strange and random happenstance

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer
Published by: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Now that Enola Holmes is no longer hiding from her famous, much older, brothers, she has the luxury of freedom. No longer constantly looking over her shoulder to see if Mycroft's lurking in a carriage to spirit her off to a dreadful and deadly boarding school. What's more, this means she can actually go and visit her brother Sherlock whenever she wants! Only her current visit to 221 Baker Street is at the insistence of Doctor Watson. Sherlock is suffering from melancholia. After triumphantly solving his last case he won't eat, he won't bath, he won't dress, and it took all of Doctor Watson's vast resources just to get him out of bed. So Enola swoops in. She is determined to get Sherlock off the sofa and back in the game. Thankfully a compelling case arrives on his doorstep. While he languishes on his sofa Miss Letitia Glover spins her story for Enola. Tish's twin sister Felicity has been declared deceased. But Tish just knows it can't be true. She would feel it if Flossie had left this mortal coil. They're twins after all. Therefore Flossie's husband must be lying. Felicity married above her station. While Tish is a humble typist, Flossie is a talented watercolourist and the wife of the Earl of Dunhench, Lord Cadogan Burr Rudcliff II. He wrote to Tish saying that Felicity had contracted a fever and died the same day and was immediately cremated in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Her ashes were included with the letter. Everything about this is too cavalier, too pat. But the case is enough to get Sherlock off the couch. Enola couldn't be happier. She's working a case with her brother! Or at least he'll soon realize they're working the case together once she arrives in Surrey. Of course she didn't intend to actually end up in Caddie's house. But since she's there she might as well investigate what happened to his first wife as well... because Caddie hasn't just tragically lost one wife in similar circumstances, but two. And things aren't adding up. For a family obsessed with death portraiture, neither of his wives have one. Then there's the secret message that Felicity hid in her most recent painting. And if they weren't convinced that Caddie was up to no good, the fact that Doctor Watson's signature was forged on the death certificate would be the nail in the coffin. Which begs the question, can they find Felicity before Caddie does something even more drastic?

Enola Holmes returns to her first home after her triumphant success on the small screen. When I was invited to be a part of the Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche Blog Tour I decided to do an Enola Holmes deep dive. I picked up my Scholastic Book Fair copy of The Case of the Missing Marquess and before I knew it, thanks to my local library, I had devoured Enola's entire back catalog of cases. For as long as I can remember Sherlock Holmes has always been in my life, primarily because of the Jeremy Brett adaptations for PBS which my parents adored. Personally though my Holmes canon revolves around Young Sherlock Holmes, The Great Mouse Detective, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and perhaps the first two seasons of Sherlock. Though the later seasons soured me to the earlier ones. What I'm saying is, despite there being SO MUCH Sherlockian storytelling out there, from irregulars to noncanonical wives, children, and siblings, only a few things have sparked something inside me and made me really connect to the material. This rarefied list now includes Enola Holmes. There is such joy and daring and girl power in this series that I fell instantly in love with it. What's more, Nancy Springer's use of language is a delight to read. To have an author properly use fantods in a text, it almost had me suffering from the vapors while Edward Gorey gleefully rolled over in his grave. This newest adventure, the first published in over a decade, shows a more mature Enola. After the events in The Case of the Gypsy Good-Bye a shift has taken place. Enola is no longer having to divide her efforts between solving her cases and hiding from her famous brothers. Now she can concentrate on her work, or in this case, concentrate on inveigling herself into Sherlock's work. In fact, their one-upmanship brings about the funniest moments as Enola reverts a little to her more childish ways, because who doesn't revert to being a child around their siblings no matter their age? As for the case? Well, we are still dealing with the problems that only women suffer at the hands of Victorian society, but this time it's a little darker and a lot more Gothic, which has me very excited to see where Enola goes in future adventures and I can't wait.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Baker Street, Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, Feminism, Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlocked, The Great Mouse Detective, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Victorian, Younger Sherlock Holmes

The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer
Published by: Scholastic
Publication Date: February 16th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 216 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

It is Enola Holmes's fourteenth birthday and it is sure to be a memorable one. Why you might ask? Because her elderly mother has disappeared. Enola was born long after her famous brothers Mycroft and Sherlock. One might even say indecently late. At least that's why she believes her brothers have avoided the family manse Ferndell and their female relatives for nearly her entire life. She and her mother are nothing more than embarrassments. But why would she choose Enola's birthday to disappear? Perhaps it is the prophecy of the name she gave her only daughter, Enola, which backwards spells alone. After spending her entire birthday confirming that her mother is indeed gone Enola contacts her brothers. She is sure they will be proud of the unique woman her mother has raised her to be. Instead they see a girl half feral who will have to be packed off to school to learn what femininity really is. But Enola is far cleverer than they give her credit for, just like her mother. Her mother had been padding the house accounts with fake expenses and squirreling away the money for just such an occasion as Enola now faces. With a beautiful book coded in the language of flowers Enola finds money secreted about the house, making her quite a wealthy young woman. Now she just needs to sneak out of Ferndell and find her mother and the two of them can ride off into the sunset together, never giving the men a backward glance. She successfully makes it to a distant train station disguised as a widow, thus concealing her features and making her appear older than her fourteen years, when she is distracted by the disappearance of Viscount Tewksbury Basilwether. He's only twelve and wouldn't it be just lovely to not only disappear under her brothers's noses, but also to dramatically solve a kidnapping? Sadly her ego exposes her cunning widow disguise as well as the fact that Tewksbury actually ran away. But reaching London she falls into a different trap not of her own making. One that Tewksbury himself has fallen prey to. Will she be able to escape, find her mother, and find her purpose in life, or is she destined to always be alone?

When the Enola Holmes film came out and took the whole world by storm I was going through a real rough patch in my life. I was having problems concentrating on anything that wasn't the gaping hole of pain I was stuck in. In fact I believe the film was the last thing I watched in my home before we had to move. That little television room had been my sanctuary all my life and the thought of never watching anything in it again was a thought I couldn't bear. So I kind of shut down and just got on with moving, and in particular packing up my books. While packing them up I found a copy of the first book in the Enola Homes series, The Case of the Missing Marquess. In a flash I remembered picking it up at the Scholastic Warehouse when I went with my mom years earlier to help her pick books for her school library. The find seemed serendipitous, so instead of consigning it to a box with other "S" authors I put it in my bag as something I wanted to read in the near future. Given my "to be read pile" it's actually surprising that I got to it in under a year. But I think that was due to the fact that I was invited to be on the blog tour for the release of Nancy Springer's newest Enola adventure, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche. But whatever the reason for my finally reading The Case of the Missing Marquess I'm ecstatic that I finally did. This book and then in turn this series brought something that I needed to my life. It brought wit and historical accuracy and fun! It brought female empowerment and puzzles! I wish this series had existed when I was younger because it was the first offshoot of the Holmes canon since Young Sherlock Holmes that made me love Victorian mysteries again like never before. And let me tell you, I was OBSESSED with Young Sherlock Holmes when I was younger. I can see younger me just reading and rereading these books until my teacher would interject that reading the same book over and over again doesn't count for Book It! And aside from it being a different series this IS something I was told. Yet it's wonderful for the adult reader as well because it's so layered with history and mystery that I just want to live in these books. Bring on more Enola!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alone, Birthday, Book It, Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, Mycroft Holmes, Nancy Springer, Scholastic, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlocked, The Case of the Missing Marquess, Young Sherlock Holmes

I have been a fan of Sherlock Holmes for as long as I can remember but it probably actually dates back to the release of The Great Mouse Detective when I was seven. Back in 2015 as I awaited the return of Sherlock I decided to go all in and finally read all the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle as well as a plethora of books and movies that were Sherlock adjacent. I think there are more adventures set in and around the world that Arthur Conan Doyle created than any other single property out there. Just off the top of my head there's The Irregulars, Murder Rooms, Without a Clue, Arthur and George, Basil of Baker Street, I could go on, but I think pointing out that even Will Ferrell has played Sherlock proves my point better than any list I could ever make. One thing I only lightly touched on in 2015 with Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice is the whole subgenre of women being at the center of a Holmesian adventure. Be they sisters, siblings, or wives, they are out there in force and one of the fieriest of all is Enola Holmes. My mom was a school librarian so the big treat every year was to go to the Scholastic warehouse and pick out books for the library. I went along to help and as a reward I could pick a few books for myself. This is where I first stumbled on Enola Holmes. I think Nancy Springer's series was actually on the Battle of the Books list that year and I thought the series sounded fun so I snagged a copy of The Case of the Missing Marquess and it languished, forgotten, on my bookshelf until I was moving at the exact same time as the first Enola Holmes movie hit Netflix. I added the book to my pile of books I planned to read that weren't going into storage and the next year when Enola returned to print with her new adventure, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, I not only devoured the whole series but was honored enough to be a part of Nancy Springer's blog tour. Needless to say I am now a devout convert to Enola as I hope you will be too. So join me this February as Enola proves she's just as capable of Sherlocking you as her older brother.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, Nancy Springer, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlocked, Sherlocked: Enola Edition, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case of the Missing Marquess, The Great Mouse Detective

Question: What is it about the Holmes canon that has inspired so many offshoots starring everyone from irregulars to noncanonical wives, children, and siblings?

Answer: I wish I knew. No other fictional character ever has been as “real” as Sherlock Holmes. I wish I knew how Conan Doyle did it.

Question: What was it like infusing the world created by Conan Doyle with a feminine, one would say flowery touch?

Answer: Fun. Rollicking good fun.

Question: Have you always had an interest in ciphers or did the creation of Enola lead you into a deep dive of cryptography?

Answer: Writing about Enola Holmes led me there. I had no interest in secret codes until I learned how many of them Victorian women had to use, and why.

Question: It’s been over a decade since your last Enola Holmes Mystery, did the success of the Netflix movie, leading to renewed interest in the series, so much so that readers could literally not get a physical copy of any of the Enola Holmes books, inspire you to continue her adventures, hopefully over several books, or was it just a happy coincidence?

Answer: I actually wrote Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche* and some other Enola Holmes novels after the 2008 recession, but they didn't sell then.

Question: For me, adaptations are an obsession. Though contrarily I totally believe, unlike many others who don’t hold this stance, that books are the final product in and of themselves and adaptations are just a nice additional. Has having the first Enola Holmes book adapted changed your opinion on the series?

Answer: I'm not sure I understand your question**. I'll just say that when writing about Enola Holmes, I try to stick to my original vision of her and not let the movie intrude.

*Out today! 

**I was trying to weigh in on the book world controversy where some people don't believe a book has really "made it" until it has been adapted. Which is a total disservice to the awesomeness of literature in my humble opinion. But as you can see with so many people only picking up Nancy's work once it was adapted, to them, having work being adapted matters.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:01 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Blog Tour, Cryptography, Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, Nancy Springer, Q&A, Release Date, Secret Codes, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Victorian

Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche by Nancy Springer
Published by: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: August 31st, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Now that Enola Holmes is no longer hiding from her famous, much older, brothers, she has the luxury of freedom. No longer constantly looking over her shoulder to see if Mycroft's lurking in a carriage to spirit her off to a dreadful and deadly boarding school. What's more, this means she can actually go and visit her brother Sherlock whenever she wants! Only her current visit to 221 Baker Street is at the insistence of Doctor Watson. Sherlock is suffering from melancholia. After triumphantly solving his last case he won't eat, he won't bath, he won't dress, and it took all of Doctor Watson's vast resources just to get him out of bed. So Enola swoops in. She is determined to get Sherlock off the sofa and back in the game. Thankfully a compelling case arrives on his doorstep. While he languishes on his sofa Miss Letitia Glover spins her story for Enola. Tish's twin sister Felicity has been declared deceased. But Tish just knows it can't be true. She would feel it if Flossie had left this mortal coil. They're twins after all. Therefore Flossie's husband must be lying. Felicity married above her station. While Tish is a humble typist, Flossie is a talented watercolourist and the wife of the Earl of Dunhench, Lord Cadogan Burr Rudcliff II. He wrote to Tish saying that Felicity had contracted a fever and died the same day and was immediately cremated in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Her ashes were included with the letter. Everything about this is too cavalier, too pat. But the case is enough to get Sherlock off the couch. Enola couldn't be happier. She's working a case with her brother! Or at least he'll soon realize they're working the case together once she arrives in Surrey. Of course she didn't intend to actually end up in Caddie's house. But since she's there she might as well investigate what happened to his first wife as well... because Caddie hasn't just tragically lost one wife in similar circumstances, but two. And things aren't adding up. For a family obsessed with death portraiture, neither of his wives have one. Then there's the secret message that Felicity hid in her most recent painting. And if they weren't convinced that Caddie was up to no good, the fact that Doctor Watson's signature was forged on the death certificate would be the nail in the coffin. Which begs the question, can they find Felicity before Caddie does something even more drastic?

Enola Holmes returns to her first home after her triumphant success on the small screen. When I was invited to be a part of the Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche Blog Tour I decided to do an Enola Holmes deep dive. I picked up my Scholastic Book Fair copy of The Case of the Missing Marquess and before I knew it, thanks to my local library, I had devoured Enola's entire back catalog of cases. For as long as I can remember Sherlock Holmes has always been in my life, primarily because of the Jeremy Brett adaptations for PBS which my parents adored. Personally though my Holmes canon revolves around Young Sherlock Holmes, The Great Mouse Detective, The Hounds of the Baskervilles, and perhaps the first two seasons of Sherlock. Though the later seasons soured me to the earlier ones. What I'm saying is, despite there being SO MUCH Sherlockian storytelling out there, from irregulars to noncanonical wives, children, and siblings, only a few things have sparked something inside me and made me really connect to the material. This rarefied list now includes Enola Holmes. There is such joy and daring and girl power in this series that I fell instantly in love with it. What's more, Nancy Springer's use of language is a delight to read. To have an author properly use fantods in a text, it almost had me suffering from the vapors while Edward Gorey gleefully rolled over in his grave. This newest adventure, the first published in over a decade, shows a more mature Enola. After the events in The Case of the Gypsy Good-Bye a shift has taken place. Enola is no longer having to divide her efforts between solving her cases and hiding from her famous brothers. Now she can concentrate on her work, or in this case, concentrate on inveigling herself into Sherlock's work. In fact, their one-upmanship brings about the funniest moments as Enola reverts a little to her more childish ways, because who doesn't revert to being a child around their siblings no matter their age? As for the case? Well, we are still dealing with the problems that only women suffer at the hands of Victorian society, but this time it's a little darker and a lot more Gothic, which has me very excited to see where Enola goes in future adventures and I can't wait.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Baker Street, Blog Tour, Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche, Feminism, Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes, The Great Mouse Detective, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Victorian, Younger Sherlock Holmes