Didn't reach the heights of her Goblin Emperor, which is an all-time favourite, but this was immersive and engaging and full of period and magical detail.

Sherlock Holmes inspired protagonist with supernatural creatures. While also hunting Jack the Ripper. Yes Please! Instead of Sherlock we get Crow and J.H. Doyle as the ever-faithful Watson. I found the author kept to Sherlocks stories accurately and I loved the addition of the supernatural characters it added a refreshing take on the old Victorian detective. The Angel of Crows is a fun, alternate take on the Sherlock Homes canon.

If you had asked me if I was in need of a paranormal, semi-genderbent retelling of Sherlock Holmes as he works on the Jack the Ripper case, I would have said no.

And I would have been wrong.

This was an immensely enjoyable read, not only for the Gail Carriger-esque re-imagining of Victorian London with werewolves, vampires, angels, demons, and hell hounds - all with their associated cultural and political structures - but because of the way little Holmes canon Easter eggs keep popping up throughout.

Episodic and interlocking, the pacing may give some readers trouble, but I found that it always came back around in time to keep me interested, and recast the characters - a vulnerable Holmes and a highly intelligent Watson - in ways that made the structure of the novel not a factor in how much I was enjoying the story.

Highly recommended.

I went into this not expecting a Sherlock fan-fiction, and it was a pleasant surprise. It felt familiar and was surprising at the same time. I appreciated that familiarity and how the paranormal was interwoven into the story.

When I requested this on Netgalley, I was so excited because it promises Sherlock Holmes-esque with supernatural beings, mainly fallen angels. That said, The Angel of the crows has so much potential but sadly it didn't deliver as much as expected.

I did get the Sherlock Holmes concept. In fact, the whole book consists of retellings of some of Sherlock Holmes famous works and I enjoyed that aspect. But for me, the whole story lacks in fantasy side. I was really hoping for some grand magical something with the fallen angels. Also, the delivery is a little bit bland for me. There are little twists throughout the book but nothing grand. I did love the atmosphere. In that aspect, I think the author did a great job.

This was very different to what I expected but in a good and absorbing way. I have to say that it kept me reading into the early hours of the morning and I really didn't want this one to end. Love the fantasy side to the story which made it really refreshing on the usual historical books. Recommend this one.

So, we have Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. In an alternate London and there’s also angels, vampires and hellhounds. Sort of all thrown in together, at least it felt like it. I’m not sure what I was expecting from the book, but it wasn’t this.

Angels named Crow is our Sherlock and hellhound named Dr Doyle is our Watson. Angels have a habitation in a public building where they are bound and sort of… oversee it? Protect it/or it’s people? Crow no longer have a habitation and he’s an anomaly. Normally after angels lose their habitation, they become Fallen but Crow didn’t. Instead, he helps solve crimes.

Doyle was injured in a war in Afghanistan by a Fallen and became a hellhound. Now that he’s back in London and trying to figure out what to do, he meets Crow and helps him solve crimes.

The book had good moments but mostly I was just confused. There are many cases that they work on and keeping them in order was kinda hard. And then remembering where the other case was left. I liked Crow and Doyle should have been far more interesting considering he had a lot going on and many secrets.

I’m not very familiar with Sherlock Holmes stories so those details were lost on me and I wasn’t expecting the Sherlock Holmes story/retelling, I expected more of a fantasy book. And since I’m not a fan of Sherlock, I wasn’t as excited as I thought I would be. I had to reread the book synopsis to check if it mentioned Sherlock and if I had somehow missed it but it didn’t mention it.

Sherlock Holmes with Angels, Jack the Ripper, and various creatures of the night. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this as I felt like it had been done before. I was wrong. The characters jumped off of the page and the world was easy to get lost in. I would definitely recommend.

I guess I didn’t really know much about this book before going into it. I knew it had vampires and werewolves but didn’t realize it would take on so many aspects of Sherlock Holmes. It was interesting although not very original. I kept thinking that I was reading something I’ve heard about before. I think it’s what made it less mysterious to me than it should have been.

Katherine Addison’s steampunk fantasy novel, The Goblin Emperor, was my second favorite book of 2014 (my favorite being Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel). The Goblin Emperor held a tinge of melancholy, but also of hopefulness, and the balance of the two made the reading experience an act of self-care. I have now read it four times, and although it has its imperfections, I’m still very fond of it. I have a friend who has read it well over ten times, and comes back to it whenever she is in need of comfort. It’s that kind of book..
Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to your latest release, The Angel of the Crows, an entirely different book that showcases some of the same gifts displayed in The Goblin Emperor. When I heard it was coming out, I requested an ARC.

The title, The Angel of the Crows, is a misnomer. There is an angel in the book, and he bears some resemblance to a crow, and is therefore named Crow. There aren’t crows in the plural, though, so the title feels like false advertising. So does the blurb. Though everything mentioned there is in the book, the most salient fact is omitted: this is a fantastical retelling of Sherlock Holmes. Per the Author’s Note at the end of the book, the novel started out as a wingfic, a type of fanfic where well-known characters are given wings.

The book begins when Doyle, a doctor, returns to England (a fantastical, alternate version of 1880s England) aboard a dirigible. Doyle saw some action in a war in Afghanistan and was attacked by one of the Fallen (fallen angels). Few people survive such encounters, and although Doyle did, he wishes he had been left for dead. The extent of his injuries is such that he can no longer work and must instead subsist on a meager pension.

Despite his disability, Doyle manages to foil an American businessman, Enoch J. Drebber of Salt Lake City, from harassing a young woman aboard the airship. When he lands in London, Doyle is miserable. London is the last place he wishes to be, but, due to a secret he carries, the only place he feels he can manage.

London’s doctors tell him what he already knows: nothing more can be done for his injuries. He does not tell them something else: he is no longer quite human. The Fallen’s attack changed him into another kind of being. What, exactly, isn’t made clear to the reader for a long while.

The cost of living in London is steep, and Doyle is running out of funds. He lucks out one day, though, when one of the men with whom he studied medicine introduces him to Crow, an angel, and suggests that they might suit each other well enough to room together.

Not long after Doyle and Crow move in together, Crow is called by the police to help investigate the scene of a murder. Doyle comes along and recognizes the dead man’s body. He is none other than Enoch J. Drebber, the revolting Salt Lake City businessman Doyle encountered on the airship. Soon Doyle is attending other crime scenes and becoming enmeshed in Crow’s penchant for mystery solving.

Crow is the character inspired by Sherlock Holmes. He loves puzzles and is obsessed with them, poring over newspapers day and night (angels don’t need sleep) to track investigations. He helps the police with tough cases when they request his help and grouses when they do not. Crow is more perceptive than the police, but there are big gaps in his knowledge when it comes to things like what human beings consider polite. He always means well, though.

Doyle is the Watson figure. He is irascible and very vulnerable, because he believes that if the full truth about him were known no one would accept him. He fears Crow will discover everything. Still, Crow is so kind (though at first it’s not clear whether his kindness is a mannerism or motivated by genuine empathy and liking) and Doyle is so lonely that Doyle cannot help but get closer to Crow, like a shivering man nearing a warm fireplace.

This is a partial review. You can find the rest here: https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/review-the-angel-of-the-crows-by-katherine-addison/

I bailed a third of the way in, then skimmed the ending. Was a little too dry for me but I guess that was the author trying to mimic the style of writing back then in Victorian England? It had a Sherlock Holmes vibe and then I found, sure enough, this was basically SH fanfic, or rather, “wingfic,” where famous book characters are reimagined as angels. The infamous SH plots combined with the Jack the Ripper murders made the story a little too crammed (as well as give Doyle not one but two big secrets). Had hoped it would’ve inspired me a little more.

London has an angel. The angel looks like a crow. We have London 1880’s with a rather hip Sherlock Holmes crow like creature,who has his ear to the ground . His mission is to keep is not the peace ,then bot let the human balance dip. There are the Fallen , who take no prisoners and are lethal and cunning. It’s a good thing this Angel does not need sleep.

Oh man what can I say besides I was SO DISAPPOINTED by this book. I really don't have many books I cant finish, but I've read the Sherlock Holmes books and Ive seen the Sherlock tv show so at a certain point when the author couldn't even be bothered to make up her own dialogue or descriptions she just copy and pasted from the source and then added supernatural elements at the very most surface levels only I just could not finish the book. Nothing was original. With a tagline like this is not the story you think or whatever, I expected it to not be exactly word for word the story I expected. Honestly not sure how this book got past fan fiction forums and into a published novel. It is pure fan fiction but not even fan fic where the author has something new and interesting to do with the characters. This is the first book Ive read in years that I would have given zero stars and Im not usually a very hard critic but taking another author's work and just adding feathers to it is highly offensive to me.

The blurb for this book states: 'This is not the story you think it is. These are not the characters you think they are. This is not the book you are expecting.' I would argue we've seen that said plenty of times before on books (or movies etc) and it does all very well at drawing you in, but it isn't until you actually encounter something that does actually meet that promise that you realise the rest, after all, were pretty much as expected.

This book isn't. We have a Sherlock and a Watson type characters, who live at 221 Baker Street, have a house keeper, interact with various names such as Lestrade and Gregson and go to places like Lauriston Gardens. The Sherlock character ruffles feathers, the John character has a limp that comes from an injury whilst fighting in a war in Afghanistan.

And yet... this is set in an alternate urban fantasy. There are werewolves and hell hounds, vampires and hemophage, angels and their fallen counterparts, and so on. Each have their own rules that allow them to co-exist somewhat with the regular mundane who make up the majority of London, and sometimes come together to solve crimes that still drive the book.

Those who've read the original canon or seen some of the more faithful adaptions will recognise most of the plots within this novel, as we see The Sign of the Four, A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles and so on. They aren't direct retellings, but more nods to the original bent to surprise the reader and fit into the world-building of this Victorian London.

And I loved every minute of it. I also wouldn't say no to another work in the near future.

<blockquote>“I realized that it wasn't an overcoat at all, but a pair of coal-black wings, crow's wings, and the man wasn't a man, but an angel.” </blockquote>

In Katherine Addison’s fantasy version of 1880s London, werewolves, vampires, and angels coexist, and humans don’t always stay human. The Angel of the Crows promises readers that this is not the book they are expecting—while there were certainly some surprises, I’m not convinced it fully delivered.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

When the book opens, we’re introduced to our curmudgeonly protagonist, Dr. J.H. Doyle. He’s just been discharged from the military after serving as an army surgeon in Afghanistan and suffering severe wounds. He returns to London for the first time in several years, unsure of how he’s going survive with a bad leg and dwindling pension. When Doyle’s funds start running low, he decides to look for a roommate to save on rent. Enter Crow, the Angel of London. Doyle meets Crow through a mutual friend, and is soon pulled into his angelic roommate’s world of blood, bones, and intrigue. Crow obsessively scours the newspapers trying to solve London’s murder mysteries, and the local police department often seeks him out for his sharp detective skills. As a trained doctor, Doyle finds himself accompanying Crow on these investigations to offer fresh insights on the bodies and crime scenes.

For the rest of the book, we join Crow and Doyle as they solve a series of different murder mysteries—and this is where some of the book’s pitfalls began. For example, the first crime they investigate is the strange poisoning of an American businessman named Drebber. After they examine the scene, the following chapters are full of slow, circular dialogue and speculation. I think Addison was trying to show us their thought process as they worked through the evidence, but there’s lots of stating and restating the facts, and repeating the same questions over and over. This style of writing made me feel like I was in stasis—I didn't feel the urgency or curiosity I would expect from a riveting mystery.

When they finally apprehend the murderer, it’s quite anticlimactic and we're left with a lot of unanswered questions. For instance, Crow suddenly has an epiphany about how the murderer convinced his victim to swallow a poison pill, but we have no insight into Crow's thought processes— he seems to pull this conclusion out of thin air. Crow also enlists “Nameless” angels to do some spying around London, and one of them brings the murderer right to their doorstep. But there’s also zero explanation of how the Nameless identified the murderer. Said murderer then readily confesses everything without much prompting. This big hunt was set up for us, but the resolution is mediocre. These same trends followed for the subsequent murder cases as well—they were slow, drawn out, and the reveals fell flat.

Against the backdrop of these stories, Doyle is undergoing a mysterious transformation related to his injuries in Afghanistan. We later learn that he occasionally transforms into a hellhound, and has a keen sense of smell for blood and dead things. The relationship between Crow and Doyle also evolves—I think this is one of the more successful parts of the book. Their friendship is endearing—they’re both outcasts who have found a comfortable and quiet companionship with each other. Doyle doesn’t have to sensor himself around Crow or worry about offending polite sensibilities. And Crow now has a companion who entertains his wild crime theories, particularly about the Whitehall murders.

During the ongoing mini investigations, one case haunts Crow and Doyle throughout the entire book: Jack the Ripper. This case mirrors accounts of the historical serial killer, down to the names of the women he murdered and the methods he used. Because Addison was using these historical references in her book and there’s still a lot of debate on Jack the Ripper’s true identity, I expected there to be some big, creative, shocking twist in the end when we discover the killer. But like the other cases, this was also anticlimactic, and perhaps the most disappointing because we’ve been waiting the entire book for this reveal. Quite simply, after another mutilated body is discovered by police, Doyle transforms into a hellhound and sniffs out the killer. There is no aha moment, no explanation, no motive, no diabolical criminal mastermind—it’s a just a flippant little man who is covered in blood and readily confesses. A mob of angry Londoners gathers in the streets and kills the alleged Ripper before he can go to trial or give a statement. So even though we’ve followed this case and listened to Crow and Doyle’s endless questions and theories, the case is abruptly “solved” and closed. This didn’t give me the resolution I craved or the plot twist we’re promised.

<blockquote> “Names, of course, are of the most desperate importance to angels; they don’t properly exist without them.”</blockquote>

​Another ongoing theme throughout The Angel of the Crows is the power of names—the idea that naming something gives it power. Crow’s name is what makes him a conscious, thinking, willful being as opposed to the mindless “Nameless” that roam London. Crow also laments when the media publishes Jack the Ripper’s name in the papers because it makes him “more than he already is.” About two-thirds of the way through the book, Addison drives this point home when Doyle reveals that he was born a woman—his given name is Joanna. Crow, in turn, explains that he was also once a woman, as all angels are. His name is what made him who he is now. I wish Addison expanded on some of these big revelations a bit more instead of making them asides. We learn about Doyle’s birth name, there’s a very casual mention of Crow’s rape, and we also find out his wings are being clipped every 3 months by another angel—these are major reveals, but they aren’t integrated into the story in a meaningful way. Without context or further elaboration, these details seems like they were just written in for shock value.

I think this story was trying to achieve too much at once, and that made it difficult to get invested in any one storyline. We were presented with a series of easily-solved murder mysteries that needed a little more surprise and a little more spice; and while I did appreciate our two main characters, I thought they had a lot more potential than what was ultimately realized.

Overall, The Angel of the Crows puts a fresh twist on the classic murder mystery with its cast of unconventional characters. And if you haven’t already picked it up, Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor is a phenomenal read—I’m super psyched for the sequel, The Witness for the Dead.

The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm torn on this one.

As a fan of Sherlock Holmes in general and having been a rabid purveyor of delightful Victorian mashups with supernatural elements in general, I should have been all over Angel of the Crows. I should have been whooping it up. I enjoyed the author's Goblin Emperor, too, so I know she has the writing chops to pull it off.

So what happened?

First, I enjoyed the worldbuilding. There are several types of angels and they are locked into certain rules. There are werewolves in London and Doyle (A. C. indeed,) plays Watson as a Hellhound. Holmes plays an oddly constrained (or unconstrained) angel who seems rather... like a marginalized character.

The full extent of the supernatural races and the racism in London is also rather awesome.

And to top it all off, Addison runs a VERY CLOSE retelling of a TON of Sherlock Holmes stories! With the twist, of course. And you know what? I LIKE it. In concept.

Or I thought I would have liked it. In concept.

In actuality? I like all of this in concept. I don't know if I really enjoyed it all that much in actuality. After all, I know what happened in the original mysteries. I kept wanting to see some major breakaways or truly interesting twists that kept me guessing. In the end, I was appreciating the book more for the artistic commentary and the novelty value more than the actual writing.

And the novelty value was, unfortunately, not ALL that novel. How much angel fiction is there out there, by a rough count? Or UF in historical fictional settings? Quite a few.

So what we have to lean on is a very careful and elaborate retelling of the Sherlock Holmes stories INCLUDING Jack the Ripper in a UF base. The elaborate parts are better than most. They're careful and detailed. I really want to applaud the effort.

Unfortunately, what came to mind was Novik's Uprooted. Novik retold old myths, slightly altering the core AND the window dressing, while Addison seems to keep only an unaltered core while altering the window dressing. One surprises us, the other ... amuses us? At least some? Yes.

But I also feel like it could have been so much more, too.

(Review will be up on Goodreads shortly and will be posted to my blog on July 12th.)

Story—★★☆☆☆
Firstly, this is not necessarily a bad or poorly told story; in fact, quite the opposite. Addison is a talented and thoughtful storyteller. But there is simply not enough new content in The Angel of the Crows to warrant a full, published book. Much too much of the story is near identical to the source material. It's a shame as most of my favourite parts were from Addison's additions, particularly the scenes where Doyle's hellhound abilities come into play. 

Addison's paranormal spins on London were interesting—I loved that they were orderly, if imperfect, and mostly peaceful—but there are a number of tidbits that weren't explained timely or clearly. Hemophages and Necrophages aren't common, and I had no idea what they were prior. We're not told Colney Hatch is a prison for the occult until the last time it's mentioned. There are so many conditions for an angel—fallen, nameless, dissolution—that it's hard to figure out what happens and how, especially when our principle angel is such an oddity. 

Characters—★★★☆☆
I enjoyed the gentleness of both Doyle's and Sherlock's character arcs, and how close they grew as friends. That is the crux of any Sherlock Holmes story, afterall. The two were both faithful to the source material but still contained their own essence. 

Although I found Crow enjoyable in his sweet, quirky way, Doyle was the most interesting to me, especially when he was wrestling with his hellhound problems. 

I did find it a shame more wasn't done with Moriarty. I think that will disappoint many, since when someone includes Moriarty in a Sherlock Holmes retelling they expect him as The Big Bad, not a sometimes-helpful vampire with whom the "Sherlock" has had past spats. 

Writing Style—★★★☆☆
Addison is a talented writer with a broad vocabulary. She's done an excellent job of building on Arthur Conan Doyle's style, and incorporating both thoughtful and humourous passages with ease. However, I found there was a heavy use of "literally," particularly near the beginning, and unfortunately frequent use of "made" where stronger words could be used to greater impact. 

Overall—★★★☆☆

Recommended For...
Those who want a kinder version of the original Sherlock Holmes

The Angel of the Crows was nothing like what I was expecting it to be. Paranormal urban fantasy in a Victorian setting, this mixes in the stories of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper with an interesting angel twist that left me a little confused.

A lot of the novel is simply retellings of Sherlock Holmes stories. If you’ve read any of these stories you know where the plot is going, and while they’re well researched, there are no real embellishments, and this lacks anything really original. I found myself really wanting more from the story and world building. I wanted something that expanded on the original and took it in a new direction. However, there’s just no depth here, and nothing that really drew me in. It relies more on the reader already knowing who these characters are, and putting a fanciful spin on it without really explaining what these fanciful elements are.

I also found the writing a little overwrought and drawn out, which really affected the flow of the story. It pulled me out of the story a number of times, when really this could have been written much simpler to the same overall effect. It was frustrating, and definitely affected the length of time this took me to read. I often found myself not wanting to pick this back up because I knew it would be a chore to get through. I wasn’t invested. The plot itself is also a little all over the place, without any clear direction. It just seems to throw various stories together and hope something will stick.

A definite love letter to Sherlock Holmes, this missed the mark in execution and lacked a lot of world building to what could have been a great fantasy retelling.

Sherlock Holmes rewritten with angels (Holmes is one), hellhounds (Watson is one after a wound in Afghanistan fighting the Fallen; Watson is also a trans man and trying to escape exposure of both of his secrets, since registration is required for hellhounds), werewolves, and so on. There’s the Hound of the Baskervilles and Jack the Ripper. I didn’t feel it came together in a particularly coherent way but if you like Holmes pastiche then this one may satisfy.

I was so excited when I got approved for this fantasy as it seemed to have such an original combination of things that I haven't seen before. Who wouldn't want to read a fantasy about an alternate reality 19th century London in which there were supernatural shifters, angels, and Jack the Ripper?? Although I knew ahead of time that there would be some level of mystery involved, I had no idea that this was going to be a Sherlock Holmes retelling. That is essentially what this is, and I have to say that I'm pretty confused as to why this wasn't used to pitch the book.

I'm completely unfamiliar with Sherlock Holmes because I'm not a big fan of the mystery genre, but when I highlighted certain characters' names on my kindle, I discovered that more than one was identical to the Holmes stories. There's a Holmes quote at the beginning of the book. If I had known right from the start that the focus would be on the mysteries rather than the fantasy world I never would have requested it.

I tried to keep an open mind when I realized the tone of the book, I really did. The language is clunky to say the least, and the dialogue makes you trip over yourself trying to read it. I love historical books for the escapism of traveling to another time and place. It allows you to immerse yourself in another era, so naturally old-fashioned speech is typically welcome. But in this case, the use of obsolete words was done to such an extent that the characters became as dry as dust. After voraciously reading for more years than I would like to admit to, I think my vocabulary is pretty decent. Yet I found myself looking up the definition of a word that I had never even heard of before on every other page.

All of these things were somewhat frustrating, but the biggest hurdle of all in getting into this book was the lack of worldbuilding. The author completely disregards the reader's need to understand the fantasy world in which the story takes place. From page one, words/phrases like hell-hounds, the Fallen, metaphysicum morbi, Fallen miasma, and Nameless were inserted into conversations with zero explanation. Which forces you to repeatedly stop and try to find context clues to understand what is being discussed. Unfortunately even then you're left in confusion for many chapters. When you finally understand a handful of concepts, the fact remains that there is no history, no detailed descriptions of this bizarre alternate reality for you to feel like you can get a foothold.

Everything combined made it very difficult for me to feel invested in the story or motivated to continue reading. This is partly due to my reading tastes though, so if you're a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and you're looking for something that puts a different spin on what you're familiar with, this could be the book for you. I wish I could have gotten into it more, but I knew once I was halfway in that it was better to cut my losses and move on.