Sherry Thomas's sleuthing librarians and gender-bent Sherlock
Modern Law Library · 2026-04-16 · 44 min
Episode notes
Coming across the right book at the right time can make all the difference, says Sherry Thomas, author of the popular Lady Sherlock series. In her case, picking up a historical romance from the library led to her writing career. "Two years into my career as stay-at-home mom, I grabbed a historical romance, which I devoured growing up," Thomas tells the Modern Law Library's Lee Rawles. "I grabbed a historical romance from the library, took it home and was going to spend my son's nap time enjoying it. But it turned out that I did not enjoy that book at all. In fact, I was kind of furious at it because I didn't enjoy it at all. And I spent the entirety of my available time that day on that and did not get any pleasure in return. So very seldom does this ever happen to me. But on that day, I was kind of angry. And by the time my husband returned home from work, I said to him, 'I am going to write historical romances.'" Thomas did successfully publish several historical romances, then shifted genres to historical mysteries, publishing eight books in her best-selling Lady Sherlock series. The ninth will be released in the fall.
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