westernskynaida's reviews
142 reviews

So some context before I start the review. It’s 2025 and I’m 33 at the time of writing this review. When I was in elementary school (sometime between 1st and 5th grade), our librarian read to us this book. As I got older, I forgot the name of this book, this was definitely a formative book in my little brain years and I believe is actually the book that started my itch for horror books

This book is written in the perspective of a boy who has to spend the summer with his great aunt because his parents are going to France for work. Within the first couple of days, he meets a ghostly boy who looks exactly like him and they switch places

Even for a middle grade book, the way it’s written for the anxiety of depersonalization and possibly forgetting the core of your person is a terrifying idea - it’s no wonder it stuck with me for decades

I highly recommend this book - whether you read it to your younglings or read it when you’re older

Before I read this, I saw a review saying this was a cozy romance. Which I can definitely agree to that

Augustus and Mara’s chemistry was actually fun to watch and finding out what happened to Melbounes’s magic

I also really enjoyed the different mentions of the various supernatural species that were in the book

I’d definitely recommend this to someone who wants a romance that isn’t on the level of erotica

Reading this one was a different experience than how I’ve read the other books for SH. This particular story was used for a mystery puzzle

I’m going to try not write this based off the experience and more the story

This story is after Holmes and Watson have established their partnership for some time and Watson is reminiscing. There were some red herrings and I didn’t see the actual culprit (though it did make sense after the fact)

Where to begin with this…

Before I read this, I did see some of the reviews about the allegories in the book.  To me, I feel like everything was relatively subtle - some where obviously more straight forward, but as someone who isn’t religious it was fine

I really enjoyed the character Zane. He reminded me of Jack from Rise of the Guardians. I am a bit disappointed that Helen still couldn’t read any thing from the texts (though they didn’t really look at them by the end) but maybe that’ll be brought up in the rest of the series?

All in all, I would recommend this book. I feel like it was more taking winter folktales with some religious undertone. And as someone who usually DNF’s heavy religious books when they’re way more in your face, I enjoyed this one

Sherlock’s first “failed” case. It was also one I feel he genuinely had fun with. We get more disguises. I’m also glad this was a more private case rather than working with SY

I enjoyed this one. This introduces the chaos gremlin that most modern takes on Holmes

I’ve also been alternating with the audiobook and the kindle book for this one, and I found out from the forward in the narration that this book was essentially the result of Doyle and (Oscar) Wilde meeting

You can definitely see how Holmes evolved even from the first novel. I also feel like the characters were a bit more flushed out, which was nice

I feel this wasn’t quite 4 stars, but I enjoyed it more than most of the 3 stars I’ve read

Sometimes my focus didn’t stay with me to read this for extended periods, but I feel when I did read it I got through a lot of it

I definitely was on the edge of my seat with some of the climaxes of the book. I also questioned myself about one of the twists

Honestly, if you’ve read another book of this author, I’d say give it a chance

This was a fun little read. We picked this book for our November bookclub book, and it was an interesting premise. I really enjoyed the characters and I feel things got wrapped up very solidly

I’m not normally one for romance novels, but this one wasn’t one of the “hardcore” romance. I feel like it was more of a slow burn. I love the fact that the monster was more concerned about therapy than the human 

I’m reading/listening to the Complete Collection and these are my thoughts post each novel/short story

This was a fun little read. Having watched the entirety of Sherlock (Benedict’s series), I knew how this case happened. But it was definitely interesting to see it in the Victorian England way. I was super confused about the whole derail of the Mormon’s but even that made sense in the end

If you’re a fan of true crime docuseries (which I am) I think you’ll enjoy this. The red herrings and twists were really good. One of them made my jaw drop and I had to sit and stew for a bit before I continued

I’d love to see another book in this style