All posts by kathymacmillan

Read This!: A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE by Brittany Cavallaro

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A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1)A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Summary:  The last thing sixteen-year-old Jamie Watson–writer and great-great-grandson of the John 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 enigmatic, fiercely independent great-great-granddaughter, who’s inherited not just his genius but also his vices, volatile temperament, and expertly hidden vulnerability. Charlotte has been the object of his fascination for as long as he can remember–but from the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else.  Then a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Holmes stories, and Jamie and Charlotte become the prime suspects. Convinced they’re being framed, they must race against the police to conduct their own investigation. As danger mounts, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe and the only people they can trust are each other.

 

This is going to sound hyperbolic, but 5 stars aren’t really enough to explain how much I loved this book. I’ve never been a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes – I mean, he was okay and all – but this book just grabbed me and held me spellbound all the way through.

Before I opened this book, all I knew about it was that it was about Holmes and Watson’s great-great-something-grandchildren, and I assumed that it would be something like “Young Sherlock Holmes” where a pair of lads at a boarding school solve a mystery while rescuing an intriguing girl named Charlotte. (Guess that says something about what previous Sherlock Holmes adaptations have taught me to expect…)

This book is not anything like that. No swooning heroines here.

The first thing you need to know about A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE is that, in the world of the book, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were 100% real. (Arthur Conan Doyle was Watson’s literary agent.) Now, with the aid of some well-meaning family meddling, their descendants Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson are students at the same Connecticut boarding school. And where a Holmes and Watson go, mystery is sure to follow.

Moody and mercurial are defining Holmes characteristics – HOW has the great detective not been reimagined before as a teenage girl? It’s beyond right. The characters here are fantastic – I want to hang out with them the way I want to hang out with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Charlotte is brilliant, flawed, and utterly, agonizingly human, and Jamie is a wry, appealing, gold-hearted narrator (who, by the way, is also no slouch in the brains department). Together they are incandescent. Sure, there is sexual tension, but it’s so, so much more than that. One of my favorite quotes:
“I wanted the two of us to be complicated together, to be difficult and engrossing and blindingly brilliant. Sex was a commonplace kind of complicated. And nothing about Charlotte Holmes was commonplace.”

Just read it. You won’t regret it.

A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE is out now.
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The Bells of Qilara

Extras, Sword and Verse

Many readers have asked for more information about how the timekeeping system of bells in Qilara works.  Here’s a breakdown:

Each bell period represents about 3 of our hours.  The time varies because it is based on the position of the sun and moon (called Gyotia’s Lamp) rather than a set period of time, and so the lengths of time between various bells are different depending on the season.  In the City of Kings, the bells ring at the palace and the temples.  In more remote areas, the nearest temple will generally serve as the source of bells for the surrounding countryside, or occasionally an ambitious Scholar will construct his own belltower.

The Bells:

1st bell, AKA sunrise bells (the time for morning invocations) – approximately 6 AM

2nd bell, AKA midmorning bells – approximately 9 AM

3rd bell, AKA luncheon bells – approximately noon

4th bell, AKA midday bells – approximately 3 PM

5th bell, AKA dinner bells – approximately 6 PM

6th bell, AKA sunset bells (the time for evening invocations) – approximately 9 PM

7th bell, AKA lamp bells (moonrise) – approximately midnight

8th bell – AKA final bells (muted) – approximately 3 am

 

 

Read This!: THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF CHARLIE PRICE by Jennifer Maschari

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The Remarkable Journey of Charlie PriceThe Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price by Jennifer Maschari

Summary: Ever since twelve-year-old Charlie Price’s mom died, he feels like his world has been split into two parts. Before included stargazing and Mathletes and Saturday scavenger hunts with his family. After means a dad who’s completely checked out, comically bad dinners, and grief group that’s anything but helpful. It seems like losing Mom meant losing everything else he loved, too.  Just when Charlie thinks things can’t get any worse, his sister, Imogen, starts acting erratically—missing school and making up lies about their mother. But everything changes when one day he follows her down a secret passageway in the middle of her bedroom and sees for himself.  Imogen has found a parallel world where Mom is alive!  There’s hot cocoa and Scrabble and scavenger hunts again and everything is perfect . . . at first. But something doesn’t feel right. Whenever Charlie returns to the real world, things are different, and not in a good way. And Imogen wants to spend more and more time on the other side. It’s almost as if she wants to leave the real world for good. If Charlie doesn’t uncover the truth, he could lose himself, the true memory of their mother, and Imogen . . . forever.

This book is heartfelt and earnest, and I sobbed through the last 30 pages. Charlie is a 12 year old boy who loves math and his friends and his family, and he and his sister are both reeling from the death of their mother. When his sister finds a portal to a world where their mother is still alive, at first it seems like a miracle. But as Charlie soon learns, there is no joy without loss, no way to enjoy the good things in life without also accepting the bad. Charlie and his friends are a brave and loyal group, and readers will enjoy getting to know them.

THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF CHARLIE PRICE is out now.

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Read This!: THE LAST BOY AT ST. EDITH’S by Lee Gjertsen Malone

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The Last Boy at St. Edith'sThe Last Boy at St. Edith’s by Lee Gjertsen Malone

Summary: Seventh grader Jeremy Miner has a girl problem. Or, more accurately, a girls problem. Four hundred and seventy-five of them. That’s how many girls attend his school, St. Edith’s Academy.
Jeremy is the only boy left after the school’s brief experiment in coeducation. And he needs to get out. His mom won’t let him transfer, so Jeremy takes matters into his own hands: He’s going to get expelled.
Together with his best friend, Claudia, Jeremy unleashes a series of hilarious pranks in hopes that he’ll get kicked out with minimum damage to his permanent record. But when his stunts start to backfire, Jeremy has to decide whom he’s willing to knock down on his way out the door.

First off, I have to say that I had to battle my ten-year-old son for this ARC. He’d seen a blurb about the book months ago, and had been asking weekly when we would get it. So once that book came into the house, he grabbed it and wouldn’t let go until he was done. He loved the pranks, the characters, and pretty much everything about it.

So did I. Seventh-grader Jeremy finds himself in the unfortunate position of being the only male remains of a failed attempt by St. Edith’s to go coed – and his mom won’t let him transfer, because the only reason they can afford the school is the scholarship money she receives as am employee of St. Edith’s. So Jeremy is determined to get himself expelled. And he knows just who to ask for help: his wild friend Claudia, mastermind of the school’s Film Club and violator of every point of the school’s dress code. Jeremy sets some guidelines for the pranks, though: no one can get hurt, and they can’t steal or damage anything. (The image of Jeremy assiduously labeling each of the garden gnomes he steals with the addresses of their owners cracks me up.) But soon the pranks get out of hand, as pranks often do, and not only do property and people get hurt, but Jeremy’s sister and her friends are blamed for his actions. When the big decisions have to be made, Jeremy starts to realize that maybe being the only boy in a sea of girls isn’t so bad after all.

Jeremy is a likeable, believable character. He’s one of those boys who isn’t particularly bothered to be surrounded by girls – but who feels like he ought to be. His friends are equally well-drawn, particularly Claudia, the bold prankster with a heart of gold, and Emily, the literal girl next door who’s just waiting for Jeremy to notice how compatible they are. THE LAST BOY AT ST. EDITH’S is a middle grade read with lots of fun and lots of heart.

THE LAST BOY AT ST. EDITH’S is out now.

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