The Guesthouse on Rua das Flores

An interactive audio mystery for learning English, with my voice reading every sentence. It is written for B1 readers and above.

Carol planned to sign the papers, sell her aunt's guesthouse in Lisbon, and fly home in two weeks. Then she found a notebook written in code, a locked office with the key on the wrong side of the door, and a guest who never leaves before dark. A stranger wants to buy the house for more money than it's worth, and Carol needs to know why.

Why I wrote it

I'm learning Thai, and reading in Thai has helped me learn much faster. One of my biggest problems is that I don't know how a native speaker says a word I read. You have to know how to say the words you learn, and I couldn't find a good source in Thai. So I built one in English for you.

How you learn with it

Read a short part and listen to me read it. Tap any word you don't know for a simple meaning and an example. Answer the interactive questions. Then do the chapter's practice page, where the key words come back in a new short story.

Why a mystery helps you learn more than a textbook

You care what happens next, so you keep reading. The story keeps coming back to its clues, so the language around them returns. You read closely, because you want to solve it. You use English to think and decide, which trains a skill you use at work, at the doctor, and with your friends. You learn what people mean, not only what they say. And you remember the words because they belong to moments in the story.

What is inside

I read every sentence to you, so you hear how a native speaker says every word. Every word in the story is tappable, with more than a thousand words in the dictionary. The orange phrases are idioms, which are phrases native speakers use that don't translate word for word, and I explain all 46 of them. Every chapter is broken into three short parts, so you learn in small pieces. Interactive questions after each part help you remember what you read, understand what people really mean, and guess what happens next. Every chapter has a practice page. There are 8 chapters and about 11,000 words.

It works in the browser on your phone or computer, so there is nothing to download. After you buy, you get a link that opens the whole book, plus a code so you can open it on another device. Chapter One is free to read at ruadasflores.netlify.app.

One book won't make you fluent, and I won't promise that. It will give you a story you want to finish, a way to hear every word, and 11,000 words of real English to learn from.