This book sounded so interesting to me. Alternate London with Angels, werewolves and vampires. A Sherlock Holmes retelling. That sounds amazing.
Sadly, it wasn't my favorite. Even with all the supernaturals, it wasn't anything special. It was ok, but I wasn't wowed.

I hear such great things about Katherine Addison and "Goblin Emperor". I tried that and found it to not be my thing and moved on. So when I saw this on Netgalley, I thought "Sherlock Holmes, vampires and werewolves. This sounds exactly something I would like to read". I am now 37% in and am going to stop. I like the characters, but I find the wingfic thing to be confusing. Not only that, but I also found that I wasn't retaining the story line. I'd come back to it and think, "This doesn't make sense, what did I miss?" And I would reread things over again.

Perhaps I'll pick this one back up at some later date, but for now I'm ready to move on.

P.S. I LOVE Crow's character though. I felt that Crow's ability to see his friend and know he needs help and be there... I found that to be super endearing. Honestly, I might try another book then come back to this, cause I think it's just me not jiving.

I read the first book by this author in May and I loved it (I wrote a sort of review/comparison here, and it is one of the best books I have read so far) so when I saw this book on NetGalley I had to request it. And then they approved me! It was a happy dance moment because I was over the moon! I just discovered an amazing author and I get to read her new book, how cool is that???
Then I have started to read some mixed reviews, and I started to fear… and if this book is bad? That would be terrible! But the reviews I have read helped me understand better what to expect from this book because let’s be honest, this is quite peculiar. Especially if you have read The Goblin Emperor. They are completely different, and this one was born like fanfic, and it still is a sort of fanfiction even now, so all the mixed reviews I have read helped me figure out what to expect, and that allowed me to enjoy this book.

Yes, enjoy this book, and enjoy it a lot. I wasn’t expecting to like this one so much, but even if I think this is not on the same level on the other book by this author, and even if I admit that this is quite far from perfect, because there are some things that aren’t so well… done, here, I had a great time while reading!
This is a retelling, in the strictest way possible, it made me think of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because it not only re-tells the story of Sherlock and Watson, but it takes parts and scenes directly from the original. And I appreciated it quite a lot.
And we get Angels, Werewolves, Vampires, Hell-Hounds and more! It is really fascinating.
The world-building is intriguing, and I appreciated a lot this alternative London with all the supernatural around. But I think that this could have been developed a bit better. The part about the Angels was intriguing and original, but the rest is not as well developed. I mean, we have a world full of magical creatures, it could have been amazing, and in this respect, the book falls a tad short.

But let’s get going with the good parts! The MCs are the thing I loved about this book! Sherlock in this book is an Angel, a unique one at that, and he is called Crow, while Dr. Watson is Doctor Doyle, a doctor and a supernatural creature due to an accident while he was with the army.
I am a fan of Sherlock and Dr. Watson, but in some ways, I preferred this new couple. For one, Crow is ironically more human than Sherlock. Sherlock is an almost inhuman character, but Crow is way more compassionate and kind, even if human feelings and interactions aren’t always clear to him. And while I was reading Conan Doyle’s books, I sometimes felt Watson like a bit detached, like a secondary character, the shadow of Sherlock bright light, but in this one, Doyle has more vitality, he is real to you. He has a personality, thing that sometimes I was feeling lacking in the original character.

The plot follows, for the most part, the original one, but we don’t see much of the real investigations and we don’t get to see the abnormal brain of Crow at work. So, even if in some sense it is really near to the original, for others it isn’t so… strict about it. And even if I enjoyed seeing Crow and Doyle going around for London and I loved to see how they interact, there isn’t really so much going on. And this was maybe not the brightest thing ever, because I was enjoying myself and I was quite enthralled by this book, so I didn’t mind the light plot, but if you are not really into the characters, for example, I think you would find it boring because, to be honest, there is really not so much happening here.

So, as you can see, this is quite far from perfect, but I loved it nonetheless, and since I enjoyed it so much I have rated it quite a bit on the higher end. I really can’t say what it was that really draw me in so much, but it was fascinating, and I had a great time!

Because Tor was generous by accepting my request and provided me with a copy of The Angel of the Crows I thought I would write up a few lines about why I ended up not reading the book. I only posted this review here and on Goodreads.

I initially requested The Angel of the Crows based on the cover and the blurb as I haven't read anything from this author yet. It definitely picked my attention and at that time there were no other reviews available yet. I was fully prepared to get into a fantasy crime thriller, expecting something fresh and exciting. But it soon became clear to me that what I have in my hands is a Sherlock Holmes retelling which I wouldn't call excatly fresh, nor exciting. Don't get me wrong, one of my favourite novels growing up was The Hound of the Baskervilles, and I do believe Doyle's novels earned their place among the literaly classics. But I think it's time to look for some more original stories as media is full to the brim with Sherlock Holmes fanfic and retellings and what not. Still, I could have live with this if it was not for two things: Firstly, The Angel of the Crows starts *exactly* like A Study in Scarlet. Sure, the characters have different names, they live in an alternative London and Holmes happens to be an angel here. Secondly, the blurb does mention Jack the Ripper making an appearance and once I realised this is a Sherlock Holmes retelling I thought to myself "why did you have to use two such figures in one book especially as one is a literary character and the other was a living person?" I just couldn't see how the two could be merged.

In the end I decided to put it aside. At least the blurb was right in one thing: "This is not the story you think it is. These are not the characters you think they are. This is not the book you are expecting." I definitely did not expect to read a Sherlock Holmes retelling and if I knew, I wouldn't have requested it in the first place. I don't know if the book is any good as I really didn't get too far, though from what I could see, the prose made for a pretty easy and fast read. If you are into retellings, especially ones about Sherlock Holmes, then you might will have more luck with it than I had.

Sherlock Holmes is an Angel

Not the agent of God kind of angel, but a being that the people of 1870s London call an angel. A being with feathered wings (not really feathers) and a very odd social structure. Dr. J.H. Watson becomes Dr. J.H. Doyle who has just come back from Afghanistan after being badly injured by some Fallen (who are not well explained but are really really bad beings to meet). Dr. Doyle has secrets.

Ms Addison reprises some favorite Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper stories in the context of a world whose natural and social structures are quite different from ours. The result is fun to read. I look forward to the next installment.

Whew okay, this one might be a long review. I’ve decided not to include this one on my blog, but I am gonna post my full review here.

I’m gonna preface this with saying, that yes, the blurb was correct, this was not the book I was expecting. I signed up for some Jack the Ripper fic. Instead, what I got was a nearly word for word copy in places of the best of Sherlock Holmes. Now, I love Sherlock Holmes, so wouldn’t normally be mad about that, but come on, if that’s what you’re giving me, tell me that’s what you’re giving me.

Frankly, as far as retellings go, I don’t think it’s particularly well done. There’s a lot interesting ideas here, but I wanted more about the angels and werewolves and vampires… instead they feel very tacked on, and that’s frustrating. And I can’t tell you how annoying it is that she changed the names of Holmes and Watson, but literally no one else. Either change everyone’s name or no one’s name. And yeah, I spent the entire time I was reading this book calling them Holmes and Watson because she did very little to make them her own.

AND NOW we get to the real salt.

So heads up, spoilers in this section, don’t read on if you don’t want to be spoiled. And also, mention of racism and transphobia.

I have two big issues with this book. First off, there’s a retelling of the Sign of the Four. If you haven’t read it, it’s very racist. Honestly, not a story I would pick to retell. Now, Addison made some changes, great, I’m here for that, but… her changes failed to stick the landing. Frankly, it’s still racist. Tonga—the villain in the original and someone who is described in an absolutely revolting way—still subject to that racism. Now, granted she didn’t describe him the same way, but… I’m sorry, taking a character who is obviously a horribly racist caricature, and then changing a few things, doesn’t make it not racist. Sorry, doesn’t work that way. And, the whole addition of a conversation in which they discuss Tonga’s real name, which he then says is unpronounceable, and guess what, it turns out to be so unpronounceable that it doesn’t even warrant inclusion in the book, and then they give him a name from a different word which literally translates to “translator”. Are you fucking kidding me?! Not okay, should’ve just left this retelling out.

And my second anger point, and this is the spoiler… turns out both Doyle is AFAB and Crow is agender (this is what I've gathered, and going off other reps of angels, that's how I'm calling it. They do mention that they’re “biologically female”, but assigned male) Now, I’m actually not against this change, it could be interesting, in fact if anyone knows of an ownvoices trans retelling that does that, hit me up, I wanna read it, but here, it’s honestly so sloppily handled that it might as well have not been included. First off, the line “as much sense as it makes to assign gender to someone who is asexual.” Excuse me? I’m pretty sure the word you were looking for was agender and second, these big reveals are used as plot points. No. We are not doing this in 2020. I don’t even know what pronouns to use for these characters, because they never actually talk about that. Oh, but it is revealed that all angels are “female”, and Watson does a great job of thinking about an angel and then promptly going “he (she?)” Come on. I don’t want to read that. And nobody else should have to read that either.

Anyway, overall, definitely wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone, and probably won’t ever buy a book from this author.

I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and this book needed to be absolutely horrible for me to not like it. Thankfully that did not happen and I ended up really enjoying it, but I still had one major problem.
I think this would have worked way better as a series. Asa standalone there was just too much in it. This is a world full of paranormal creatures,, our main character Crow (Sherlock) being an angel, and our narrator Doyle (Watson) is also not entirely human. Even with angels there are different types of them and rules for their existence that a whole book could have been dedicated to that topic alone. But there are also vampires, werewolves, necrophages, hemophages, hell hounds, augurs, mediums, even automatons. And all these creatures were barely developed. I would love to know exactly how the vampire society works, how werewolves live and about all the rest of them. The book divided into quite a few parts and each part focuses on a new case,so really it was more of a short story collection with an overarching case of Jack the Ripper. Each part was not longer than 50 pages and in each there would be new characters and new creatures to focus on. It ended up being too much for a 400 paged book. I think if it was a serious of 4-5 books with an even pace and more time to develop the world and the relationship between Crow and Doyle, it would have worked a lot better.
If more books come out set in this world I would be delighted. But as a standalone my rating is 3.5*.
Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Angel of the Crows is the second book by Katherine Addison, after her completely, totally, utterly awesomesauce The Goblin Emperor. And this second book is nothing like the first book – except that both are terrific.

But they are terrific in completely different ways. Goblin Emperor was a political thriller of epic fantasy, featuring assassination plots, deliberately mislaid heirs and a young man’s desperate attempt to learn how to rule a kingdom he was never supposed to inherit. It’s marvelous and thrilling and fantastic.

The Angel of the Crows, very much on the other hand, is urban fantasy, with several fantastic twists. This is steampunk and gaslamp and a bit of supernatural horror set in an alternate version of Victorian London where vampires have a pact with the Queen, werewolves are both legal and respectable, and every old building has its very own Angel to watch over the flock of humans that inhabit their domiciles.

It’s also a world where Dr. J.H. Doyle of the (British) Imperial Armed Forces Medical Service was wounded in Afghanistan in a war where the opposing forces were led by the Fallen. Fallen Angels, that is. A wound that has left him with a painful limp and a desperate need to turn into a hellhound every night.

A world where the self-styled Angel of London, an Angel called Crow so often he became one, solves mysteries that the police find too difficult to master. Including a series of bloody murders in Whitechapel.

The blurb turns out to be both right and wrong. Because these are not the characters the reader thinks they are. Yet they so very much are. And it’s surprising and wonderful from beginning to end.

Escape Rating A: In spite of the author’s claim, and the many, many differences between this world and the world we know, calling The Angel of the Crows a Holmes pastiche is right on the money.

But it’s the kind of Holmes pastiche that combines Neil Gaiman’s A Study in Emerald (collected in the author’s Fragile Things among other places) with Lyndsay Faye’s Dust and Shadow. By that I mean that this alternate world is invested – or infested – with a high quotient of the supernatural, but that this variation includes the detective and his friend desperate to solve the Whitechapel Murders. As they would have been if they had existed in real life, but that Conan Doyle probably couldn’t touch with the proverbial barge pole as that crime spree was probably too close to recent memory to be a fit subject for fictional crime-solving. But Holmes and Watson were operating at the same time as “the Ripper” and more than enough time has passed for historical mystery writers to have a field day looking into their investigation, as is the case in Dust and Shadow.

This variation is also genderbent and genderfluid in ways that fit within the world the author has created, and yet come as a complete surprise to the reader. Dr. J.H. Doyle reveals himself to be Joanna Henrietta Doyle when Miss Mary Morstan crosses his path. That Doyle has managed to not merely continue to live as a man but actually blackmailed the I.A.F. into allowing him to keep both his medical license AND his army pension turns out to be quite the story.

And ALL the angels are female – at least as much as celestial beings have gender. But humans have assumed them to be male, so that’s how they’re addressed and perceived. Only Doyle knows the truth of just how Crow managed to keep himself from becoming either Fallen or Nameless – as he so definitely should have.

(I continue to refer to Crow and Doyle as “he” because that is how they refer to themselves and to each other. They seem to have decided on their preferred pronouns, and I comply with their preferred form of address.)

The story of this book is a combination of many of the most famous cases in the original Holmes canon, notably A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles, among MANY others, with their continued investigation into the Whitechapel Murders. While it is inordinately fun to spot the differences between the original version of those famous cases and this one, it is not required to be familiar with the Holmes stories to enjoy these versions. But if you are, the mystery that needs to be solved is often a bit anticlimactic as the resolutions aren’t generally THAT different. Even though James Moriarty turns out to be a vampire.

However, their exploration of how this version of the world works is fascinating, and their constant – and constantly frustrating – attempts to figure out who is – or who are – committing the Whitechapel Murders AND the Thames Torso Murders is definitely a new piece of both that puzzle and theirs.

The Angel of the Crows straddles, or perhaps that should be hovers over, a whole bunch of different genres. There’s historical mystery mixed with alternate history leavened with urban fantasy which includes more than a touch of the supernatural. And if any or all of that appeals to you as much as it does to me, The Angel of the Crows will sweep you away.

Ooof. This isn't bad but honestly I didn't think it was a great Victorian gaslamp Sherlock retelling. I've read better. Writing is terrific as usual, but I'm disappointed by absurdly high expectations.

I suppose I should have paid more attention to the blurb: "This is not the story you think it is. These are not the characters you think they are. This is not the book you are expecting." So true. It's not obvious at all from the synopses that this is a Sherlock Holmes-inspired story... and not really being a fan of Sherlock, I probably would not have requested it if I had realized. Just didn't work for me.

Fully Formatted Review at Novellives.Com

Angel Of The Crows By Katherine Addison

Is it my place to tell Katherine Addison that Angel of the Crows should be a series. Probably not. It is her work, not mine. I can't imagine it is an insult for an author to hear that someone enjoyed her work so much that they want it to continue, though. So, I am not uncomfortable making this opinion known. While Angel of the Crows is undoubtedly similar to the Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, in that it is not a book you should rush.

I certainly could have finished it faster than I did. However, I believe I purposely took extra time with it, because I did not want it to end. The closer it came to an end, the more I dragged it out. I backed-up and reread. I did not want to leave these characters and this world that Katherine Addison had so well reimagined and put together.

The time it took to research both Sherlock Holmes and Jack, the Ripper lore must have been staggering, and it paid off in spades. In the same breath, both the BBC series Holmes and the Robert Downey, Jr movies clearly played a role in the humor, dialogue, and relationship between Crow (Holmes) and Doyle (Watson). Both the old and new are woven together delightfully. There was heart, wit, gore, and mystery that played out through the famous Holmes mysteries, with the overarching search for the Whitechapel serial killer... Jack the Ripper.

While the comparison I'm about to make is a YA to Adult, it applies very well. If you aren't here for a supernatural, gaslamp retelling of Sherlock Holmes, I'm not sure why you are here. Mind you, and I will get to this, Addison does not just regurgitate Holmes lore. However, there are scenes and moments that anyone with Holmes familiarity, will pick up on. And all your favorite characters come to play a part (just not the elements you would expect). So, I say, much like In the Hall With the Knife, unless you are there for Clue? You are in the wrong book, friends.

Doyle and Crow

Holmes is an outcasted Angel and Doyle is a war veteran who was touched by a fallen angel, which curses him as a hellhound (this isn't a spoiler as he knows what is happening to him pretty much right off. Crow doesn't find out for a bit. They are unlikely flatmates, and because of Addison's brilliant choice of Crow's supernatural characterization, she has all the space to mold the perfect personality.

Crow doesn't sleep; he has absolutely no understanding of how humans act, right down to sleeping. He can't navigate general friend etiquette and not because he doesn't want to or because he's rude. Crow just doesn't know. Sound familiar, much? HA! It sets-up their relationship perfectly. And Doyle, needing the room badly, is tolerant of it, at first. However, the individual and relationship arc throughout the book is lovely. It is beautiful how they come around to each other and for each other. Their dialogue is nothing short of spectacularly witty. The best parts being the most unexpected because most times, Crow doesn't even realize what he is saying is outlandish, funny, or just CHRIST ON A CROUTON, WHAT?

The humor, heart, fights, and realizations play on through every facet of Angel of the Crows through everything. It is priceless!

I also loved that Doyle (Holmes) gets more independent leeway. There are mysteries that he takes the lead and is even on his own. I believe this accounts for the fact that he has more character growth than we have ever seen in the past.

Cast Of Characters

All of the favorites make a show, both within the smaller mystery, and then some come back throughout the broader context of the Jack the Ripper arc. One of my favorites and probably most unexpected was Moriarty as...  an Irish Vampire. I loved it, and how/why he comes into play is very cunning, but I'll leave those details out. However, while all the favorites show up, don't expect all of them to play the roles you anticipate or how you presume. Nothing is ever quite what it seems.

What you can count on is Addison's craft of rounding out each character thoroughly. Of course, the story is focused on Holmes and Watson, but everyone has their own voice and personality. Given, some of it comes from Holmes lore, but Addison never rests on that canon, alone. It is kind of hard when she is turning characters into vampires, hellhounds, werewolves, and such. At that point, you have to twist them around and make them your own. And that, Addison does, just as she does with some of the mysteries, like Hounds of Baskerville.

I don't want to say too much else about where how and when characters show up because it's fun to come across them when and where they pop-up, so I'll leave it for you to enjoy.

Supernatural 1880s London

Addison sets her world of Holmes apart by spinning the supernatural into it. Other than my confusion between Hemophages and Vampires, which could have been explained better, everything worked very well. The concept of Crows, and their structure/hierarchy, made plenty of sense, as did the idea between crows that are fallen, nameless, and angels. Crows revelations about his situation that come about through the book (another mystery that leaves drops and clues as you read) are well developed and explained.




Thank You to Tor Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The legal contracts between Vampire Hunts and the government of London was something I particularly enjoyed, as was the addicts that kept them fed without breaking that contract. Addison wove many different landscapes from the countryside to the seedier parts of London using all five senses. I could smell the rankness, taste the foulness, and see the dense fog on the Moore.

She also updated many of the terms and ideologies found in the original works. There is sexual representation, but I don't want to spoil the how or what of it. To say I didn't see it coming would be an understatement. However, it was one of the most poignant and endearing parts of the story.

This Can't Be Goodbye...

There is so much foundational work in the world, the characters, and the supernatural in Angel of the Crows that it just seems like a crime not to be able to revisit it. I hope that maybe, Addison will reconsider and bring them back to us, again. It was a wonderful time while it lasted.

I received an e-book ARC from Netgalley and Tor in exchange for an honest review.

I selected this book based on the blurb -- it sounded like an alternate London that I would enjoy, despite the fact that I'm not really a fan of Jack the Ripper stories. There was a section about this not being the story or characters you are expecting, but I didn't pay much attention to that. Turns out, maybe I should have.

That's because this novel started life as Sherlock fanfic -- or, more accurately, Sherlock wingfic (where some/all of the characters have wings). Here's the thing -- I know very little about Sherlock Holmes stories. I know Hound of the Baskervilles, and I recognize a few of the other stories from the handful of Sherlock episodes I've watched. I say all of that to say this: if you are familiar with the Sherlock Holmes canon, then much of the plot and content of this novel will be familiar to you. If you have only a passing familiarity, then you will recognize certain things but not others.

The characters, despite a number of world-building-related changes made by the author, are recognizably Watson and Holmes -- but there are some surprising differences as well. The relationship developed between these two is really the draw of this novel. There are some interesting changes in this alternate London, but the author didn't spend nearly the amount of time with those details as I would've preferred, instead choosing to focus on the Holmes stories and the bigger story of Jack the Ripper.

This was problematic for me, because although I didn't recognize every Sherlock Holmes story retold here, I could tell that that's what was happening -- a retelling of many of Sherlock's stories in an alternate London. As a result, this reads less like a novel and more like a collection of stories that take place chronologically.

By the time I was finished reading, I felt like the real story was only beginning. I'd love to see a prequel, where we discover how Crow became Crow, or a sequel that doesn't rely on retelling stories from the Sherlock canon.

This was such a peculiar book. It felt like stepping into an upside down and parallel universe. The story was fantasy and the classics sewn together into one new book. I found parts of it to be very creative and fresh, but really didn’t care for how similar certain plot points were to the original Sherlock Holmes. I loved all of the mythical creatures and wished the book would have stayed more in that lane.

This book was like Jack the Ripper meets Sherlock Holmes, meets The Last Smile in Sunder City, meets elements of Crescent City... I know....

Ok, this book was pretty good considering how much it had going on all at once.

This book had the potential to get confusing at points because there was more than one mystery going on at any one point. I think the author did well with keeping the stories seperate while still making it all feel like part of the same book.

I really enjoyed the two MC's, one being an androgynous angel (claims no sex but feels female when made but feels more male after their naming, if that makes sense) and the other being similar (without giving spoilers) but also another fantasy creature. Sorry, I know this is confusing but I want to get this as correct as I can without spoiling the story. Anyway, the MC's were great and very inclusive with the LGBTQ+ community, and I loved it!

I enjoyed the mismatch of characters and stories. I thought it all worked well together and I enjoyed every bit of it. There were a few things I think could have been concluded a bit better, but I'm sure it was hard trying to get everything wrapped up as (I believe) this is a standalone? I could be wrong.

I look forward to reading other books by Katherine in the future as I had a lot of fun reading this story,

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Publisher for giving me this title in exchange for an honest review.

The Angel of the Crows was a decent and pretty fun read, though not at all what I was expecting from the blurb. This book is Sherlock Holmes fan-fiction written in the subgenre of wingfic, where some of the characters have wings (in this case, they are angels).

I should somewhat have guessed Sherlock from the mention of Jack the Ripper. But then again, plenty of fiction has been written around the one of the most infamous serial killers in history. I was quite hyped after reading the synopsis of the book as it sounded like a fascinating Victorian-era urban fantasy with angels, vampires and werewolves. Even when I found out it was essentially Sherlock fan-fiction I was still fairly excited to read this title being a fan of the Sherlock franchise, although I've technically only read one story so far, i.e. A Study in Scarlet.

Funnily enough, that's exactly how The Angel of the Crows started - with the retelling of A Study in Scarlet which introduced the reader to our first person POV, Dr J.H. Doyle. Dr. Doyle having returned to London with an injury from a war in Afghanistan ended up finding a housemate in the form of an angel named Crow. I'm sure this sounded familiar. Whether from the book or even the Sherlock TV series, this was the opening scene of Dr John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

While I've no issues at all with fan-fiction, I did feel a lack of investment in these retellings, which also notably included the other most famous Sherlock titles, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four. If not for the supernatural aspects, I might even be disinterested in continuing with the book. Crow's story was fascinating as he was neither Nameless nor Fallen, but still managed to gain an identity without a real habitation. Well, so was Dr. Doyle, who kept two dark secrets from the mortal world. Even though the characterisation was fine enough, I didn't find myself terribly eager to pick up the book again, as I usually do when I'm really invested and enjoying a read.

I'm not sure if I picked this up at the wrong time, because I expected myself to enjoy this more. Victorian England, supernatural beings, mysteries and Sherlock - all these are some of my favourite trappings in fiction.  The writing was also era appropriate without being fussy or long-winded. While my review may not sound very positive, rest assured that this could still be a fun read for fans of the Sherlock canon.

Thank you Netgalley, Katherine Addison and MacMillian-Tor/Forge for the ARC

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book at 52%.

This book is a paranormal Sherlock Holmes retelling. Where Crow (Sherlock Holmes) is an angel of London and Dr. Doyle (Dr. Watson) has become another paranormal entity after an injury in war. This book is divided into smaller cases and the Jack the Ripper killings are the thread through the whole story.

CAWPILE Rating: 4.43 => 2 Stars
Characters : 5
I think Dr. Doyle and Crow were interesting characters in the beginning of the story. I was really interested in both their paranormal sides. I also think they were good resemblances of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
A point I don't get is why the names of the main characters were changed but all other Sherlock Holmes characters are mentioned by their original name: Lestrade, Moriarty etc.

The point what made me stop reading at the end was that Dr. Doyle was revealed to be a woman dressing up as a man. This is not hinted at prior to this reveal, the only thing that has been hinted being not normal, is his paranormal side. I don't know if it is further explored in the rest of the novel
A thing that bothered me a lot was that all foreigners were caricatures. For example the indian person is wearing a turban and smoking a hookah and the Russian woman is a medium.

Atmosphere : 5
At the start of the novel I wrote a note that said that the writing was really atmospheric and that I felt the paranormal mystics in the story. I also really got the historical era of this story. However, this decreased a lot further into the story. It became much more telling of the original Sherlock Holmes stories with a few paranormal twists.

Writing : 5
As mentioned before, the writing, in the beginning, was really good and read around 100 pages in the first two days. At one point in the story it just began feeling like reading paragraphs of information I mostly knew reading the original stories and nothing was drawing me back into this new story.

Plot : 4
What the plot lacked most for me, was that it was just retelling the original stories with little to no twist. Characters became paranormal beings, but it did not really change a lot on the original Sherlock Holmes's plots. I would have loved if we had explored more how the paranormal entities worked in this world. It had such a clever idea that Angels were coupled to habitations but what did this entail?

Intrigue:4
Due to no new twists in the story, there was little intrigue. I did love the Jack the Ripper murders because they were new, but they were such short mentions in the first half of the story that it did not keep me hooked.

Logic : 5
The decisions that the characters make are understandable and fit Sherlock Holmes lore.
I just did not get the paranormal side of this story, we had werewolves, vampires, hellhounds, angels, demons and all living there with specific rules, but more wasn't explained.

Enjoyment : 3
I went into this book with so much hope and was really thrilled when I found out it was a Sherlock Holmes retelling.
I started reading it a week prior to its release date of 23 June and read 100 pages in the first two days, but then didn't pick it back up until a week later. I just did not feel like reading it.
I tried to get myself through it, but I just kept losing my interest.
Maybe this story is more fun for people who don't know the original Sherlock Holmes stories.

DNF @ 52%, but I think I've read enough of this to give it some sort of review.

I would pitch this as Sherlock meets a paranormal version of Stalking Jack the Ripper, so if you liked those, I would give this a chance.

Ultimately, I think this just wasn't for me. I was really intrigued by the premise, but in reality I was just bored reading this. I like Crow's character and I think it would be more interesting from his perspective instead of from Doyle's (aka Watson) perspective, but maybe that's just me. This was just a little too repetitive for me, I think, which is the same reason I don't like crime shows or most murder-mystery stories. There are also a ton of side characters that just weren't interesting and I didn't care about. Moriarty was probably the most interesting, but there just isn't enough that I was enjoying to keep reading.

However, if you're interested I would still say to give this a chance. I think it's just not for me because there isn't anything inherently wrong or bad about the book.

I loved this Sherlock Holmes remix set in a Victorian London full of guardian angels, hell-hounds, vampires, and other sundry supernaturals. There are tons of familiar elements—names, crimes, narrative roles—but Addison twists everything just far enough out of sync with the original stories that there’re plenty of surprises even for readers who know the source material pretty well.

The episodic structure did hold me at a slight distance at first, but it pays off in a big way as each new adventure reveals more layers of worldbuilding and characterization. I had a great time piecing things together, and I genuinely miss both Crow and Doyle now I’ve said goodbye to them. (Crow is especially delightful; a nice surprise, given how many Holmes-equivalents tend to be jerks.) Recommended to anyone who yearns for more fantasy mysteries on their reading list.

This book = Sherlock Holmes + Jack the Ripper + gaslamp fantasy.

The reader is largely left to pick up the nature of Addison’s world as they go along, which made the book a bit slow going for me at first. In brief, though, her London is full of variety of supernatural creatures, like vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and demons; for the purposes of the story, the most important of them are the angels. Angels normally exist in a Nameless state, where they are part of a collective mind and, while intelligent, have no individual personality or volition. However, an angel can take on a name if they become associated with a public space, like a train station or a monument. If the angel’s habitation is then destroyed, they may turn violent and become Fallen. Humans that are attacked by a Fallen may be infected by them, turning them into creatures like necrophages, hemophages, and hell-hounds.

The book’s Watson, Dr. Doyle (no, not that Doyle), was injured by a Fallen while treating soldiers in Afghanistan and needs to find an affordable place to live after he is invalided out of the army and returns to London. That, of course, leads him to his Holmes, an extraordinary Angel named Crow, who is not Fallen and yet has no habitation. What he does have is an interest in crime and a talent for solving the most difficult cases.

The novel is episodic, with Crow and Doyle conducting several different investigations over the course of the book that mirror the original Holmes stories, such as “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” Various other elements from the stories also show up, like the Baker Street Irregulars, who in this case are Nameless angels who agree to perform tasks for Crow. On top of these Holmesian bits, the author also throws in the real-world murders of Jack the Ripper as one of Crow’s cases.

I’m not a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, and I’m not all that interested in Jack the Ripper, either. I appreciated the callbacks to the original stories that I recognized but didn’t get too bogged down in the similarities or differences. Similarly, I recognized enough to know the author was playing fair with the details given about Jack the Ripper while putting her own spin on them. Readers who have an interest in either Sherlock or Jack might get more out of those parts of the book than I did, though.

I personally was more interested in the worldbuilding and the relationship between Doyle and Crow. Addison’s gaslamp fantasy world is a bit vague at times, which was a little frustrating. For example, hell-hounds seem to have some mystical connection to the dead, based on the events of the book, but their nature is never fully explained. I did like the variety of supernatural creatures in her world, though, and especially her angels, who are quite different from anything I’ve read before. Crow is, of course, unique even among the angels, and Doyle has secrets that make him special, too. They are two lonely souls, and I enjoyed the friendship that grows between them over the course of the novel.

I’ve been in a bit of a slump with my fantasy reads this year; not many books have captured my interest, but this one managed it. Overall, I thought it was a fun read. Recommended!

A copy of this book was provided through NetGalley for review; all opinions expressed are my own.

I loved, loved, loved this book and couldn't put it down being hooked till the last page.
It's the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last as I adore her style of writing and storytelling.
Even if the plot are quite similar to the original Conan Doyle I loved how the author was able to develop an alternate Holmes and Watson making them likeable and interesting.
The world building is fascinating and the angel lore well thought and interesting.
I would be happy to read other stories featuring this characters and to learn more about this world.
I strongly recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.