I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Attending the prestigious Ashford College’s writing seminar is a dream come true for Jules Montgomery, but the summer isn’t unfolding as she hoped. Navigating London with her recent hearing loss is difficult, and hiding it from her classmates is a challenge. Even worse, she can’t seem to shake a case of writer’s block. When a fellow student goes missing, neither the police nor their teacher, Professor Watson, seem that concerned. Jules and her new friends Percy and Suruthi are determined to get to the bottom of the case and they’re not alone: the strange man who frequents Jules’ aunt’s antique shop is eager to help—and his name is none other than Sherlock Holmes.

Now there are two mysteries to solve. What happened to their missing classmate? And how can it be that Watson and Holmes—two fictional characters from the Victorian era—are alive and well in the 21st century? The only way to find answers might lie in a quote from one of Watson’s old stories: “You see, but you do not observe.” Jules may not be able to hear all that well, but without her hearing aids, she can certainly see more than the average person. And nothing about this is case is average.

Short and Sweet Review

Jules is attending Ashford College’s writing seminar in London and she’s excited but she’s still nervous about navigating London and trying to figure out how well she’ll do with her gradual hearing loss. During an outing with the class one of Jules’s classmates goes missing and unfortunately Jules was right there but didn’t hear or see anything which makes her a big suspect. That’s only one mystery, Jules’s professor is Watson and his friend is Holmes, so now we have to figure out how two fictional characters from the Victorian era are here in modern times.

A Game Most Foul, was a fun book to read I really enjoyed it and for a mystery it felt like a change of pace maybe because it wasn’t so dark. Usually there’s a murder but we’re not really sure what’s going on surrounding Ashley’s disappearance and also we get to have Watson and Holmes and figure out why they’re stuck here. Jules is a good character, I liked the representation of having a character that wears hearing aids and she does explain what it’s like and how things aren’t always easy for her. I also liked that she made some friends, Percy and Suruthi, they spend most of their time together writing and trying to solve both mysteries. It was also cool that Jules’s aunt owned an antique shop because that’s where we first meet Sherlock. Both mysteries are intertwined in a way and it was interesting to see how it all played out. The pacing was good and I liked the sleuthing that was happening and it didn’t hurt that the group had one of the best detectives helping.

Overall, this was a breath of fresh air for a mystery novel. I loved all of the characters and how they interacted with each other. I would recommend this book I thought it was fun how Sherlock and Watson were incorporated and it was a lighter mystery.