Blog Tour Post, Review & Giveaway: Elementary, She Read by Vicki Delaney

‘Gemma Doyle, a transplanted Englishwoman, has returned to the quaint town of West London on Cape Cod to manage her Great Uncle Arthur’s Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium. The shop–located at 222 Baker Street–specializes in the Holmes canon and pastiche, and is also the home of Moriarty the cat. When Gemma finds a rare and potentially valuable magazine containing the first Sherlock Holmes story hidden in the bookshop, she and her friend Jayne (who runs the adjoining Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room) set off to find the owner, only to stumble upon a dead body.

The highly perceptive Gemma is the police’s first suspect, so she puts her consummate powers of deduction to work to clear her name, investigating a handsome rare books expert, the dead woman’s suspiciously unmoved son, and a whole family of greedy characters desperate to cash in on their inheritance. But when Gemma and Jayne accidentally place themselves at a second murder scene, it’s a race to uncover the truth before the detectives lock them up for good.

Fans of Sherlock Holmes will delight in the sleuthing duo of Gemma and Jayne in Elementary, She Read, the clever and captivating series debut by nationally bestselling author Vicki Delaney.’

I love everything Sherlock Holmes. I love the characters and the stories and have to say that they are some of my favorites. I love to read anything and everything about Sherlock Holmes and when I learned that a new cozy series was coming out that deals with Sherlock Holmes, well I was ecstatic to say the least. This was also my first read by the author Vicki Delaney.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the Sherlock Holmes theme, but really liked how the author used the theme but didn’t overwhelm the reader with all things Sherlock Holmes. There certainly were a lot of similarities, but the author created her own story and characters that made them uniquely different from Sherlock Holmes. I liked that. Gemma’s character has similar tendencies that are like Sherlock Holmes, such as her keen observation and deduction skills, but they don’t quite top those of the famous detective, which makes her more relatable to the reader. Gemma, herself, is not a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, she just runs the bookshop and emporium for her uncle and her best friend, Jayne, runs the Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room. 

Gemma feels that she has a responsibility to investigate the murders as the magazine was located in her bookshop. She is frustrated with the local police and their determinations that she had motive and opportunity to commit the murders herself. This book was a great read that I found all too enjoyable. A wonderful debut to a series that I hope continues to for a long time to come.