Episode 17: Being kind to your readers and writing subtle character growth

For their third book club episode, Fable and the Verbivore plunge into the fascinating world of mystery and intrigue found in the Lady Sherlock series by author Sherry Thomas. This episode covers the first three novels of the series (A Study In Scarlet Women, A Conspiracy in Belgravia, and Hollow of Fear). A fourth book titled The Art of Theft was released in Fall 2019, and a fifth book is being released in Fall 2020 under the title Murder on Cold Street.

The Lady Sherlock series asks the question, what if Sherlock Holmes was a woman? And that being so, how would that look within a society that gives women very little power over their own destinies? This story revolves around the intellectually gifted character of Charlotte Holmes who chooses an unconventional course of action that both lands her as an outcast of her class of society and frees her from some of its constraints. With the help of a fictitious brother in the next room and her business partner Mrs. Watson, she is able to sidestep some of society’s conventions and support herself as a consulting detective, solving enigmas for civilians and the police.

Throughout this episode, we talk about a variety of aspects that we found enthralling about these books. The storylines are woven into fascinating and surprising mysteries that kept us excited for what would happen next. This series boasts a variety of well-developed characters with layers of depth to their personalities, and that have believable and changing dynamics and complex relationships that are engaging. From a historical fiction perspective, the setting feels so well researched and grounded within this time period and the descriptions of the social implications of the story are clear and used to great effect. In addition to this, the story also has fresh themes that feel important today.

If you haven’t read these books, we do get into plot points and changing character dynamics over the three books, so listen at your own discretion and feel free to skip this if you plan to read these books in the future.

We also touch briefly on Sherry’s other fictional work which are detailed on her website including her Elemental Fantasy Trilogy series (which the Verbivore incorrectly calls a Sci-Fi series), The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan novel, and historical fiction romance novels.

We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode, we sure enjoyed recording it! And keep reading, and writing, and putting yourself out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Fable and the Verbivore both mention a fourth book in the Lady Sherlock Series, that book is titled Art of Theft. Sherry Thomas’ publisher has also just announced that book 5 titled Murder on Cold Street will be released on Sept. 8th, 2020.

The Verbivore references Pixar’s 22 Rules for Storytelling that says, “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.” Like anything, we don’t consider these steadfast rules, but guidelines that can be bent and broken when the story calls for it.

The Verbivore mentions some of the book title mirroring that has gone on, at least initially, within this series. Here are some of the examples:

The Verbivore references Ellen Ripley from the movie Alien as an example of an overtly strong female character. This was simply for comparison sake only, and no offense is meant towards that character. She is a stereotype breaking character for the timeframe and context in which she was created.

Wilkie Collins is the author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone. He was a contemporary of Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell who wrote Wives and Daughters and North and South.

The information regarding the super fan that Stephen King thanked for helping to keep his sequel Doctor Sleep consistent withThe Shining came from the acknowledgments section of Doctor Sleep.

The Verbivore misrepresents Sherry’s Elemental trilogy series as a science fiction one. Although she has contributed a short story to the science fiction romance book Sight Unseen, the Elemental Trilogy is a Fantasy series and the titles are as follows:

Sherry’s author website also contains information on her many other books including historical romance novels and a science fiction/fantasy novella titled The Heart is a Universe. Her website tagline is “finely wrought stories, with an edge”; which is just fantastic.

The Ballad of Mulan actually was originally a lyrical poem titled Hua Mulan, and there appears to be some debate over when it was first written (5th or 6th century). It was compiled in an anthology created by Guo Maoqian in the 11th or 12th century titled Music Bureau Collection.

Books Mentioned:

Films Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

book clubBethany Stedman