The Case of the Missing Marquess: Enola Holmes, #1 -- Nancy Springer

I have a new love.  From The Case of the Missing Marquess:

Dipping the pen into the ink, on the cream-coloured stationary I wrote a few words to the local constabulary, informing them that my mother seemed to have gone astray and requesting them to kindly organise a search for her.

Then I sat thinking: Did I really have to?

Unfortunately, yes.  I could put it off no longer. 

More slowly I wrote another note, one that would soon wing for miles via wire to be printed out by a teletype machine as:

LADY EUDORIA VERNET HOLMES MISSING SINCE YESTERDAY STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP ENOLA HOLMES

I directed this wire to Mycroft Homes, of Pall Mall, in London.

And also, the same message, to Sherlock Holmes, of Baker Street, also in London.

My brothers.

Although I spent the entirety of pages 7 through 72 frustratedly thinking, "HELLO!!  ENOLA!!  Your mother gave you a booklet of ciphers for your birthday!!  Don't you think it might be important??", I loved this book unreservedly.  Once she had her forehead-slap moment, she was off to the races.  Mycroft and Sherlock were as Mycroft-y and Sherlock-y as you could imagine, and Lestrade even played a part.

Enola herself is bright, courageous, stubborn and sees the ridiculousness of the Way Things Are Done* -- all qualities I love in a heroine -- and I'm DYING to read the other books in the series.  Highly recommended to young readers of historical fiction and to grown-up fans of the Holmes brothers, whether it be Doyle's originals or fanfiction like Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series.  GREAT FUN.

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*From the book, while riding her bicycle towards London:  "I met with just another such beige-clad figure upon a gravel wagon track, and we nodded in passing.  She looked all of a glow from the heat and the exercise.  horses sweat, you know, and men perspire, whereas ladies glow.  I am sure I looked all of a glow also.  Indeed, I could feel all-of-a-glow trickling down my sides beneath my corset, the steel ribs of which jabbed me under the arms most annoyingly."  I think Amelia Peabody would QUITE approve of Enola.