Nancy Springer

On Enola Holmes’s 14th birthday, her mother, Eudoria, walks out of the house and doesn’t return. Enola is distraught and immediately sets to tracking her mother down. Fortunately, detecting runs in the family: Enola’s older brothers are none other than Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes. Less fortunately, Enola is constrained by Victorian social mores, and she will require ingenuity to get her brothers off her back and solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance. And then there’s the show more kidnapping of a marquess that attracts her attention…

I enjoyed this a fair bit. Enola makes a likeable protagonist in the tomboy vein, and I liked how she came to the realization that just because Sherlock is the Great Detective doesn’t mean she doesn’t possess equally useful skills. The case here plays to her strengths. Mycroft and Sherlock are themselves amusing — I was chortling aloud frequently and imagining Mark Gatiss and Benedict Cumberbatch as the detectives (with bonus Rupert Graves as Lestrade). This book reads extremely fast, so fast that I couldn’t believe it was over! I’ve requested the second book in the series right away.

I’d recommend this book for its actual target audience (Enola is 14, so maybe the preteen age is the sweet spot for this book), but also for adults who want a light Sherlock-adjacent story that in my view renders Sherlock fairly close to how he is in Doyle’s world (I wanted to say “in real life”, but he’s not real… as far as I know…). show less

A very rich story. Chav is fascinating - more so once we begin to get behind his mask. At the beginning the story reminded me rather of The Diddakoi, though we don't see events through Chav's eyes much then; but the actual story was even stronger. Nancy Springer writes magnificently about abuse survivors. And of course, there's the horses - Rom is wonderful, and even Paradiddle is great. I suspect this will reward rereading, in a while. I was wiping away tears so that I could continue to show more read for quite a bit of it. show less

This series just keeps getting better.

We open with Enola's older brothers, two confirmed bachelors, discussing her activities since she ran away from home: "During that eight-month period of time she has been instrumental in rescuing three missing persons, and in bringing three dangerous criminals to justice."

Sherlock believes it all to be "sheerest happenstance," although he admits "...it's not the first time she's outwitted me." He refuses to believe that a girl could be as intelligent as show more he, capable or interested in pursuing a career such as his. Mycroft, Enola's legal guardian, actually has more faith in her mental faculties, although he wants her prepared for marriage and society.

(My 12-year-old son would like to "reach through the page and punch both of them in the face." This is a child who has probably never punched anyone in the face in his entire life -- excepting possibly his older brother in self-defense.)

Enola ends up seeing plenty of her brothers throughout this installment, kicking one and assisting the other with an injury, but she will -- of course -- elude them both in the end. (Knowing it will happen, as there are still two more books, doesn't make it any less entertaining or some of her predicaments any less nerve-racking.)

Back at work as the "assistant" of the (non-existent) Dr. Ragostin, Scientific Perditorian, Enola has a few paying customers: a lady with a lost dog and a veteran with a lost leg bone. However, everything else goes out the window when she sees Lady Cecily (AKA, the Left-Handed Lady) who she rescued in the second book, again in some mysterious peril. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery and save the only person she's ever considered a kindred spirit and potential friend, Enola takes considerable risks, crossing paths with her brothers and Lady Cecily's rather terrifying captors. show less

Enola Holmes, younger sister of Mycroft and Sherlock, has holed up in London with money left her by her mother. Enola was raised by her mother to be independent (as you might expect from somebody with a name that spells “alone” backward), and she creates a secret identity through which she can solve crimes. Her first case is the disappearance of Lady Cecily Alistair, who is believed to have eloped. But did she, or did something worse happen? And while Enola tries to solve this case, her show more brothers are on her own case…

I enjoyed this very much. It was full of action, tension, and atmosphere. The portrayal of Holmes was sympathetic, and I liked seeing Dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson. The storyline is probably predictable for adult readers, but this adult had a lot of fun following Enola on her adventures and has already requested the third book in the series. They make good escapist reads, especially necessary at the moment (January 2021). show less