la nota serie televisiva trasmessa anche in Italia (True Blood), ho deciso di leggere questo romanzo a colpo sicuro.
Avevo bisogno di una buona...more
Stephanie
*4.5 stars*

I don't often read mysteries nowadays, but I loved the narrator's voice so much, it sucked me right in. I love librarian Aurora Teagarden, her intelligence, her sense of humor, and her deeply grounded, common sense attitude combined with her barely-hidden desire for adventure. I love her mom and her community, and for once, I'm actually really enjoying the love triangle Aurora is in.

(Normally, I really dislike love triangles and just have to shrug and cope with them when they appear...more
Amy
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Michelle Randall
I enjoyed author Charlaine Harris's Vampire books with Sookie Stackhouse and so I decided that I wanted to try some more of her books, so I got ahold of some of the Aurora Teagarden Mystery books.

Real Murders is the first book in the Aurora Teagarden Mystery series and begins with the monthly Friday night meeting of the Real Murders Club. This is a group of people that get together to study, read and analyze old murders, argue for the conviction or against, or present suspects if never solved. I...more
Regge Episale
So, I read the Sookie Stackhouse books first and found it nice and a little interesting that someone could right an entire series built around the trailer parks and bars and remote country villages. It was fun, I read them, done.

I was very pleasantly surprised to read this book and realize that Charlaine Harris is anything but a one-style-writer. Still in easy to read language, still patterned after the people you meet everyday, but with the upgrade to good research, a higher level of language,...more
Jacqui
Charlaine Harris has written many series of books the most famous is probably the Sookie Stackhouse Vampire stories, recently televised as True Blood. This is another of her series or at least the first in the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries.

Set in Lawrenceton, Georgia, growing yes, but still with a small town mentality. Aurora grew up and still lives there and is the stereotypical librarian of fiction, at least in the beginning. She has an interest in crime, famous cases of the past and is a member...more
Madame X
I picked this up because I've totally adored Harris' Southern Vampire series and I figure anything she writes has got to be good. Real Murders does have a lot of the qualities that I love in the Southern Vampire series - a sense of place, a way of incorporating the quotidien, really perceptive one-liners that somehow manage to describe a character in a complex and subtle way. The small-town setting, the way she writes about people and manages to make them utterly normal while also extraordinary...more
Yolanda Sfetsos
It's no secret that I'm a Charlaine Harris fan. I love the Sookie Stackhouse series and the Harper Connelly one, too. I think I just added another one of her series to my 'fave' list. :)

Aurora 'Roe' Teagarden is a single, twenty-eight-year-old librarian who lives in the small town of Lawrenceton. She lives in an apartment by herself--which happens to belong to her mother, so she also manages it--and has an odd interest in true crime. Actually, she's part of a little group called Real Murders. Th...more
Valetta

Una porcheriola ogni tanto me la devo proprio leggere, è più forte di me, ne ho bisogno per placare una certa perversa attrazione per il trash che non sono mai riuscita a soffocare. Non che questo libro sia così terribile, tuttaltro, semplicemente va affrontato partendo dall'idea che si voglia leggere qualcosa di leggero, scorrevole, abbastanza particolare da suscitare un certo coinvolgimento ma decisamente poco impegnativo in toni e contenuti.
Con questo criterio mi ero accostata alla saga di S...more
Joy
Jul 19, 2009 Joy rated it 3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Joy by: Impishimpi
A cute cozy mystery. Aurora Teagarden does not run a teahouse, she is a librarian.

Aurora belongs to a club for true-crime buffs, where the first body is found. Someone is taking the crimes they study as blueprints, for a game that is all too real.

REAL MURDERS is notable for having no clues from which to figure out the killer, until the climactic event. In the meantime we can enjoy Aurora and her mother, her neighbors, and her two suitors: Robin the mystery writer, and Arthur the policeman. The...more
Marianne
Real Murders is the first novel in the Aurora Teagarden series by American author, Charlaine Harris. When twenty-eight-year-old librarian, Aurora Teagarden (Roe to her friends) goes to her Real Murders Club meeting in her small town of Lawrenceton, Georgia, she isn’t expecting to discover the body of a Club member. After all, their Club only discusses murders; it seems, though, that someone in the Club has decided to re-enact famous murders, for soon there are more victims. Roe and her mother, A...more
Xulieta NeveraDeLibros
He tenido en mente leer este libro desde hace muchos años. Las razones son las siguientes, la portada me encanta y me da muy buena sensación, el argumento es muy llamativo y la escritora, Charlaine Harris, siempre me ha gustado desde que comencé a leer las aventuras y desventuras de la camarera Sookie Stackhouse y sus amantes.

La acción se desenvuelve en un pequeño pueblo llamado Lawrencenton, en Georgia y nuestra protagonista es Aurora Teagarden, una bibliotecaria aficionada a los libros de crím...more
Sarah
As a book written about 20 years ago, it does show its age in some of the language. This is one of Charlaine Harris's older novels, and there is a bit of a difference between her writing style with this and with her Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire novels (which are the first novels of hers I read). I really enjoyed reading this, even though I had to laugh at some of the datedness. As a mystery, it is pretty good - in many books with mystery, I pick out the bad guy pretty early in the book. I...more
Destinee Sutton
I'm almost caught up on Sookie Stackhouse, so I thought I'd see what Charlaine Harris' other offerings are like. Of course, I gravitated towards the series where the main character is a librarian.

I enjoyed it, and I laughed when I recognized some of Harris' favorite phrases ("I asked politely," "I slapped on some makeup," etc.). Though not quite as lively as Sookie, Roe is an interesting character with multiple men interested in her and a tendency to get caught in the middle of violent situatio...more
Vanessa
After reading Sookie Stackhouse and Lily Bard-two series I really like-I was interested in reading this older series of Harris' now back in print. I had mixed feelings about it.

Aurora Teagarden is a young librarian in a small satellite town near Atlanta. She is also in a group called Real Murders that studies old unsolved murders. Then Aurora finds a corpse at one of the meetings posed to look like the scene they were to discuss that night. Then more people die, all staged to look like famous cr...more
« previous 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 99 100 next »
topics  posts  views  last activity   
Compare to Harper and Tolliver Series 13 46 Oct 21, 2012 08:11am  
Another series like this one? 4 23 Aug 24, 2012 12:31pm  
Real Murders (An Aurora Teagarden Mystery, #1)
Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden, #1)
Real Murders (ebook)
Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden, #1)
Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden Mystery, #1)

17061
Charlaine Harris has been a published novelist for over twenty-five years. A native of the Mississippi Delta, she grew up in the middle of a cotton field. Now she lives in southern Arkansas with her husband, her three children, three dogs, and a duck. The duck stays outside.

Though her early output consisted largely of ghost stories, by the time she hit college (Rhodes, in Memphis) Charlaine was wr...more
More about Charlaine Harris...
Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1) Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse, #2) Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse, #4) Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, #3) Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse, #5)

Share This Book

Your website
“I gripped the stapler even harder and felt like a fool planning to battle a crazy man with a stapler that even, I suddenly remembered, contained no staples. Well, strike that line of defense.” 11 people liked it
“I settled opposite him in my favorite chair, low enough that my feet can touch the floor, wide enough to curl up inside, with a little table beside it just big enough to hold a book and a coffee cup.” 2 people liked it
More quotes…