Fic Rec: The Violet Hour

[swissmarg]

Title: The Violet Hour
Author: breathedout
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 58,462 words
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: None
Verse: None specified (tenuously BBC Sherlock)
Author's summary: In 1920, two years after the end of the Great War, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson investigate two disappearances, eerily similar but separated by 80 years. In the process, they make enemies (and friends) of Bloomsbury intellectuals; travel to Sussex; deal with the aftermath of John's past in the trenches; read Victorian pornography; drink copious amounts of tea; and, of course, fall in love.

Reccer's comments: As the author's summary says, this is an AU set in 1920. As such, there is nothing that specifically connects it to any incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, other than a few minor details like the fact that John is blond. I think it would work also perfectly well as an ACD book canon AU, if someone wished to read it that way.

The big selling point of this story for me are the historical details. The author has done a great deal of research (or is just that well-read) on everything from Irish-English hostilities, Cardinal Henry Manning, the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920, the complete works of Lord Byron and various other well-known and obscure authors from the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries, the Bloomsbury group, the psychology of PTSD, and on and on. It's astounding. These details are then woven together into a smooth tapestry that sets the background for the characters.

The author has a lot of warnings about OCs and fictionalised real people, and there are quite a few, but they never take over centre stage from Holmes and Watson. They all serve their purposes, but are never caricatures or cardboard placeholders. Maynard Keynes and Lytton Strachey in particular are fabulous and deserve special mention.

This is basically a casefic, but running through it all is the relationship between Holmes and Watson. As the best casefics do, the unraveling of the mystery leads to the two main protagonists discovering things about themselves and each other, and in so doing to dare to take steps that they would otherwise never have taken.

The writing is also beautiful, including some of the steamiest Victorian love letters you'll ever read:

I am as drunk on my own audacity in writing these words, as I am on yours in daring those. How you sighed, and called me beloved. Oh I am reeling with it, giddy with it, giddy with ruins and kisses and nights full of you, my fairest love. I long to drink you, devour you. Imprison you in a cage of my limbs, and kiss and bite your skin to blushing. Watch your spine arc. Your pushing hips, bowstringed. Bridging my bed. Nerves singing high and sharp, a voluptuous transubstantiation.

And an excerpt from the fic proper:

Sherlock's eyes were wide, sea-grey and shining, unnervingly luminous. Keynes and Strachey both looked a bit taken aback. "Watson...!" Sherlock breathed, and his smile was utterly delighted as he knelt down to look beneath the seat.

Recessed deep into the underside of the bench, snug against the vertical support, was an elongated cast-iron box bolted to the wood with short screws. It resembled a heavy-duty mail slot, but extended backward into a rectangle about a foot square. Sherlock straightened up, still sitting on the floor, and looked breathlessly at John, hand scrabbling in his waistcoat pocket. "You deduced it," he said, gaping. "Before I did." He looked ravenous. John stared back at him, feeling as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

"I'll have to write to my mother," he murmured. "And thank her."

Comments

[gurrier.livejournal.com]

The big selling point of this story for me are the historical details.

Just sold me!

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Yep, this is a really excellent story and everyone should read it. Be prepared for a sudden interest in the Bloomsbury group after; I've been reading Woolf and Lytton Strachey ever since I finished the story. (If anyone wants a good visual on the latter, who's a big character in the fic, check out the movie Carrington where he's played by Jonathan Pryce.)

[roane.livejournal.com]

Oh seconded, seconded HARD. I love this story so much.

[chapbook.livejournal.com]

Aw, darn, I was going to rec this next month! IOW, I enthusiastically support this rec! HBBO really knows how to incorporate history, OCs, and the world of Sherlock.

I do find this Holmes more Sherlock-like in the way he acts especially in the first chapter, but it could be read as an ACD AU as well as a Sherlock AU.

[swissmarg]

Oh no, sorry! There are plenty more great ones just completed or about to be completed, though, so hopefully you'll have plenty to choose from. :D Looking forward to seeing your recs!

[girlonadragon.livejournal.com]

This fic is incredible. Thank you so much for drawing it to my attention! I'd be liberally throwing around superlatives to describe what I think of it, but I don't think that would even begin to cover it.