https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/erasing-sherlock-by-kelly-hale/

Last of the books I bought when I was thinking of giving the Faction Paradox sequence a try, and I must say the most enjoyable of those that I have read, perhaps because it is barely connected to the incomprehensible main story-line. Our protagonist is a far-future researcher who installs herself as a maid at 221b Baker Street in order to observe the young Sherlock Holmes at work. Romance, sex and criminal violence ensue. I really liked it. Hale’s Sherlock Holmes is not the somewhat austere figure of Doyle (and indeed most theatrical presentations); he’s a young man starting to establish himself, often short of money, emotionally vulnerable, and a lot more convincing as a human being. Good stuff. ( )

An excellent young Sherlock Holmes, by an author with a strong and evocative prose style. I loved it.

wanted to write a lengthy review/commentary of Erasing Sherlock, which I've just finished, but come to the conclusion that saying less, now, is better than writing the ideal perfect review a year from now.

I really enjoyed this book, for two reasons: Sherlock Holmes, and Gillian ("Rose") Petra, the protagonists. I thought Hale nailed the late-twenties genius-and-boy-doesn't-he-know-it Sherlock, with attitude, complexes, mood swings, massive jerk attacks, Daddy issues, talent coming out his ears, and when it comes right down to it, an unflinching and sterling moral core.

And Gillian Petra, the time-travelling female narrator from somewhere approaching our own time (a little later) was almost too close to the bone for me. Painful to read sometimes. She's a grad student, going to write her thesis on something Sherlock-based, she's got the training, the knowledge, the foreknowledge, ha, the Victorian-England-data-implants (or something like that), and she's plenty bright. But she is not as bright as she thinks she is, and frankly she is hopelessly outclassed by our hero. She knows it, too. Their love affair insofar as you can call it that is coloured by her painful knowledge - and Sherlock's self-knowledge - that his interest in her will last only as along as she continues to be a mystery to him. Once he's solved it, he won't want her. Or so they both believe.

Now by that time, as it turns out, he has developed a great deal of affection for her that is not based on her mysterious past/present/future. But the fact remains that they are not equals. They present as equals because Sherlock is really smart, and Gillian is unusual (in Victorian England) and has a lot of knowledge he doesn't have. But his superiority is one of essence, and hers merely of position, which she can lose. So in the end it's not a lifelong partnership, but an affair, and Gillian gets out just in time, before he would have tired of her. She's, ultimately, not bright enough for him; not his natural equal.

And I find that acutely painful, because thanks to Hale's writing I've fallen hopelessly in love with Sherlock myself, and recognize myself, also painfully, in Gillian. Sherlock would ultimately lose interest in me too. AUGH.

If one compares these to the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie R. King, Gillian is no Mary Russell, in that Mary Russell is a transparent Mary Sue (name a perfection she doesn't have) - so is Sherlock, mind you, in Conan Doyle - where Gillian makes dumb mistakes all over the place, just the mistakes a normal human would make, over and over. She resents the amount of work she has to do (she's disguised as Mrs. Hudson's housemaid, and works 16 hours a day). She drinks too much, m ore than once, with disastrous results. She is moved by petty vanity to do silly things. She thinks she knows more than she does. She is being manipulated and is not aware of it. She is altogether human, where Mary Russell, frankly, is not.

Hale's Sherlock is likewise much more human than either Doyle's or King's. He is in his twenties and is just learning how to be Holmes, for one thing. But he is, in addition to being proud, arrogant, moody, and frequently a complete bastard, enormously bound by the conventions of his class (which is upper, though he has no money). He may be a keen observer of the foibles and vagaries of other classes - lower classes, female classes, whatever - and be accurately able to reproduce or describe them; but he is unthinkingly certain that he personally and by class is better than those lower class sorts, also those female sorts. He may be able to tell you how women really behave, but that does not at all mean that he doesn't have very Victorian assumptions about how they SHOULD behave.

He has improved a lot by the end of the novel, mind you. He learns quite a lot from Gillian.

Other notes: it's enormously well-written. Vivid, evocative, colourful and unusual descriptions that bring people, places, emotions to life, in just a few words. also, very erotic (without being very graphic) sex scenes.
Only caveat: I wanted it to go on longer. though I can see why it didn't, but I would have liked more before the end. ( )