Book Review and #BlogTour #TheWriteReadsTours @The_WriteReads @WriteReadsTours – 5 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Maurice Barkley (5 stars)

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Title: 5 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Author: Maurice Barkley

Published: 20^th February 2018

Format: Ebook (Kindle) – 154 pages

Hello Hello! How are you?

Today has been another strange day, but on the bright side, I’ve had this lovely book to distract me. This is my second blog tour for #TheWriteReadsTours hosted by Dave and I had a blast. Thank you for the book! If you haven’t ever signed up for one of his tours and are still on the fence, I can only recommend him, he is fab and so are the books he hosts tours for! Keep reading for my thoughts on this collection of Sherlock Holmes stories.

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS

5 STORIES

1-Extreme danger. Children’s lives are at risk.

2-Holmes prevents an injustice and triumphs over a greedy family.

3-A train arrives 3 years late. Only Holmes can solve this one.

4-Holmes battles blundering politicians and a master criminal.

5-An elaborate crime with a strange motive.

MY REVIEW

5 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a short story collection in which Maurice Barkley revisits one of the world’s most loved characters, Sherlock Holmes. When Dave emailed me with the information and the blurb, I knew I couldn’t pass this one up, I’ve always loved mystery stories and I thrive on all things crime, I’ve seen nearly every episode of Criminal Minds, CSI, Elementary, and many, many more. I’ve also read a lot of whodunnit books and I can never get enough. I’d never actually read an Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Adventure until a few weeks ago, and even though the story I read was only 30 pages long, I loved it so much, so I was excited for some more Sherlock!

This book is set in England in the 1880s, just like the original Sherlock Holmes stories, and right from the start, I could tell that this was a very good version because nothing seemed out of place and I was immediately immersed in this world. When reading books set in the past, one of the things that fascinates me the most is the clothing people wear, how it is described in books and how they go about their daily lives, and I got a bit of everything from this book!

The writing style blew me away, it was so much like Arthur Conan Doyle’s for the stories to match up and appear to be from the same pen, but it was also honestly different and really original. The stories were fast-paced, the mysteries were really unique and each really different one from the other and I couldn’t begin to try to tell you which one was my favourite because they were all just as good as each other.

As always, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson were really nostalgic characters for me, I loved them so much, they put a smile on my face the whole way through and reading these stories gave me the feeling that I had come home. The reading experience really reminded me of times when you walk through the door and the warmth from the fire greets you along with the smell of your favourite dish cooking, it felt just like this and I adored every minute of it.

MY THOUGHTS AND RATING

I gave this book 5 stars. It was really original and very entertaining. I felt immersed during each story and it was easy to come back to them when I had to stop reading to go do chores. These stories reminded me that I really must read more of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock stories because I’m sure to love each and every one of them just like I did these.

One of my favourite things from these stories and just Sherlock Holmes in general is that even though these stories are set 200 years ago, they aren’t old fashioned and you don’t get bored reading them. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are universal characters and their adventures can please everyone and anyone, no matter your age or literary preferences.

Maurice Barkley did an incredible job with this book and I’m so happy I got the chance to read it and participate on this blog tour. Once again, thank you to Dave and Maurice for the book and for this opportunity, it was a really great time and took my mind of the world. I would highly recommend to anyone, you are bound to love these stories and hopefully, they will make you feel just like me, that you’ve come home.

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed reading this post, see you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – MAURICE BARKLEY

Maurice Barkley lives with his wife Marie in a suburb of Rochester, New York. Retired from a career as a commercial artist and builder of treehouses, he is WRITING and busy reinforcing the stereotype of a pesky househusband. Favorite relaxation is throwing peanuts to squirrels, blue jays, cardinals and chipmunks from his porch. Once he built a doll hair-making machine using an old sewing machine. It worked, but his wife got tired of making Raggedy Ann dolls, so it sits in the garage.

Twitter Handle: @MauriceBarkley

If you would like to purchase this book, you can find it here: Amazon UK (affiliate link) – Amazon FR (affiliate link) – AbeBooks (affiliate link) – The Book Depository (affiliate link) – Amazon US