I’m so glad I found Alexis Hall’s books, especially with this most recent read. I loved the idea of calling back to a Holmes/Watson pairing, but the Holmes character is a very free-spirited (maybe a bit crazy, but in the best possible way) sorceress, and the Watson character is a trans man who has a much more conservative outlook, plus it’s all set in a completely fantastical world. In very different ways, they both give off neurodivergent vibes, and it was great to see them play off each other. It was fun to see Shaharazad’s way of diving completely headfirst into everything, and then dragging Wyndham with her, which then all causes him to slowly start to loosen up, just a bit. But not too much, because (and can I just say how I love how meta this gets?) he edits the dialogue of other characters to exclude swear words and sexual references as he’s writing his remembrance of these events. It’s also so fun how he writes in the opinion of his editor, but then still writes it how he wants to anyway. Honestly, I could also appreciate that I didn’t have to be trying to solve the mystery or paying close attention to all the details and characters. For this one, I could just go along for the ride as Shaharazad and Wyndham went on their wild adventures, fighting sharks and slaying vampires along the way.