This mystery had me hooked from the very first page. The twists were clever without feeling forced, and just when I thought I had everything figured out, the story surprised me in the best way. A truly satisfying and well-crafted read.

The prose is gorgeous, the characters are compelling, and the mystery had me hooked!

I don't often find books from a widow's POV, and the author does a wonderful job of showing women navigate a world that's condescending towards those who have experienced extreme loss. Feminist themes were thoughtfully woven throughout!

I also really enjoyed the glimpse of what a young Sherlock Holmes might look and act like, and this side character did not disappoint!

The mystery is complex, building from what at first feels like smaller cases and escalates to a web of lies and secrets that kept me guessing. I was reading at a park with my e-reader and audibly groaned when my device died unexpectedly around the 82% mark. I immediately went home to charge it so I could keep reading and get to the bottom of the case.

The romantic tension between Lady Holmes and Mrs. Hudson was really well done, and it was so easy to ship these two. I'm excited to see what this author writes next!

WOW. This was SOOOO good!!! I started last night and had to spend my entire afternoon finishing because I was just that hooked. This story is so beautifully written, so well told, SO engaging…I genuinely loved it. And I can’t wait for the next one!!

Thank you tremendously to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for the early access!

What a fun debut! Mattea’s writing is beautiful and propulsive, and I loved the twist on classic characters we know and love.

This was a moving historical mystery with compelling characters and a great plot. Can’t wait for the next one from Mattea

5 stars.

Written by debut author Mattea Orr, the premise hooked me right away.

Female detectives. Falling in love with each other. What’s not to like?!

In all seriousness, this is an excellent book. Normally, I have a high bar when it comes to detective stories. I can enjoy them occasionally, when they’re written well (loved Knives Out with all its sequels), but I’m a Romantasy babe at heart. I need epic stakes; I need sweeping passion between unconventional characters with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Charming me with a whodunit isn’t easy.

But this book did it.

This book is about two women in 19th-century Victorian England who go against their whole world telling them they can’t be detectives (or anything else for that matter, except obedient wives). But, luckily, they don’t give a shit, and keep on investigating, and fall in love in the process. With the life of a detective, and with each other.

If you liked The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, you’ll like this one too.

Even, if you enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, you’ll find things to love in this one, too, I believe.

And, of course, if you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan, make sure to read this, cause this is not a retelling, actually, but an origin story.

An excellent one.

What I loved

I loved the relationships between the sapphic love interest and the 8-year old son of the other woman. I endorse patchwork families, and I support the realistic depiction of them in history.

Even more personally, I loved the historical depth. If you know me, you know I’m as big of a history nerd as I am a romantasy girly. So, an authentic, well-written depiction of a Victorian town in rural England would win me over any day. Hudson being an ex-telegram operator was an original and unexpected addition. Her tapping her skirt in Morse code when nervous was a brilliant small detail, which made her character real and believable and alive. Loved it.

The investigation was all right; not Knives Out-like twist-and-turn-y, but properly carried out and explained. The thrill was there, especially in scenes like the thunderstorm escape (which I cannot explain without spoilers).

Do I recommend?
Hell yes.

Read my full review (including the spoilers I couldn't put in here): https://feliciasalber.substack.com/p/a-sapphic-sherlock-holmes

This is just GORGEOUS. I adore these types of stories, they're right up my street, I loved the characters themselves and the dynamics between them, the time period, the setting, the mystery.
It is so well written, and the story just builds from what at first seems like nothing.
I'm excited to see it is the first in a new series, I am very much looking forward to reading the next one

Katherine Hudson’s fondest desire is to be a telegraph operator. Unfortunately, her status as a widow makes getting hired anywhere very difficult. After living 6 months back home with her Mother and six siblings, it’s time to find any job that allows Katy to get her own place, ANYTHING will do, she’s got to find some relief from Mom’s overcrowded house.

Enter the eccentric Lady Hudson. Widowed, wealthy and gossiped about, she is also looking for a ladies maid; number four, in six months. Oh yeah, she’s also Mum to Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes - yup, the two you know from the many books and movies or TV shows.

As you’d expect, Katy gets hired by Lady Holmes. The chapters devoted to this process are funny, bordering on hilarious.
Katy identifies a problem that creates one of the mysteries for this story. Three rows of marrow plants make up another. It’s all kinds of cozy…

“We make ourselves useful in the world by lightening the burdens of others”

Those words were spoken by Katy’s Da. She lives her life by these sage words. Katy and Lady Holmes begin learning about each other. The job of ladies maid quickly morphs into something broader as readers become engaged and educated abut the lives of the locals.

A young boy with a strange rash joins the list of mysteries. Katy’s brother might be involved. When a child goes missing, the story moves into high gear. The local officer just happens to be Katy’s maybe boyfriend . A nasty argument between Katy and Lady Holmes ensues. Before long, much of the town is involved and the number of mysteries needing investigation multiply.

Will Katy and Lady Holmes work out their arrangement?

How many burdens and questions will be relieved?

Will Reggie be successful in his pursuit of Katy?

Do all the various mysteries have a connection?

Are they solved and by whom?

Debut author, Mattea Orr, has crafted a fun bunch of village mysteries. The characters are nicely drawn and fit the small town. Her development of the setting is lovely. I can easily imagine this place and the characters being expanded into a series.

My only quibble with the story is the extremely subtle hinting at a sapphic relationship between Katy and Lady Holmes. It’s not necessary to the storyline and makes little sense with the other details given these two characters. Fortunately, Orr left plenty of room to allow them to evolve.

Recommended for readers of stories that take place in Victorian England, Very cozy Historical Mysteries, Historical Fiction, stories with strong female characters and more📚

I received a copy for review purposes. All opinions are honest and mine alone.
Read and Reviewed from a NetGalley eARC with thanks to the publisher and author.

A different style to what I normally read but I really enjoyed it.

Loosely based on the Sherlock books I loved the two strong female characters, the relationship between them and the lengths they go to to solve cases!

The Last Telegram of Mrs. Hudson by Mattea Orr is refreshingly different in a large niche of historical mystery books, with the two main characters both strong women who are ahead of their time, a precocious boy who just happens to grow up to famous, and mysteries aplenty for widows Katherine Hudson and Lady Holmes to throw themselves into.
I was hooked right from the get go by the witty style of Orr, whose characters virtually jump off the page with their dry wit and relatability. Watching the two widows - one from the labouring class and one from the most privileged few - navigate misunderstandings on their way to respecting and caring for each other is highly entertaining.
The mysteries are multi-faceted, be they a question of who is trampling a farmer's crops to who keeps moving the body of a murder victim, are intriguing and intertwined, making for a pace that keeps you turning the pages to the very end.
I'm so glad to have gotten in on the ground floor of this new series via an invitation to read the ARC from the publisher through #NetGalley, and I highly recommend you get to reading #TheLastTelegramofMrsHudson at your earliest opportunity.

This is the story of widowed Kathrine Hudson who goes for a job at the home of Lady Violet Holmes who is recently widowed. Kathrine has had to move back home as her husband John had died and she could no longer afford to live in London.Lady Violet is wanting a lady’s maid which Kathrine has no idea what that entails.Kathrine and Lady Violet then start to investigate what happened to Billy but strange things start to happen ,Kathrines late husbands name appears on the a telegram and a body is found in the grounds of Lady Violet.Lady Violets young son Sherlock tries to help them solve this mystery.Thank you to Netgalley and Aria Aries.

I've been looking for a good mystery lately. Preferably a sapphic one, but those have been hard to come by. The cover for this one caught my eye, though, so I figured I would give it a read even if it wasn’t a sapphic one (NetGalley did not have it in the LGBTQIAP+ category). But then I saw some people whining about a potential romance between Holmes and Hudson, and I realized I'd actually finally found exactly what I was looking for.

Other than watching a few episodes of the TV show, I don’t know a lot about Sherlock Holmes, so I was a little worried there would be things in this that I wouldn’t get. And maybe there were some things, but nothing I noticed and nothing I was confused about, so don’t feel like you have to be super familiar with any of that. This book definitely stands on its own.

The mystery was enjoyable. With far too many books, I figure out way too quickly what is going on and who did it, but I didn't even try to guess what was happening in this one. Instead, I was just along for the ride. I wondered how or if it was all going to be wrapped up by the end, but it was and it was done well.

I also enjoyed both of the characters. They were both uptight and stubborn and frustrating at times, but in an understandable way given the time period and their life circumstances. And that’s what made it all the better once they began to thaw and relax a bit around one another, which were probably my favorite bits of the book. I especially liked Lady Holmes opening up to Hudson. And that leads me to the romance. Or what I assume will eventually be a full romance. There's clearly an attraction there and a lot of yearning. Good lord the yearning (and I mean that in the best way). I love a slow burn, though, so I am here for it. The chemistry and tension between these two was so good.

Overall, four and a half stars rounded up. I will definitely be looking out for the next book in this series.

Thank you NetGalley and Aria & Aries for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

A very cute Sherlockian prequel with a sapphic relationship! The characters of Mrs. Hudson and Lady Holmes were very charming, and I liked the queer representation in a historical mystery. There's a bit of kid Sherlock in here too, which was delightful!

Elementary, my dear Mrs Hudson 🔎
I absolutely flew through The Last Telegram of Mrs Hudson. I genuinely couldn’t put it down and seemed to finish it in about two seconds flat.

This is my first book by Mattea Orr, and I loved the clever twist she has put on the world of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock himself is only seven years old here, while Katie Hudson takes centre stage alongside Violet Holmes, Sherlock’s mother. Together, these two women make a rather formidable investigative pair.

The story is set in a time when women were far too easily dismissed as hysterical, incapable or simply not worth listening to, particularly by the men supposedly in positions of authority. Watching Katie and Violet refuse to accept the convenient explanations being handed to them was enormously satisfying. There are plenty of signs that justice and those entrusted with delivering it might not always be particularly well acquainted…

What gave the mystery even more depth for me was grief. Both Katie and Violet are carrying their own losses, and their experiences add another dimension to the friendship and partnership developing between them. They are clever, determined and wonderfully capable, even when the world around them would prefer to believe otherwise.

I loved the writing, the historical setting and the fresh approach to such familiar characters. It has all the delicious ingredients of a Victorian mystery, but with the women who would usually be standing somewhere in the background firmly taking possession of the investigation.

This may have been my first Mattea Orr book, but I sincerely hope it won’t be my last.
Thank you to @netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing/Head of Zeus for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.