Bibliophiles, Ahoy!

Just a short post today about how much I love books.  (As if you can't tell...)

People read every day, whether they want to or not.  Email, social media, street signs - they all require the skill of reading.  Suffice to say, reading is a part of life.  There are those who read because they HAVE to; then there are those wonderful, enlightened, intelligent, open-minded, brilliant pillars of humanity who read because they WANT to.  There is nothing "wrong" with being the former - except not being the latter.  (I say this in jest.  Or do I?)

One of the things I will always be the most grateful to my mother for is setting a reading example for me.  I can remember back when I was a child, my mother always had books around.  We had bookcases in nearly every room of the house, and crammed on the shelves were a magical rainbow of covers with titles that ranged from The Bible to Harlequin romances to Sherlock Holmes mysteries.  (Looking back, I can safely say this is probably why I have such eclectic taste in reading.)  My mother had a particular love for Louis L'Amour, and he is still the stick by which I measure all westerns (and let me tell you, no one else stacks up).  The first "grown-up" book I can remember reading all the way through was L'Amour's Passin' Through.  I was maybe ten years old.  I remember the cover had a wild-looking cowboy astride an even wilder-looking blue roan horse.  I was so proud of myself when I finished that book; I felt like I had entered a secret club for people who loved stories.  And it's a club to which I still gladly pay my dues.

Books are my kryptonite.  If you were to ask my husband what my biggest weakness is, he wouldn't even have to think about it.  "She spends all her money on books.  And she doesn't even read them all," he'd say, shaking his head.  It's true.  I want them ALL.  Every one of them.  Even the terrible ones.  (OK, maybe not the terrible terrible ones, like Fifty Shades, but I will admit to owning the Twilight series...)  I have been known to keep books that are absolutely rubbish just because I like the cover, and they look pretty on my shelves.

That is, however, not to say that I don't have some sort of discernment when it comes to books and reading.  I like to think that my broad range of tastes and interests give me an advantage when it comes to reading, because I am willing to read a lot of different types of books.  I can enjoy a romance just as much as I can a literary classic; I can enjoy a YA paranormal just as much as I can a mystery.  There are very few types of books that I turn my nose up at (I'm sorry, but I will never NEVER be able to make it through an Amish inspirational - I don't care how much cash you offer me), and I can find things to appreciate in most any book I read, even if it turns out to be a dud.  This is because, in general, I <3 books.  And I appreciate the work - the time, the thought, the dedication - that went into its creation.

As a writer, I have an extra appreciation for books; I know how difficult it can be to produce one.  Each finished piece is a representation of millions and millions of hours of work.  (Don't roll your eyes.  It's the truth.)  So for something to come together in such a way - the author believes in an idea enough to make a story out of it, the agent believes in it enough to represent it, the editor believes in it enough to buy it, the publisher believes in it enough to produce it, the reader believes enough in it to buy it - is an amazing feat.

So, props to you authors out there who keep writing great stories that I want to read with gorgeous covers I want to decorate my shelves with.

Passing the Proverbial Deerstalker

I have a healthy respect for mystery authors.  From a writer's standpoint, I have always been fascinated by the ability to plot so intricately a story full of twists and turns that ends with a surprise.  As a lifelong panster (and as such, completely unable to plot a story ahead of time), I'm a little jealous of the talent it takes to be a good mystery writer.   A good mystery makes me want to continue reading, page after page; holds my attention throughout the entire story; keeps me guessing until until the end of the book; and makes it next to impossible for me to forget about it once I finish.  Some mystery authors (Elizabeth Peters, Robert Galbraith, Cleo Coyle, and a recent fun discovery Ellery Adams) keep me entertained, but don't particularly make me appreciate the craft of writing a mystery.  Recently, I highlighted a mystery I read by Agatha Christie (read that post here), and now consider myself an devotee of the Queen of Crime.  She made me appreciate the craft.  As does Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  


Thanks to recent incarnations of the Dynamic Duo (not that Dynamic Duo - no Batmobiles here - only the consulting detective and his loyal assistant), the exploits of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are, once again, en vogue.  It's nearly impossible to turn around without bumping into a handsome man wearing a deerstalker hat (Benedict Cumberbatch, I'm looking at you...),  or to walk into a bookstore without seeing a dozen versions of Holmes and Watson in one form or another.  In a way, this is wonderful; another generation of readers, watchers, critics are being introduced to Doyle's masterful storytelling and his incomparable characters.  In another way, this is awful; some of the retellings are complete rubbish, and the characters fall flat in a complete injustice to the original source material.

So you can imagine my trepidation when I picked up Brittany Cavallaro's A Study in Charlotte.  In this particular homage to the master, not only is Holmes a girl, but the story takes place in America.  Oy.  Here's the cover (fab) and blurb, stolen shamelessly (but cited, nonetheless) from Goodreads:

The last thing Jamie Watson wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s great-great-great-granddaughter, who has inherited not only Sherlock’s genius but also his volatile temperament. From everything Jamie has heard about Charlotte, it seems safer to admire her from afar.

From the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else. But when a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances, ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Jamie can no longer afford to keep his distance. Jamie and Charlotte are being framed for murder, and only Charlotte can clear their names. But danger is mounting and nowhere is safe—and the only people they can trust are each other.


First things first: the blurb is terrible.  It wasn't the blurb that made me give this book a chance; it was the cover.  (I've told you before, covers sell books.  This is the truth of that claim in action.)  It makes this book sound like a high school drama.  Which it's not.  It is a smart, funny-at-times story about two great characters who happen to still be teenagers.  The characters are flawed; Jamie Watson is adorably naive for much of the book, until he starts to realize he's not in a story, and begins to take ownership of the events of his life, and Charlotte Holmes is arrogant, quirky, brilliant, and slightly horrible (naturally - she's a Holmes, after all...).  The mystery is believable; someone bumps off a student at our duo's boarding school and attempts to frame them for the crime.  The writing is impeccable; Cavallaro tells a great story in a clean and efficient way.

WHAT I <3ED:  One particularly interesting thing Cavallaro did here was make the classic Holmes and Watson real people, and Doyle their literary agent.  I thought this was a fantastic idea.  It allowed her to set up a "real" story for the descendants of the original characters, and allowed her to supply some commentary on the original characters, and discuss some of the original cases.  It leaves room for there to be generations of tangled history between the Holmeses and the Watsons (and the Moriarties!), and demonstrates the fallout from some of the original team's escapades.  This decision also gave her the opportunity to imbue Charlotte and Jamie with some of the more recognizable characteristics from the classic stories (Holmes' drug habit, Watson's compulsion to write everything down, etc.), making them familiar enough for readers to feel like they're "in" on the joke, but different enough to keep from being predictable.  Which leads me to...

THE CHARACTERS.  Oh, my.  I absolutely adore how Cavallaro wrote Holmes and Watson here.  I'll start with WATSON.  Jamie is a lovely amalgamation of classic Watsonianism and a completely unique character.  Though he is still Holmes' "sidekick", he has some interesting qualities of his own.  For one, he's a rage machine.  I mean, at times he goes full-blown Hulk.  Yet, on the flip side, he's sweet and caring, and just a little bit slow on the uptake.  He's exactly the type of hot nerd I would have fallen hard for in high school.  Then there's HOLMES.  Brilliant (understatement) and distant and odd, she's the type of girl I would have simultaneously wanted to be friends with and have been a little bit terrified of.  Her past haunts her and, at times, it seems like she's doing penance for her past sins.  When she talks of dark secrets and dangerous deeds, she really means it.  So this book becomes as much about solving the characters as it does solving the mystery.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Minimal.  At no point in the book did I say, "Man, I wish she would have _____".  There were, perhaps, a couple too many superfluous side characters (classmates of Holmes and Watson), that I didn't really care about, but that is a minor complaint.

I am very much looking forward to reading the second installment of this trilogy, The Last of August, in which some of the questions left hanging in A Study in Charlotte will be answered.  AND it takes place across the pond, so YAY, England!  Cavallaro has a fan in me.

This book is a good choice for those of you who fancy updated versions of classics, mysteries with a little bit of an edge but very little blood, and contemporary stories that use historical literature as touchstones.

If you're looking for readalikes, try:
Lock & Mori by Heather Petty - another contemporary Holmes/Watson/Moriarty series with teen versions of the titular characters.
The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason - a unique pairing of Mina Holmes (Sherlock's niece), and Eveline Stoker (relative of Bram), set in Victorian London with a steampunk twist.
Lockwood & Co. by Jonathan Stroud - this series, though on the paranormal side, is about independent, teenage investigators.

I've just finished the Heirs of Watson Island trilogy by Martina Boone (in three days, nonetheless), and will be reviewing that series next.  So good!  Ghosts, curses, Southern charm, and sweet tea by the gallons!