“All For One”

 

A love story. Maybe, maybe not. Perspective is everything. Optics. The story of Alexander Hamilton and Eliza Schuyler is complicated. White privilege. Money. Pride. Betrayal. Love. I wanted more grit in the ending of Cruz’s trilogy. She gives her reader a realistic view of life after the Revolutionary War as America grapples with creating a new nation. She also shows the struggles of those same Americans as they grapple with the idea of a “classless” society. Overall, the trilogy gives young adult readers a jumping off point into history. Forgiveness. Respect. Love. Cruz gives us a perspective that “raw” history cannot. A love story.

Love and War

I read the first of the three in this series several years ago. I was happy to reacquaint myself with Alex and Eliza, and the birth of our nation. Knowing that the novel is historical fiction, and part of the young-adult genre, the storyline was rather passive. I enjoyed the imagined conversations, the dash of history. However, I was disappointed in Cruz’s choice to leave out the fact that Alex and Eliza started having children soon after they were married. Cruz had no problem sharing the birth of Eliza’s youngest sister in her novel. I get that she wanted to keep the romance of their early years together “honeymoon like.” And I totally understand artistic license when it comes to storytelling...just not sure that reimagining history to fit the narrative she wanted to tell was the way to go. Will the young-adult audience dig into Alex and Eliza’s history to find the real story, or will they accept Cruz’s rendition as historical fact? Perhaps, it is that I’m reading this in 2021, and not say, 2018 - and the “climate” in which we live is very different when it comes to how we look at our American history.

Mycroft & Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage

 

This is the third novel in the series...of three?

Mycroft and Sherlock find themselves heading in different directions to unravel two separate mysteries. Great twists and turns. Great sibling energy, squabbling. Revenge killings. An arms dealer. TONS OF CLUES. The puzzles push the brothers to use their skills of deduction to find the answers they seek. One leads to heartache, the other to a life’s passion. 

All three novels were worth staying up late to finish. There are a few loose ends that I would love to see addressed...I hope that Jabbar and Waterhouse put their writing skills to work to bring this series to a satisfying conclusion.

“Mycroft and Sherlock”

 

This is the second in the trilogy. I fell just as easily as I did in the first installment. Although I don’t know a lot about the contentious relationship between England and China in the 1800s, I found myself caught up in the plot. The introduction of a young Sherlock (18) to the cast of characters gave the storyline an interesting perspective. I never through about Sherlock as a “teen.” Murder, opium, and a Chinese drug cartel - but not the way you think. A greedy chemist, dolls, and street urchins. A great twist at the end brings it all together. Looking forward to the last(?) installment.