Leah
Scheier
ISBN: 978-1423124054
Hyperion,
2012
Plot
Summary: Dora
Joyce has been born in the wrong century. She could care less about high
fashion, coming out balls, and the ultimate goal of a girl’s life—marrying
well. She’s much more interested in mysteries and asking questions. Living with
her cousin after her parents died, she is left with an even bigger mystery
she’s keeping to herself. She found a letter her mother was writing to her that
states that her father might not have been her real father. She had been in
love with one man who didn’t want to marry and when she got thrust into the
relationship and marriage and found herself pregnant she had to hide it and
pass it off as her husband’s or be shamed. The most interesting part of this
mystery is that her father might in fact be the Great Detective Sherlock
Holmes. When she cousin, Adelaide, wants to go to London to seek Holmes’s
assistance in retrieving some love letters from before her marriage that she is
now being blackmailed with, Dora jumps at the chance to possibly meet her real
father and show off her own detective skills that she feels must have come from
him. If she impresses him maybe he will take her on as an apprentice. Once
there she learns the sad news—Holmes was recently killed in an accident at Reichenbach Falls. Instead she meets Peter
Cartwright, a former apprentice of Holmes who now works with another detective
and rival of Holmes who is quite the pompous jerk. When this detective decides Adelaide’s case is beneath him he gives it to Peter and
Dora soon finds herself caught up in the possible connection between Adelaide’s blackmailer
and the recent disappearance of Lady Rose. She convinces Peter to let her help
and infiltrates the estate of Lady Rose as a maid. Will she uncover the
connection or will she put her own life in jeopardy?
Critical
Evaluation:
As a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, I was sad to see a chapter or so in that the
book takes place after Holmes’s “death” and that he wasn’t going to be in it at
all! However, the open ending suggests the possibility of a sequel in which I
hope Holmes comes back and meets Dora! Dora is a character out of her time
period. A lot of readers will be able to relate to her and the constraints that
she finds. Dora wants to be a detective in a time when all girls could hope to
aspire to be was a pretty wife married to a well-off (and oftentimes older)
man. Therefore, Dora is constantly getting in trouble for her bold and
unladylike actions. Peter is a sweet boy with a sad past (his family was
massacred before his eyes and he blames himself was surviving) whom readers
will want to see get together with Dora. The mystery of Lady Rose and her
disappearance is intricately woven into Dora’s story and includes some red
herring that will trip up even the most confident of mystery lovers. Overall,
it is a great book to recommend to mystery lovers.
Reader's
Annotation: Dora has just discovered that the famous
detective Sherlock Holmes might actually be her father. Traveling to London to meet him, she
discovers he has died and gets wrapped up in a mystery case with his former
apprentice. Can her deductive skills live up to her potential of her real
father?
Author
Information:
Leah Scheier decided she wanted to be a writer around the same time that she
learned to read. From an early age she filled notebooks with her thoughts and
observations, convinced that one day these scribblings would be unearthed and
hailed by literature critics as the beginnings of a great career. She has since
carefully hidden away those notebooks. Sometime during high school, wise adults
convinced her that writing was not the smartest career choice, unless she
wished to spend her life unemployed and hungry, waiting sadly by her mailbox
for the publisher’s letter which would never come. So she chose pediatrics. In the
evenings after office hours were over and her own children were in bed, she
took up writing again. She worked on Secret
Letters for a year and a half. She lives with her husband and three
daughters in Modi’in, and in her free time enjoys horse-back riding, watching
movies, playing the violin, and visiting with family and friends in Atlanta and
Baltimore (Scheier, 2012).
Genre: Mystery, Historical
Curriculum
Ties: N/A
Booktalking
Ideas:
Reading
Level/Interest Age: 13+
Challenge
Issues: Minor
violence
Challenge
Defense: If this book were challenged, I would make
sure the library has a Challenge Defense File ready for such a situation.
Inside the Challenge Defense File, librarians and the public could find:
·
A
copy of the American Library Association’s Library
Bill of Rights. (Can be found and printed from ALA’s website at http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill)
·
A
copy of the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement (Can be
found and printed from ALA’s
website at http://www.ala.org/offices/oif/statementspols/ftrstatement/freedomreadstatement)
·
A
copy of the library’s own selection policy (my library, the La Vista Public
Library, has a policy but it is not online so I can’t link to it as an
example).
·
A
copy of the library’s citizen’s complaint/reconsideration form (my library, the
La Vista Public Library’s, form is called the City of La Vista Service Request form).
·
Copies
of reviews—both good and bad—from reputable library and publishing services to
justify why a book was selected for inclusion in the collection. These include
not only reviews from such journals as School
Library Journal, VOYA, Horn Book, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist, but also any mention of books
on YALSA lists and other copies of articles about any awards or nominations
such books may have received.
·
Include
a short rationale file for other coworkers so if the librarian in charge of
selecting materials is not available when a challenge occurs the other staff
members have some information to go by (the rational would include such
information as a short summary, what could be challenged, reviews, awards and
nominations, etc.)
·
Include
for staff members a copy of “Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to
Library Materials,” a document written by the American Library Association.
Make sure that staff reviews this document periodically so they are prepared
and know how to face such situations. (Can be found and printed from ALA’s website at http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/challengeslibrarymaterials/copingwithchallenges/strategiestips)
Reason
for Inclusion:
Great historical/mystery book.
References:
Scheier, L. (2012). All about Leah. Retrieved from http://www.leahscheier.com/about/
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