Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 Out of respect for the other pending reviews, here is the TL;DR: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. If you're a reader who likes historical fiction, mysteries, puzzle-filled stories, and accounts of how individuals access and defend their autonomy against and amid terrible disadvantage, you'll like this. If you're a librarian, by all means, if possible, order some copies. This should make the mystery readers very happy. If you're thinking, "Maybe I'll like this" because "gender bending Sherlock Holmes" makes the curiosity prairie dogs in your brain poke their heads out of the ground en masse, you very likely will lose as many hours as I did. 
 Re-casting Sherlock Holmes as Charlotte Holmes allows for the challenges and perils facing women at that time to increase the tension on top of the murdery-investigation-y parts. Every vulnerability faced by one of the women in the story made me think of current parallels, and how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Questions of status, class, wealth, conduct, and sexual agency affect Charlotte, her sisters, and the women surrounding them. And then there's the investigation part because at its heart, this is a mystery, and there's a criminal puzzle to solve. 
 My quibbles with the book are minimal. At times the names became mixed up in my head, and I'm not sure if that's the fault of my brain, or the fault of their being somewhat similar, but there were a few times where I had to page backwards to find out who a character was, and what they were doing in that scene. And while the pace is mostly sustained through the twists of the story, in moments when Charlotte is entirely out of her depth and being outwitted by life in general, the convenience with which certain characters sweep in to fix things was disappointing, and eroded her character a little. That said, the ways in which she is almost restored, or her life is at least somewhat rebalanced, makes up for it. 
 As usual, reading Sherry Thomas re-introduces me to my own first language, and in this case, re-introduced me to a character in a way I found incredible. I haven't shut up about this book since I finished it. My outbound text messages are mostly hollering, squeeing, and long strings of vowels about this book. 
 I'm so excited this book exists. I'm so excited that I got to read it. I'm so excited there will be more. 
 - SB Sarah