2019 Book 1: The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes #1) by Nancy Springer

Synopsis-Free Review of The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes #1) by Nancy Springer

Format:  Kindle

Date Started:  January 2, 2019

Date Ended:  January 10, 2019

When I began reading this book, it wasn’t clear to me that this is a series for younger readers. 
I have absolutely zero problem with reading children/young adult books. It’s just that I had finished 
the third book in the Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Reybourne (A Treacherous Curse) 
and just started the Sally Lockhart series by Philip Pullman (A Ruby in the Smoke) as an 
audio book for my commute.  So, I was expecting another mystery series with a lady detective 
being much more clever than she ought to be. Which, to be fair, I did get and did like.

It’s just that the internal plot of the book zipped by much more quickly than I anticipated.  
Most of the book was spent setting up the plot of the book and the overall arch of the series.  I 
was reading on my Kindle, so I can say with a pretty solid degree of certainty that about 
62% of the book was exposition, and the remaining action was crammed into 38% of the book.  

I’m also having a bit of trouble with the larger plot of the series.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to
 spoil anything. Whatever you’re about to read can be found on the book jacket/back cover/online
 synopsis.  Enola’s mother runs away/vanishes, and Enola spends at least 50% bemoaning
 the loss and beginning to look for clues. My question is: Enola seemed unaffected and no
t particularly close to her mother in the beginning, so why does she go to such great
 lengths to find her?  I get that Mom is her only parent, but I had trouble seeing the connection
 in the text. Enola was happy enough to run free and without parental restraint. Why is she
 suddenly so bereft without her mother?

Another thing - Why doesn’t Enola want her brothers to see how clever she is?  They
 clearly disapprove of her and how she was raised, and she’s spunky enough to want to
 prove them wrong, so why doesn’t she?  Instead she just runs away from them which parallels
 really well with her mother’s disappearance.

I have a soft spot for a series, so I’ll probably read the rest of the books - 6 in total - at some point. 
They seem to be readily available for immediate digital download at my local library, so 
I’d imagine they are easy to find on the shelves, too