I enjoyed this but found with the amount of characters thrown at you it became a bit confusing at times and the focus is drawn away from the main character too often, which is a big mistake. The main problem I had is that the stories felt flat and uninspired, I know these stories too well anthers was nothing exceptional to make it feel new or to connect me with the story more and make it feel original. The universe was interesting and the writing good, but just fell a bit flat for me even if it was a nice read.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

The Angel of the Crows is Sherlock Holmes fanfic … if Sherlock were an outcast angel called Crow, Dr. Watson (here named Dr. Doyle) had a paranormal affliction caused by an injury given him by an Afghani fallen angel, and Victorian England were filled with vampires, werewolves and other paranormal beings. In fact, Katherine Addison states in an author’s note at the end that The Angel of the Crows originated as Sherlock wingfic, a type of fanfic in which one or more characters have wings. It’s an idea with potential, but Katherine Addison squanders that potential by spending (I estimate) some eighty percent of the novel simply retelling several of Sherlock Holmes’ most famous adventures with a supernatural twist.

It begins immediately with the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, in which Holmes and Watson (Crow and Doyle) first meet and become flatmates, and works its way through four more adventures that will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s read many of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. The least well-known one is “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches,” and that one would only be called obscure by a non-Holmes fan. The framing device for all of this is the search for Jack the Ripper: his murders are happening right while everything else is going on. Crow and Dr. Doyle can’t help but be interested, and interest leads to involvement.

It’s a reasonably interesting novel, even if you’re familiar with the source material, and Addison clearly did quite a bit of research into the Sherlock Holmes canon and Victorian-era crime, with a focus on the Jack the Ripper cases. But I found myself earnestly wishing that Addison had written a more original novel. In The Angel of the Crows, proper angels are tied to a habitation, like a cathedral or even an inn; Fallen angels cause disasters on the level of bombs; Nameless angels have lost their individual identity and their will along with their habitation. Crow is none of these, unique among angels. All this is explained as part of the background and world-building, but Addison never delves deeply into this aspect of the story or unlocks the potential of conflict with Fallen angels. Focusing more on these original ideas would have made for a more compelling novel.

The first adventure of Crow and Doyle, based on A Study in Scarlet, took up the whole first fifth of this novel, and was such a straight retelling of the original (at least, the London-based half of the original) that my jaw was literally dropping by the end of it. The Angel of the Crows does get progressively more creative as it goes along, as Addison includes more twists to the plots of the original Holmes stories. Occasionally an unexpected connection would make me laugh, like this one:

“Introductions!” the vampire said briskly. “My name is Moriarty.”

“Doyle,” I said and, having observed the vampire’s long, curved nails, did not offer to shake hands.

I appreciated Addison’s spin on The Hound of the Baskervilles plot, and she also gave most of the racist, sexist and other outdated parts of Doyle’s stories a much more modern spin. Even gender identity come into play, which would probably make old Arthur roll in his grave. Unlike Bill, I found myself gradually getting more invested in the story as I got deeper into it, rather than less.

Still, for readers who are familiar with the Sherlock Holmes stories that Addison wove into this novel, much of the element of mystery and surprise will be lost. I agree heartily with Bill’s conclusion that Addison should have done much more to transform and subvert the original Holmes stories. I found myself looking forward to the interim chapters about Jack the Ripper, since those events were less familiar to me. Coming from the author who wrote the inventive book The Goblin Emperor, The Angel of the Crows was a bit of letdown.

I wanted to read this book as soon as I saw who wrote it, as "The Goblin Emperor" was an extraordinary read and I also loved the series "Doctrine of labyrinths", wrote under the name of Sarah Monette, the other author's publishing names. The fact that I was quite interested by the book's themes also helped.

As usual in the author's books, the story was very easy and confortable to read, with good dialogues, splendid characters and touches of mysteries about them. What I liked less maybe is the adaptation of the story of Jack the Ripper, and others Sherlock Holmes ones, I'd have preferred an original detective story. But fortunately the angel theme, thoroughly used and imagined, was quite enough to make for it!

To conclude a very good read, and I really hope that a sequel is to be expected, particularly as I'm not sure about some things about Watson and will love some personal development!

I love Sherlock Holmes and I am a huge fan of Holmes reimagined (there are some very good ones out there). This is fun but too respectful in my opinion. The world around the story has been complicated by being peopled with all kinds of fantastical creatures: angels, vampires, hellhounds, etc. It's pretty cool but then the story itself is a retelling of some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's actual plots. The Holmes character keeps getting shoved aside in too many of these plots, which is always a mistake. Not a bad book, but not as great as I expected it to be.

So. This is an alternate-history Sherlock Holmes retelling with angels, demons, werewolves, vampires, and so on and so forth, written by the author of The Goblin Emperor. That as a sentence alone had me running full force into this book with glee.

The ‘Sherlock’ in this one is an angel named Crow. Angels in this world inhabit every public building and act as… a sort of protector. Crow is a little different in that his building doesn’t exist anymore, per sey. Most angels in this situation would Fall (which I understood to mean ‘blows up into pure evil,’ though this isn’t expanded on very much) but Crow has managed to circumvent that outcome and become a sort of… freelance angel. He helps the police solve crimes where he can.

We get this story from the POV of Doyle, who is our ‘Watson’. He is back from the war, having been injured by a Fallen, which has greater repercussions than just the fact that his leg is injured and he walks with a cane. Doyle ends up renting a flat with Crow and they become partners in crime… solving? As you would have guessed. 😀

This one more or less reads like a few short stories or novellas that come together as one to tell a bigger story. The prose is quite lovely, and I really enjoyed some of the characters, most especially Crow.

Which makes it a little unfortunate really that I just… didn’t love this one. I liked it fairly well, I just found myself having a harder and harder time staying interested in it as it went along.

Doyle tells the story well enough, but he’s not very interesting most of the time. Given a few different points of fact about him, he should be very interesting indeed, but he just seemed… rather flat. Crow stole the show here, as one would expect.

All told, it was interesting, at times, and I never found myself disliking it, but I never found myself in love with it either. I have really enjoyed books from this author before, both under a pseudonym and not, and so I’m really hoping that this one is just an… isolated bounce-off.

The Angel of Crows is essentially Sherlock Holmes fanfic with some different names substituted in and a few other minor changes to add a supernatural twist, and while I’m not a big fan of Sherlock, I still found I enjoyed the novelty. It’s a great balance of kooky and gritty, and while I was more interested in the latter aspect, given I was interested in how Jack the Ripper fit in, I still found it a fairly solid book that somewhat logically fits together.

I love the relationship between Crow and Doyle, and how it pays homage to Sherlock and Watson (which is obvious even to someone with only the bare minimum of Sherlock knowledge). I’ve heard about Sherlock’s awkwardness with others, and seen it manifest differently in another adaptation, but I think it’s well done here by having Crow be an angel who really doesn’t understand humans.

As for the Ripper element, I enjoyed the way it was interspersed into the more traditional Sherlock stuff, and attempted to provide conclusions to one of the most notorious cold cases in history.

I personally enjoyed it for what it is, even though I did feel like it was a bit odd at times. I think fans of Sherlock would also love it, as would anyone interested in fun steampunk-esque mysteries.

Copy provided by NetGalley in return for an honest review.

So I, like everyone, have been waiting for a new Addison book for a fairly long time. Just a little. Honestly, I was expecting a Goblin Emperor sequel, and while this wasn't it, I'm still pretty happy with what I read.

The Angel of the Crows is a riff of Sherlock Holmes (at this point, I really must point out, I've never read Holmes. I'm familiar with titles, the movies, aaaand that's about it). You have Crow as Holmes, and Doyle as Watson, and they go around solving crimes that the police can not. Jack the Ripper, Hound of the Baskervilles, there's probably a few more references to the OG thrown in that I'm not aware of. However, this is fantasy-mystery, so we get the added benefit of having more or less the full run of the occult spread throughout the story. Crow is an Angel, a creature that needs a name and a habitat to exist as they are, and Doyle has a dark secret brought home from the wars in Afghanistan. Then you have various werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and more springing in and out of the story.

I really enjoyed the style that it was written in, but I'm aware that there are many who might find the lack of overarching narrative a bit of a turn off. The story is made up of several different cases, leaping from one to another over the course of several months. C and D grow closer, and while C may be a bit too straight to the point at times, there are moments of quality banter between the two. As far as other characters go, no one is ever really given the screen time to develop, we jump from one mystery to the next, introducing new faces, and rarely seeing old. It feels like a slightly
stylistic choice.

If I compare it to GE, it doesn't reach that height of enjoyment, and I'm aware that it's unfair to compare a work that we hold so beloved. But looking at the two, I feel the only thing that took away enjoyment was the pacing of the novel; there was so so much covered in it. So many mini stories, and I feel that if one or two had been removed, and the others expanded, it might have made for a tighter book. And we might have gotten a few more developed characters. But, at the end of the day, that's really not a huge complaint for me.

Overall, something I feel happy to recommend, just with a few caveats so that people know what they're getting when they jump in. I certainly feel like reading more fantasy mystery novels now!

When I read the synopsis, I was immediately intrigued. It’s hard to resist the mix of fantastic creatures, London in 1880 and Jack the Ripper! I couldn’t wait to see what the author would come up with!

We follow more particularly two characters in this story, an angel named Crow and Doyle, an investigator. Both of them will embark on a story that goes beyond them to find the terrible killer in town. It won’t be easy, but they’ll be determined to find out what’s going on.

I was, as I said, very intrigued by this story, but I finally had a little trouble hanging on. It’s a pity because the universe was very interesting and I was curious to see the outcome.

Yes, it was a nice novel to discover, even if I thought I would connect more to the story.

Just wow!!! I've been a fan of the author's for over ten years. You think it's going to be another version of Sherlock Holmes, but it's much, much more. Lots of twists. Once I finished it, I started again immediatelyl

For about the first third or perhaps half of Katherine Addison’s newest, Angel of the Crows, was thinking I was finally off the schneide, as it had been about two weeks since I’d really thoroughly enjoyed a novel I was reading. And I was definitely enjoying the pastiche of several Sherlock Holmes stories which basically boils down to “It’s Holmes but with angels and vampires!” Which sounds like a lot of fun, and as noted, it was, at least for that first third or so. But then, well, it never really went anywhere beyond “It’s Holmes but with angels and vampires!” and after about the halfway point my enjoyment began to falter, the story began to sag, and by the end I was left feeling that a neat idea for a short story or novella had been stretched too thin and flat to bear the weight of a full novel.

Which isn’t maybe all that surprising, since the structure of the novel is basically a loose string of retellings of classic Holmes tales, such as “The Sign of the Four,” “The Speckled Band,” and “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” All set in an alternate London where paranormal creatures are part of the mundane fabric of life: angels, vampires, hell hounds, ghosts, clairvoyants, etc. Addison makes a few other changes as well. Holmes is transformed into the angel Crow — who sits somewhat awkwardly between a “normal” angel, a “Nameless”, and a “Fallen” — while Watson becomes Dr. Doyle (see what she’s doing there?) though there’s a bit more to the character than meets the eye.

The two best parts of Angel of the Crows are the world-building and the voice. The most fascinating aspect is the mythology of the angels, which Addison quite deftly doles out a little at a time in expert fashion. The vampiric background is nearly as fascinating and is explained in similarly stretched out fashion. I wouldn’t have at all minded reading much more about either group. The paranormal element also feels wholly baked into the culture and story, so that we see it even when it doesn’t move plot forward. In fact, it’s that we see it especially when it isn’t moving plot that makes it so good, because it doesn’t feel like an artificial way to push narrative necessities. For instance, Doyle makes use of a simile that refers to the paranormal, and the way that world aspect has become attached to simple daily language usage is one of the ways Addison makes us feel it’s a natural part of this world.

The other strong point as mentioned was Doyle’s voice, which felt at first fresh and engaging and which carried me along quite effortlessly through that first half. But then it began to peter out somewhat (not helped by a long epistolary section which I didn’t think was very successful) and fell victim to the flatness and familiarity of the stories themselves.

And therein lies the biggest weakness of Angel of the Crows. The unexpected paranormal aspect adds a nice patina of freshness to the old stories, but it only goes so far. Eventually you realize you’re basically reading the old stories which basically creates two problems. One is that you know pretty much what’s happening and you have a strong sense of having read this all before (granted, slightly changed here via the supernatural elements). The second problem is that the old stories, while popular in their time, don’t really, I’d say fulfill the needs of the modern reader. They’re pretty straightforward without a lot of bends or turns or unexpected twists and the same holds true here as well. In one story, Doyle performs an autopsy on a victim, figures out immediately that it was murder, and the murderer is dealt with just as immediately. It’s about as flat a presentation of murderous intent as I can imagine.

Meanwhile, the Holmes stories are interwoven with Crow and Doyle’s attempts to solve the Jack the Ripper murders in Whitechapel. But that whole subplot feels scattered, shoehorned in, and ends in a disappointingly anticlimactic fashion. Holmes (“Crow”) and Jack have met up several times in fiction and film to far better effect.

In the end, Addison felt less inspired by the Holmes stories and more constricted by them. With the underlying mythology being so rich, and the character of Crow potentially so, Angel of the Crows felt like a missed opportunity. The novelty of the supernatural overlay worked over the span of a story or two, but got pushed past the breaking point by about the halfway point, with the end result being that I found myself wishing for Addison to have been a lot more playful and subversive

How do write a follow up to the amazing Goblin Emperor, you write fan fiction.

The Angel of the Crows is Katherine Addison’s fanfic homage to Sherlock Holmes. Think Sherlock Holmes as an outcast Angel called Crow, Dr Watson has been renamed, Dr Doyle. The setting is still Victorian London, except it is filled with vampires, werewolves and other supernatural creatures. From this point we get a retelling of the Sherlock Holmes tales, okay idea if you’ve never read them before, the only difference being that the adventures just have a slight supernatural twist. If you’re already familiar with the Holmes tale, this feels like a slight let down.

There were, however, plenty of twists in this story, as Addison shines a light and asks questions on racism, and sexism, gender identities, all done in a respectful way to the original stories. There is a plot that binds all this together and that is Jack the Ripper, this plot pulls you along and keeps your interest.

You can certainly tell that Addison loves the subject matter, this comes across very strongly, however, this just wasn’t enough for me. Addison just about did enough in this story to keep me reading to the end. However, my over-familiarity with the Holmes stories added a slight edge of disappointment.

I would have preferred an original story. I think that for anyone not familiar with the original Sherlock Holmes stories will absolutely love this book.

I received a free digital copy of this book from Tor books and through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for sending me an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review!

First things first, it is important to know that The Angel of Crows started life as a Sherlock Holmes fanfic, specifically wingfic (fanfiction where characters are reimagined with wings)(thank you, author note for explaining this to me).

Second, it is important to know that I loved it!

I am not a die-hard Holmes fan, but have encountered many a Holmes retelling, and have enjoyed them all. This, though, is my favorite of the bunch!

For this re-imagining, Holmes is Crow, an asexual angel, who is deeply kind and full of wonder, and has given himself the mission of solving mystery's in London, as a way to watch over his flock. (All angels in this world need a place/people to watch over, to give them their name and purpose, and keep them from falling). Watson is Doyle, a doctor, and former military person, who has come home from the wars with mobility challenges and a mysterious condition. They begin rooming together, and develop a tender and heartwarming friendship as they solve a series of mysteries alongside the London police. An overarching mystery that spans the book is that of Jack the Ripper.

Things to know

-This book feels a bit like a series of short stories, with each section focusing on a reimagining of on of the classic Holmes stories.

- In many ways, the re-imaginings stick very closely to the original stories, just with supernatural elements mixed in. If you are a deep Holmes nerd, you may love this! If, like me, you have a passing familiarity and fondness for Holmes, you might find it delightful when you can recognize the parallels! If you want an original mystery plot, you may be disappointed.

Things I loved
-Crow, Crow, Crow. I could not love a character more! I am a very enthusiastic human, who often falls for characters in books, but I cannot remember the last time one stole my heart so hard! I want to wrap him up in hugs, except he doesn't like to be touched, so instead I want to have tea with him and ask him lots of nerdy crime questions!

- The LGBTQIA rep: Reviewers have different opinions on whether or not this book has queer content, which I totally get! I think it does, it's just platonic queer content! (view spoiler)

-The worldbuilding: Though we don't get to dive deep into the specifics of this world, where angels, vampires, demons, and other supernatural beasties openly roam, we get glimpses as our heroes solve mysteries, and I adored every moment! In particular, the way the author addressed angels and vampires were really unique! One thing that really stood out was the importance of names to angels- without a name, and a place to be tethered to, Angels have no purpose or identity, and exist in a sort of hive mind. Something about naming, and Crow's queering of the naming system, really melted my heart.

-Crow and Doyle's friendship: Both are complicated people, who live just a little outside the norms of their world, and watching them make a home together and learn to care for each other was just the sweetest thing! I am here for more depictions of queer, platonic life partners!

- The Hounds of the Baskervilles section: hellhounds on the Moor- need I say more?

Things I less-than-loved

- I will admit that this lovely book was a slow start for me; something about the pacing or the period language made it so I kept picking it up and putting it down. Once I sat down and dedicated time to reading it, though, I devoured it in a day. I don't read a ton of historical fiction, though, so other readers may not have the same trouble I did.

Overall, The Angel of Crows is a deeply nerdy, supernatural Sherlock retelling with the best pair of best friends solving mysteries in London's paranormal underworld. Cozy mystery + fantasy = what's not to love?

I chose this book without reading other reviews, and was surprised to find that it was Sherlock Holmes fanfic. I like Sherlock Holmes just fine, but I wouldn't have picked it had I known. As is often the case for me reading fanfic-derived fiction, there isn't much character development other than porting over my already existing feelings about Sherlock. I also wasn't getting much about why adding the paranormal element adds anything to these well-trod stories. I can see how others will find it delightful but I did not. I wish I had read something that felt *inspired* by Sherlock Holmes but more fully realized in its own right, akin to the relationship between the Lunar Chronicles and Sailor Moon.

As someone who hasn't read Sherlock Holmes stories much except a few popular stories now and then, it took me a bit of time to realize that I was probably reading a Sherlock Holmes fanfic. A read of the A/N at the end of the book confirmed my doubts. I'm someone who tries to maintain as much distance as possible from fanfics and I can actually count on one hand, the number of fanfics I have read (2-3 max including this).

(I wish that I would’ve know that this was Sherlock Holmes fanfic before I went into it.)
Still The Angel of the Crows does not disappoint.

Dr. Doyle was a flatter character compared to Crow but he was definitely an interesting character There were some revelations about Doyle that seemed to come out of nowhere and I actually had to turn back the pages to see if I had missed any telling clues.

The character of Crow normalizes so many oddities of Sherlock Holmes' character. The behaviour and actions of Holmes that appeared weird in him as a human, appears to be the consequence of a general confusion in understanding of human nature by an angel.

I feel the friendship between Crow and Doyle is quite cute but not well explored. They balance each other out quite well.
Anyways, he take on genders was one of the bestest parts of the story. I am stopping myself from revealing more about it because it's definitely something that the reader should get to know on their own.

The problems I had with this book:
It had too many plots running at the same time. The case of Jack the Ripper, is the main thread which ties all of the separate cases the characters handle. I would have loved for the author to focus on fewer stories for the sake of better reading. I felt a bit lost at times. Maybe a Sherlockian reader would have an easier time reading this book.
I wish that the supernatural part of the book was explored a bit more because it certainly, was one of the best parts of the whole story. The concept of Nameless and all that habitation stuff, I would've liked to know more about them. Since this was an alternate history world and things were so different from normal world, it would've been better for the author to explain the things a more as they left me confused at times.
Also, I would've preferred if the deductions were a bit better explained.

I hope that there are more installments in this story that expand this Alternate London world and fill in more details about our odd investigating duo.

*eARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I was really intrigued by this book. Sherlock Holmes mixed with Supernatural and Jack the Ripper? It had great promise. The author really managed to capture Arthur Conan Doyle's writing style, which was both a blessing and a curse, since I was always a little detached to his actual writing. However, it added authenticity to the story. As for the plot, it read like Sherlock Holmes. Well, Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. In fact, there is an author's note at the back of the book stating that this is a 'wingfic.' Meaning Sherlock Holmes fanfiction where one character is an angel.

In that light, I would have preferred that Watson (Doyle) have been the angel. It would have been interesting to read an angel's perspective of the perplexing Sherlock Holmes. Instead, Dr. Doyle becomes roommates and companions with Crow, who refers to himself as the "Angel of London." The fact that Crow is an angel explains away all of Sherlock Holmes' oddities. His almost supernatural awareness of his surroundings, his attention to detail, his stand-offish nature. Weird in a human, but for an angel? The reader has no concept at the start what an angel should or shouldn't be like. Although Addison fills in some blanks, there is still so much left unsaid about the supernatural entities of her alternate England.

Angels and Fallen, werewolves and hellhounds, vampires and hemophages, necrophages and spiritualists- many non-human creatures are common place in Crow's London. Angels guard buildings and spaces. Fallen, never seen, are fallen angels whose touch is deadly. Werewolves function in military groups while vampires are permitted to live in hunts. Hellhounds (former humans touched by dark forces), hemophages (lesser than vampires but still human, they drink blood), and necrophages (never fully explained, but I assume have something to do with the dead) are face with impossible conundrums- it is illegal to be unregistered, but registering often means death or imprisonment. While being a spiritualist is an acceptable calling for a young lady, but an unregistered witch is a crime. This world that Addision builds is deeply complex and holds so much promise, but she only explain a little of it, and only when she is forced to.

Addison also makes surprisingly modern observations about sex and gender (and same sex romance). To go into more detail would be a spoiler, but it is something that comes completely out of the blue. Twice, in fact.

The plot follows Doyle's original tales quite closely, even some conversations I feel that are verbatim from either Sherlock, the BBC show, or Doyle's own writings (or again, Addison just writes in Doyle's voice). And yet the plot seems to fall flat. Much less of a mystery than it should be, the information is all kept inside Crow's head, where he rushes to explain the whodunit without any possibility of the reader following along. Or worse, the culprit will simply admit to everything upon being questioned. At the mere thought of suspicion, all of the story wraps in a neat bow. There are some reoccurring plot lines- Jack the Ripper, another mysterious serial killer, and the vampire Moriarty- but none of those threads ever come into fruition.

Final thoughts: 3.75 stars. Had potential, and I may even read the sequel if there is one, but ultimately falls flat.

I didn't realize this was a Sherlock Holmes story and as such is not for me. I don't plan on reviewing this one on my blog or Goodreads. Thank ye kindly for the review copy though. Arrrr!

This book is a retelling (or a re-imagining) of Sherlock Holmes, wich was the first thing that got my attention and I loved to go throw discovering every reference. The main characters Doyle and Crow are inspired on Watson and Sherlock, and the dynamic between them remind exactly to the classic characters.

The story sets in a supernatural 1880´s London where vampires, werewolf, angels and other creatures walks in the streets along with the humans. This setting is really interesting but felt a little confusing and I would have liked to have more explanations on certain aspects.

As for the plot, I liked it but didn't amazed me.

I recommend this novel for those who are looking for a classic mystery tale with paranormal elements.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for providing me this digital ARC.

3.5 of 5 stars

My TL:DR Five Word Review : Sherlock Holmes Winged Fantasy fanfic

Okay, so, this wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The original description is very mysterious indeed and certainly intrigued me enough to request a copy even if the author’s name hadn’t already stoked my attention to unusual heights. Here’s a copy of the original description:

‘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.

In an alternate 1880s London, angels inhabit every public building, and vampires and werewolves walk the streets with human beings under a well-regulated truce. A fantastic utopia, except for a few things: Angels can Fall, and that Fall is like a nuclear bomb in both the physical and metaphysical worlds. And human beings remain human, with all their kindness and greed and passions and murderous intent.

Jack the Ripper stalks the streets of this London too. But this London has an Angel. The Angel of the Crows.’

Overall, I enjoyed this and it was entertaining. I do have slightly mixed feelings however – but then, at the same time that feeling is dependent on whether or not this is intended to be a series. If more books are planned then I would put my mixed feelings down to that certain feeling you experience having read the first in a series of books where you’re left wanting more and with gaps in your knowledge that you expect to be filled in as future instalments are forthcoming. If this is a standalone then I’m left with that feeling of not being quite sated but still having enjoyed a revisit with some old storylines and characters. What I am puzzled about is why the whole ‘Sherlock and Watson revamped’ scenario is left off from the blurb. I’m always interested in any reimaginings that include this pair and also usually onboard for anything including Jack the Ripper so putting the two together is a double whammy for me.

What did I really enjoy about Angel of Crows:

This is an alternate London where fantastic creatures live alongside the everyday mundane. Vampires, Werewolves and Angels to name but a few. Holmes and Watson are themselves quite far removed from the original characters in more ways than a simple change of name – here called Crow and Doyle. Crow, for example, is an angel and in truly infuriating style I’m not going to tell you anything about Doyle, other than he’s a military doctor now retired from service following injury. Both of them have secrets. That is all I’m prepared to say. I think writing Holmes as an Angel was a brilliant idea. His character always had a sort of ‘ethereal’ or aloof feel to it in the original stories and he came across as a little detached which is perfectly portrayed here. I loved the friendship that develops between the two and their interactions and the way they support each other. On top of that I loved the idea that Angels are linked to a particular residence which makes me want to go and look up places like the Angel Inn.

Angel of Crows includes a retelling of a number of the original stories and uses the Ripper cases as a backdrop with Crow becoming heavily involved with the hunt for the killer. This allows a common thread to run throughout the story which is also aided by each individual storyline introducing new threads.

In terms of criticisms. I think this might have benefitted by focusing more on one particular story rather than incorporating so many of the originals, it gave the stories a slightly rushed feel. There was also a rather skimpy feel to the usual powers of deduction and reasoning behind Crows assumptions, in fact he had a rather downplayed role in that respect. I would also like to know more about the supernatural aspects of this world – although if this is a series rather than a standalone – that might be further developed in future instalments.

Overall I had a good time with this. I enjoyed the writing and revisiting these characters albeit in a different guise. I think the author’s love for this is also very clear and I would happily read more stories if that is the plan.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3.5 out of 5 stars

DNF at 60%

I know, I know. I probably should’ve kept going and pushed through to the end, but I just needed to make it stop.

I wish that I would’ve know that this was Sherlock Holmes fanfic before I went into it. I don’t even know if that’s what it’s supposed to be, but it 100% is.

We have a fallen angel named Crow (Sherlock) who is a master detective (still is on Baker Street). We have the injured ex military doctor Dr. Doyle (*cough* Watson). These two are battling all things supernatural. There’s vampires, werewolves, and a host of paranormal beings.

While the majority of the story is simply a paranormal spin on the Sherlock stories the final straw for me was the vampire antagonist: Moriarity. Really? We couldn’t even change his name?!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the ALC.

This was sheer perfection. A Holmesian mystery fantasy set in an alternative Victorian London which features hellhounds, werewolves, vampires and other dark creatures as well as one angel detective. I love Addison's style and the storytelling was wonderful. Highly recommend.