Status
Available
Local notes
PB Spr
Collections
Series
Genres
Publication
Philomel Books (2008), Edition: Reprint, 256 pages
Description
Pursued by her much older brother, famed detective Sherlock Holmes, fourteen-year-old Enola, disguised and using false names, attempts to solve the kidnapping of a baronet's sixteen-year-old daughter in nineteenth-century London.
Subjects
Awards
Utah Beehive Book Award (Nominee — Young Adult — 2009)
CCBC Choices (2008)
Rise: A Feminist Book Project for Ages 0-18 (Selection — 2008)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2007-01-18
Physical description
256 p.; 7.75 inches
User reviews
LibraryThing member khallbee
After the copyright on the last of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries expired in 2000, the detective story genre has seen an explosion of what can only be called published fan fiction. Some, like Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice, receive critical and popular acclaim while
In fact, this is Springer's second novel in the Enola Holmes series, the first being entitled The Case of the Missing Marquess. In the first few pages, Springer naturally and concisely sums up the events that lead up to the opening scene of The Case of the Left-Handed Lady--essentially, that Enola has assumed the identity of secretary to the great detective Dr. Ragostin and is determined to locate the missing Lady Cecily, despite the fact that Dr. Ragostin does not, in fact, exist. Twisting, intelligent, and full of suspense, this series will appeal to lady detectives of any age. While Amazon recommends this title for ages 9 to 12, I would go a little higher, if only because the dense, Victorian writing will be difficult for those on the younger side of the spectrum to slog through. I also think that the upper range can be extended to at least sixteen, as Enola acts far older (and more confidently) than she is.
Show More
others--whose names I shall not here mention--should probably never have seen the light of day. Luckily, this book falls firmly in the former category. While taking some significant liberties with Holmes' back story (namely, that he has a suffragette for a mother and a much younger sister named Enola), this fantastic adaptation of Conan's novels for young women proves that Nancy Springer can write a bold and independent heroine for any age-- even Victorian London. Best known for her female-oriented adaptations of the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood, Springer's foray into the world of the Industrial Revolution solidly demonstrates her knack for turning a story on its head while still holding on to the heart and core that made it popular in the first place. In fact, this is Springer's second novel in the Enola Holmes series, the first being entitled The Case of the Missing Marquess. In the first few pages, Springer naturally and concisely sums up the events that lead up to the opening scene of The Case of the Left-Handed Lady--essentially, that Enola has assumed the identity of secretary to the great detective Dr. Ragostin and is determined to locate the missing Lady Cecily, despite the fact that Dr. Ragostin does not, in fact, exist. Twisting, intelligent, and full of suspense, this series will appeal to lady detectives of any age. While Amazon recommends this title for ages 9 to 12, I would go a little higher, if only because the dense, Victorian writing will be difficult for those on the younger side of the spectrum to slog through. I also think that the upper range can be extended to at least sixteen, as Enola acts far older (and more confidently) than she is.
Show Less
LibraryThing member rampaginglibrarian
The second Enola Holmes mystery-pretty much as enjoyable as the first. A quick, intelligent, entertaining read for early teens (or those of us with that kind of intellectual ability.)
LibraryThing member cassiusclay
personal response: I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first. It just didn't feel like the story and ideas were as solidly put together as the first. While I enjoy Enola's clever qualities, I just didn't see them being applicable to a fourteen year old. I think the part that put me off in this
grades 5 - 8
curricular connections:
Philosophy: Problem-solving, logic
History: English history
Show More
book more than the previous is what I feel to be Sherlock Holmes portrayal as, not necessarily a villain, but one of the dangers in Enola's life. It feels like the author has to work to keep Enola out of Sherlock's shadow.grades 5 - 8
curricular connections:
Philosophy: Problem-solving, logic
History: English history
Show Less
LibraryThing member A.Pilgrim
Sherlock Holmes' much younger sister, Enola, solves mysteries in London while trying to elude her brother.
LibraryThing member jfoster_sf
I'm really loving this series-short and fun, takes just a few hours to read, and you get to crack codes and solve puzzles with Enola, the main character.
LibraryThing member KarenBall
Enola Holmes, 14-year-old sister of famous detective Sherlock Holmes, has been abandoned by her mother and has run away from oldest brother Mycroft Holmes, who wanted to send her away to boarding school. With the money her mother has given her, Enola figures out how to live alone in London: renting
Show More
office space and living quarters, and creating believable disguises to help her fool people around her. Like Sherlock, Enola is smart and talented. While she is busy hiding from her older brothers, she comes across a strange disappearance: the young Lady Cecily is missing. Her wealthy parents fear a scandal, and so Enola launches a quiet investigation into what happened to Cecily. Her charcoal drawings, odd diary entries (written backwards so you have to read them in a mirror), and assorted clues from the scene lead Enola through some of London's darkest and nastiest neighborhoods -- and all the while she has to keep one eye out for her brother! Great historical fiction and mystery, excellent characterization! 6th grade and up. Show Less
LibraryThing member jamespurcell
Much better than debut novel with an interesting plot and a captivating teen detective and heroine.
LibraryThing member sriemann
Since there was no need for all the introductions and backstory, the second book with the _very_ resourceful [I was so impressed with the way she kitted herself out for her Sister mission walks] Enola Holmes flew right along from the very beginning of the book, and I had a hard time putting it down
Show More
when my commute was done and I had to actually work. ;) Show Less
LibraryThing member JenJ.
Listened to Recorded Books audio narrated by Katherine Kellgren. Excellent again. On to the next in the series.
LibraryThing member pussreboots
In this second volume, The Case of the Left-Handed Lady by Nancy Springer, Enola has established herself as a perditorian (finder of lost things). She is compelled to take on a missing persons case, that of young Lady Cecily.
Enola knows she will have the advantage, being a young woman. Although her
Getting in her way though, is Dr. Watson. Their meeting is heart stopping. Watson comes hoping to hire "Ivy" to find Enola. She manages to escape discovery, but, I have to wonder if Watson hasn't figured it out but can also read between the lines.
While reading Nancy Springer's series, it's difficult, if not impossible, to not compare it to other Sherlock Holmes series. The one I'm most reminded of is Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series in that both look at women's rights and gender roles. This book, does share sub plot involving hypnotism, much like The Language of Bees.
As a second book in a series, The Case of the Left-Handed Lady is the first attempt to build Enola as a stand alone character. She though is still desperate to find her mother and that leaves her vulnerable. I suspect she will always be dividing her time between her cases and trying to avoid her brothers.
Enola knows she will have the advantage, being a young woman. Although her
Show More
mother reared her in a bit of a Bohemian fashion, she was taught some of the standards of her time, like the language of flowers. Her knowledge of the hidden clues a girl might leave, gives her the confidence to take the case.Getting in her way though, is Dr. Watson. Their meeting is heart stopping. Watson comes hoping to hire "Ivy" to find Enola. She manages to escape discovery, but, I have to wonder if Watson hasn't figured it out but can also read between the lines.
While reading Nancy Springer's series, it's difficult, if not impossible, to not compare it to other Sherlock Holmes series. The one I'm most reminded of is Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series in that both look at women's rights and gender roles. This book, does share sub plot involving hypnotism, much like The Language of Bees.
As a second book in a series, The Case of the Left-Handed Lady is the first attempt to build Enola as a stand alone character. She though is still desperate to find her mother and that leaves her vulnerable. I suspect she will always be dividing her time between her cases and trying to avoid her brothers.
Show Less
LibraryThing member RubyScarlett
Outstanding. Oh I'm so glad. That was even better than the first volume in the series. Enola is such a great, great heroine, it's an absolute joy to follow her adventures. Lady Cecily, whose disappearance Enola investigates, was so interesting to read about as well. Feminism, socialism, this has it
Show More
all. Nancy Springer manages to be descriptive enough and thus gives us a really good picture of what it's like to be a woman in Victorian England but that doesn't mean the pace is slow - the plot moves forward quite impressively too. Very well-written, I'm just so happy to have found this series. Show Less
LibraryThing member wiremonkey
Fourteen year old Enola is not your typical nineteenth century girl. After her mother, a suffragette and talented artist disappears, Enola runs away from her country home to London to avoid the dire fate of finishing school to which her overly controlling, much older brothers would resign her. Of
Show More
course, avoiding them is much easier said than done, as one of them just happens to be the famous Sherlock Holmes. Yet time after time, Enola manages to outwit her clever older brother and solve some mysteries of her own in the process. Written in the first person, Enola Holmes is an intriguing, strong willed, generous character who will have her own way. As she attempts to solve the mystery of a young girl's disappearance, Enola confronts her loneliness, her fears and her doubts, triumphing over them in much the same way her brother does: by thinking them through. Show Less
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
On her fourteenth birthday, Enola's mother disappeared. Enola followed her footsteps shortly thereafter, trying to stay one step ahead of her brothers (Mycroft and Sherlock) at all times. Now she solves cases in London by day, by pretending to be a great detective's secretary, and helps the
I liked this possibly even better than the first book. Enola and Sherlock Holmes dance around each other, each trying to know more than the other, and their battle of wits was a lot of fun to read.
Show More
indigent of London by night, in disguise as a veiled nun. In this adventure, Enola tries to solve the mystery of a missing young lady, who appears to have climbed down a ladder and walked off into the night.I liked this possibly even better than the first book. Enola and Sherlock Holmes dance around each other, each trying to know more than the other, and their battle of wits was a lot of fun to read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DKnight0918
I enjoy these mysteries.
LibraryThing member ashleytylerjohn
So much fun. I was reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice at the same time (another Holmesian book) and it was a such a contrast between the enthusiasm and fun in this book, and the bleak, irritating joylessness of the other. Enola is a worthy, spirited heroine, and this is a short, captivating,
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
Show More
engaging read.(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
Show Less
LibraryThing member rakerman
Has some plot issues where Enola doesn't notice things that are made obvious to the reader.
Unabridged audiobook:
Well read, with good variations in tone, by Katherine Kellgren.
Unabridged audiobook:
Well read, with good variations in tone, by Katherine Kellgren.
LibraryThing member rakerman
Has some plot issues where Enola doesn't notice things that are made obvious to the reader.
As you progress through the book you realise to an even greater extent the core elements of her story, the first being that she is completely alone (Enola Alone) and the second being that the task she has set
Unabridged audiobook:
Well read, with good variations in tone, by Katherine Kellgren.
The problem of the guinea and the sovereign (with slight spoilers):
Enola Holmes' misadventures with Victorian money continue.
In book 1, she bribed an impoverished shopkeeper to hide her briefly, bribed her with a £100 note, which in the modern equivalent would be trying to bribe someone with a £10,000 bill (or a $10,000 bill; ten thousand pounds is about $17,000 Canadian).
In book 2, she bribes a street seller with a guinea ("I'll give you a guinea for the whole lot"). There are two problems. One is that a guinea is just over £1, which means she's offering a bribe of just over £100 in modern money. It's way too big of a bribe for the recipient and the task. The second problem is she couldn't give her a guinea, because there was no guinea coin or note in 1889. In 1889 there hadn't been a guinea coin for 75 years.
Not long after, she bribes a cab driver with a sovereign ("The cabby looked askance at such an ill-clad fare, but I tossed him a sovereign"). Again this is a problem, as a sovereign (as best I can tell) is worth £1, which again is a £100 bribe in modern money, which is way too much. A sovereign, from someone dressed as a street seller, for a cab ride? If he's going to accept it at all, he's certainly going to remember it.
Which is an additional problem, in that her whole life in London depends on hiding, in particular from genius detective brother Sherlock. She needs to be invisible. Going around handing out gold coins to the cab driver who works on Sherlock's street corner is not a great way to go unremarked, nor is handing over either a totally imaginary gold guinea or the equivalent in 1889 coins to a poor woman selling oranges on Baker street.
(The sovereign she uses to bribe the cab driver would, with a small handful of others, have made a much more sensible bribe for the shopkeeper in book 1, incidentally.)
As you progress through the book you realise to an even greater extent the core elements of her story, the first being that she is completely alone (Enola Alone) and the second being that the task she has set
Show More
for herself is to subvert the system from within, as a Victorian woman (or, well, multiple different Victorian women according to her disguises). This opens up interesting avenues for understanding the constrained roles available to women in Victorian society, including that they had no authority of their own, instead needing to derive all of their authority from their male guardians or husbands. Since she is always in a female role, across a range of social statuses, you get to see the dynamics of class and of female to female and female to male interactions in this world. Unabridged audiobook:
Well read, with good variations in tone, by Katherine Kellgren.
The problem of the guinea and the sovereign (with slight spoilers):
Enola Holmes' misadventures with Victorian money continue.
In book 1, she bribed an impoverished shopkeeper to hide her briefly, bribed her with a £100 note, which in the modern equivalent would be trying to bribe someone with a £10,000 bill (or a $10,000 bill; ten thousand pounds is about $17,000 Canadian).
In book 2, she bribes a street seller with a guinea ("I'll give you a guinea for the whole lot"). There are two problems. One is that a guinea is just over £1, which means she's offering a bribe of just over £100 in modern money. It's way too big of a bribe for the recipient and the task. The second problem is she couldn't give her a guinea, because there was no guinea coin or note in 1889. In 1889 there hadn't been a guinea coin for 75 years.
Not long after, she bribes a cab driver with a sovereign ("The cabby looked askance at such an ill-clad fare, but I tossed him a sovereign"). Again this is a problem, as a sovereign (as best I can tell) is worth £1, which again is a £100 bribe in modern money, which is way too much. A sovereign, from someone dressed as a street seller, for a cab ride? If he's going to accept it at all, he's certainly going to remember it.
Which is an additional problem, in that her whole life in London depends on hiding, in particular from genius detective brother Sherlock. She needs to be invisible. Going around handing out gold coins to the cab driver who works on Sherlock's street corner is not a great way to go unremarked, nor is handing over either a totally imaginary gold guinea or the equivalent in 1889 coins to a poor woman selling oranges on Baker street.
(The sovereign she uses to bribe the cab driver would, with a small handful of others, have made a much more sensible bribe for the shopkeeper in book 1, incidentally.)
Show Less
LibraryThing member wishanem
I really enjoyed this as a continuation of the Sherlock Holmes story that doesn't lean on the great detective himself. Focusing on a related character with slightly different strengths and weaknesses was a great angle.
LibraryThing member kevn57
This is the best YA series that I've read since Robert Sawyers WWW trilogy. This second entry in the series is superior to the first as the characters have all been introduced and the mystery is the central part of the novel. Enola's family issues are an interesting second mystery, will she
Show More
continue to elude her famous brother Sherlock in his city of London. Show Less
LibraryThing member lkmuir
Pursued by her much older brother, famed detective Sherlock Holmes, fourteen-year-old Enola, disguised and using false names, attempts to solve the kidnapping of a baronet's sixteen-year-old daughter in nineteenth-century London.
LibraryThing member marquis784
Enola Holmes doesn’t like living in the secluded mansion after her mother leaves on her 14th birthday. Her name spelled backwards is “alone” which is how she prefers to live to avoid boarding school. She is just as unconventional as her mother not wanting to succumb to the Victorian
Enola finds unique ways of taking care of herself with her many disguises which allows her to help solve mysteries for people. She often finds herself involved in the same cases as her brother Sherlock. She is able to communicate with her mother via messages in daily paper. They had a secret language using flowers and symbolism to send messages. Unfortunately, Sherlock manages to find her flower book cipher that was created by Enola and her mother.
Enola is approached when Lady Cecily goes missing from her room. In her attempts to locate Lady Cecily she becomes intrigued by her charcoal drawings which showed people in the poorest streets. She finds herself in yet another complicated situation where she finds Lady Cecily while avoiding being apprehended by her brothers.
Show More
traditions. Enola finds unique ways of taking care of herself with her many disguises which allows her to help solve mysteries for people. She often finds herself involved in the same cases as her brother Sherlock. She is able to communicate with her mother via messages in daily paper. They had a secret language using flowers and symbolism to send messages. Unfortunately, Sherlock manages to find her flower book cipher that was created by Enola and her mother.
Enola is approached when Lady Cecily goes missing from her room. In her attempts to locate Lady Cecily she becomes intrigued by her charcoal drawings which showed people in the poorest streets. She finds herself in yet another complicated situation where she finds Lady Cecily while avoiding being apprehended by her brothers.
Show Less
Similar in this library
Pages
256