★★★★☆ A sweet little resumption of the Enola Holmes Series

Enola Holmes and the Boy in Buttons

Nancy Springer

Between 2006 and 2010 Nancy Springer wrote six short mystery novels (if you wanted to call them novellas, I wouldn't argue) that for the next eleven years constituted the Enola Holmes series. Enola is the younger sister of famous detective Sherlock Holmes and of his government thinker brother Mycroft. Their mother abandons Enola on her 14th birthday, and she, to escape the horrific fate of being confined to a finishing school by her brothers and made to wear a corset, escapes to London, where she goes into hiding. In the final novel, The Case of the Disappearing Duchess Enola becomes reconciled with her brothers on her fifteenth birthday. Also, we learn that Enola's mother ran off because she had cancer, and that sometime during the past year she died of it.

Between 2021 and 2023 Springer wrote this short story, and also another three novels. Of course I don't really know why Springer resumed the series after such a long pause, but there is an obvious guess. In 2020 an Enola Holmes movie was released, followed by a second in 2023. It seems likely that the movie made Enola Holmes front of mind for Springer again, prompting her to reboot the series.

I watched the first movie yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the plot and characters of the movie are very different from those of the books. I was curious, therefore, whether Springer's new Enola Holmes works would carry on the old. Based solely on this story, the answer appears to be "Yes". There are some big changes, but they are the changes you would expect from the events of Disappearing Duchess. In particular, Enola no longer feels the need to hide her identity.

It's a sweet little story, in which Enola finds a lost child in her characteristic way. I'm looking forward to reading the three remaining novels.

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