I am very excited to participate in my very first Blog Tour! I had the opportunity to read Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche back in April. Since then, I've been waiting to see if more books will be added to the series. In the meantime, please take a minute to learn a little about this amazing book, and go look up the book series and Netflix movie. Click on the links below to jump to a section of the post!
Book Details
Author Information
Author Interview
Excerpt
My Review
Book Details
"A young girl who is empowered, capable, and smart...the Enola Holmes book series convey an impactful message that you can do anything if you set your mind to it, and it does so in an exciting and adventurous way."--Millie Bobby Brown
Enola Holmes is back! Nancy Springer's nationally bestselling series and breakout Netflix sensation returns to beguile readers young and old in Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche.
Enola Holmes is the much younger sister of her more famous brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. But she has all the wits, skills, and sleuthing inclinations of them both. At fifteen, she's an independent young woman--after all, her name spelled backwards reads 'alone'--and living on her own in London. When a young professional woman, Miss Letitia Glover, shows up on Sherlock's doorstep, desperate to learn more about the fate of her twin sister, it is Enola who steps up. It seems her sister, the former Felicity Glover, married the Earl of Dunhench and per a curt note from the Earl, has died. But Letitia Glover is convinced this isn't the truth, that she'd know--she'd feel--if her twin had died.
The Earl's note is suspiciously vague and the death certificate is even more dubious, signed it seems by a John H. Watson, M.D. (who denies any knowledge of such). The only way forward is for Enola to go undercover--or so Enola decides at the vehement objection of her brother. And she soon finds out that this is not the first of the Earl's wives to die suddenly and vaguely--and that the secret to the fate of the missing Felicity is tied to a mysterious black barouche that arrived at the Earl's home in the middle of the night. To uncover the secrets held tightly within the Earl's hall, Enola is going to require help--from Sherlock, from the twin sister of the missing woman, and from an old friend, the young Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether!
Enola Holmes returns in her first adventure since the hit Netflix movie brought her back on the national bestseller lists, introducing a new generation to this beloved character and series.
I had the opportunity to ask a few questions of the author. Check it out below!
Q: What made you decide to bring back the characters for a new book after such a long wait?
NS: Trying to keep the wolf from the door. I actually wrote Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche after the 2008 recession. But at that time I didn't succeed in placing the manuscript with a publisher.
Q: What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?
NS: I could name a bunch of names, but you wouldn't recognize them; they are just workaday writers. They help me by being the eccentric individuals they are, and therefore reassuring me that it's all right to be as loco as necessary to get the job done.
Q: Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?
NS: I don't read the reviews on Goodreads or Amazon, just the ones in, say, Publishers Weekly. I can deal with a bad review a lot better if it's well written.
Q: What was your hardest scene to write?
NS: I don't recall any one being different than the others. Normally I just struggle along from sentence to sentence.
Q: Does writing energize or exhaust you?
NS: It wears me out, but it's a pleasure. The time flies.
Excerpt
Are you interested in reading a little more?
“Is she fainted?”
Indignant, I wanted to sit up and say I was not so easily killed and I never fainted, but to my surprise my body would not obey me. I merely stirred and murmured.
“She’s moving.”
I saw the clodhopper boots of common men surrounding me and smelled alcohol on the breath of those leaning over me.
“Let’s get ’er inside.”
“Somebody go fer the doctor.”
Strong hands, not ungentle, seized me by the feet and shoulders. I could have kicked and yelled—I felt strong enough now—but my mind had started to function, realizing that I was about to be carried into a pub, for only in a public house, or pub, would workmen be drinking in the daytime. And normally no woman of good repute would enter a pub, or if she did, she would be jeered at until she retreated. But, my avid brain realized, fate in the form of Jezebel had given me opportunity to spend some time inside a pub—no, in the pub, most likely the only pub in Threefinches! So I closed my eyes and pretended to be rather more helpless than I was as the men hauled me inside and laid me down on a high-backed bench by the hearth.
Someone brought something pungent in lieu of smelling salts, but I shook my head, pushed the malodourous hand away, opened my eyes, and sat up, acting as if it were a great effort for me to do so. A burly, bearded man in an apron, undoubtedly the publican who kept the place, came running with a pillow for my back, and I thanked him with a gracious smile.
“Will ye have a nip of brandy, lydy?”
“No, thank you. Water, please.”
“Jack! Water for the lydy!” he bellowed to some underling, and he remained nearby as I managed, with hands that genuinely trembled, to remove my gloves. Their thin kidskin leather was ruined by the mauling it had taken from Jezebel’s reins, and my hands were red and sore; doubtless they would bruise. Grateful for the cool glass, I held it in both hands and sipped, looking around me. Half of the denizens of the place, like the owner, stood in a semicircle staring at me not unpleasantly, while the rest did the same from seats at the rustic tables—all but one. A tall man with beard stubble on his chin and quite a shock of coarse brownish-grey hair hiding his forehead had withdrawn to a table by the wall, where he devoted his attention to his mug of ale, or stout, or whatever noxious brew he might fancy. I said brightly to the tavern-keeper, “I believe I would like to stand up.”
“Now, why not wait for the doctor, lydy—”
But taking hold of his arm, as he stood within my reach, I got to my feet with reasonable steadiness. There were muted cheers from the onlookers. Nodding and simpering at the men all around me, I lilted, “Thank you so much. Do you suppose anyone could go out and fetch my bag, and my hat and parasol? I believe they fell along the—”
Already half a dozen would-be heroes were stampeding towards the door. Yet, if I had walked in here under my own power, any request for help would have been met with deepest suspicion. Such is life: odd.
My Review
4 out of 5 stars - If you ask me, I'll tell you to read it (but read the others in the series first!)
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press - Wednesday Books for this advanced reader's copy.
I was extremely excited that the popularity of the Enola Holmes movie on Netflix had apparently caused a desire to restart the Enola Holmes series of books!
I really enjoyed this re-start, which allowed Enola to work together with Sherlock on a new case, rather than working in the shadows.
Enola and Sherlock are hired to find the location of Felicity, wife of Earl of Dunhench. They're hired by Felicity's twin sister Leticia, who says she was informed of her sister's death by the Earl and she didn't believe it. After a lot of interesting twists and turns, the case is solved..... but not necessarily in the way that they all agreed upon.
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