Here we are, finally! At the end of the Charlotte Holmes series. As you know from previous reviews [A Study in Charlotte, The Last of August, The Case for Jamie], I have a lot of love for this series, and as I understand it, the series was supposed to end with The Case for Jamie. But we got what I've been considering a bonus book, and it felt like I was getting wrapped in a warm hug the entire time.
*Note! This is one of those books that I generally don't review on this blog - a book that was published this year but wasn't an ARC! So it doesn't qualify for Beat the Backlist, but it's the banner I'm using for the sake of blog aesthetic. Please forgive me. /note
Spoilers for the first three books, possibly, as a warning.
In A Question of Holmes, Jamie and Charlotte are doing a pre-college summer program at Oxford, and they're trying to do the impossible for the first time in the series - be a couple. Charlotte is living with her Uncle Leander off campus - he's been a side character in all of the books, so I enjoyed seeing him again. Jamie is living in a dorm on campus with a roommate who is part of this crazy theater program. The two of them get wrapped up in a case in the theater department that involves a student who went missing the previous summer, her boyfriend, and her weird group of theater friends (one of which is Jamie's roommate). It's a bit of a ride, but of course, Charlotte solves it. Naturally.
And then my heart broke. Shattered, really. But like with everything else in this series, Brittany Cavallaro gave me enough hope at the end that I was able to somehow move on and read something else (although it still probably took me a week, at least).
3 Things I Loved
Charlotte's POV. This ENTIRE BOOK was in Charlotte's POV! It was such a pleasant surprise! Her voice is so different from Jamie's, which is what we're used to, but it was nice to have hers, because some of the choices she makes are baffling, and we, as readers, really need to be inside her head in order for them to make sense. So yes, this was delightful. And the best bonus was that the epilogue was back to Jamie's POV, which is probably how my heart healed a little in the first place.
The setting. I loved them at Oxford. I would have (and still would!) read an entire continuation that was New Adult and them in college, but it's not going to happen. Seeing them outside the Sherringford bubble, seeing them blossoming into adults - it was glorious. As always, I want more.
Jamie. Oh Jamie. There are so many things I love about Jamie. His heart. His mind. His undying, unending love for his best friend, no matter how she treats him. His patience. His inquisitiveness. And that ending. Gutted. Just gutted. <3
Dislikes/Problematic Content
White. So white. In this book, we actually get a glimpse of Leander's love life, where he's happily found another man to hang with who isn't Jamie's father. That was delightful, but I wish there had been more of it among the younger students. And yeah, just, so white. England can't be that white. It doesn't seem representative, but I haven't been to the UK in a decade, so I could be wrong, I suppose.
Other than that, I didn't love my heart getting smashed as a reader, but I'll probably reread these books until the bindings fall apart, so it's not really a dislike when I do it to myself, is it?
Rating
A reminder of the rating scale:
Red = DNF, I hated everything
Orange = Ugh, no thank you
Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
Green = This was good!
Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!
For me, as an ending, this is as good as it gets. However, because there is some lack of diversity, I don't know if I can give it the full unicorn rating that I feel in my heart. So this is what I'm going to do. A Question of Holmes gets a BLUISH-PURPLE rating from me, and the series as a whole is PURPLE. For me. I know that series rating won't apply to everyone. But for me, these books are as good as it gets.
Also, as an aside, I think when I read the first Charlotte Holmes book several years ago, she reminded me of Veronica Mars, and maybe you're seeing a pattern? *shrug*
Happy reading! And get ready for some cool blog tours later this week!