By Nancy Springer
Sherlock Holmes's much younger sister runs away across Victorian England to find her missing mother, and cracks a kidnapping the great detective can't.
On the morning of her fourteenth birthday, Enola Holmes wakes to find her mother simply gone. Her famous older brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft, sweep in and decide she must be shipped off to a strict boarding school to be made into a proper young lady. Enola has other ideas. She decodes the messages her mother left behind, disguises herself, and escapes to London alone, and on the way she tangles with the kidnapping of a young nobleman that even Sherlock hasn't solved. She is clever, brave, and completely on her own, which is exactly the thrill of it.
A full historical mystery with genuine stakes, for a confident older child ready for one. The Victorian setting is vivid and the vocabulary is a real step up, but Enola herself carries it: she's smart, defiant, and truly alone, so the danger feels earned rather than cartoonish. A child who has outgrown gentler detectives and wants a heroine who fights her own battles tears through this and the series behind it.