221B Recs

Title:The Frost is all Over
Author: Chryse
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: about 148,500 words
Rating: explicit
Warnings:implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced rape/non-con, period-typical homophobia, major illness, OC/minor character death
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: John was brave and clever and loyal, a commoner who longed for an exciting life. Sherlock was dashing and brilliant and passionate, an Earl’s son who longed to solve crimes. Being a Tale of Glorious Adventures, Love Letters, Treachery, Longing, Secret Identities, Deathbed Confessions, First Kisses, Daring Escapes, and True Love.

Reccer's comments: So, one day I chanced upon this fic and downloaded it to my e-reader. Then I sat down and started reading and the world around me ceased to exist until I reached the end, which, unfortunately, came all too soon.
Sadly, I don’t occupy a minor position in the British government or else I would decree this fic to be entered into the curriculum of any aspiring Sherlock BBC fanfic reader. For take almost all the characters of the series, add a few pounds of Dickens, some pints of Wilkie Collins, a heavy dollop of the Bronte sisters, a tablespoon of Austen, and a pinch of ACD storylines, stir the whole concoction according to the instructions of Charles Palliser and Sarah Waters and you’ll end up with this great shaggy beast of a wonderfully precocious fic that combines massive scope with minute detail and serves it all up in a plot so thick the spoon stands up in it.
The story is set in the Victorian era and the period is both lovingly and convincingly drawn in beautiful, luxurious language reminiscent of the nineteenth century. We’re taken on a tour of Victorian society, from the hovels of the poor through the lush and unspoiled countryside around Sherrinford Hall, home of the Earl of Sherrinford and his children Mycroft and Sherlock, to the stables, where John, the new groom serves under the loving eye of Mr and Mrs Gregson, and on to the servant’s quarters to the grand chambers of the Hall itself.
Told from John’s POV Sherlock and he are but children when they first meet. John’s career as a jockey was nipped in the bud by an accident and he’s been sent by his former employer to Sherrinford Hall. There he strikes up a fast friendship with the youngest son of the Earl, the quick-witted and sharp-tempered Sherlock, against whose temperament he has been warned.
All seems well with the world while John and Sherlock enjoy their summer of friendship. But of course all good things must come to an end. The scene is laid for an elaboration of their friendship through correspondence until the next summer, the last before Sherlock will have to go to Eton.
At that moment the first angst starts to seep into the fic. Sherlock doesn’t write and John fears for their friendship, and worse, until Sherlock shows up unexpectedly one stormy night and John gets his first inkling the world outside even for an Earl’s son the world outside Sherrinford Hall might be a bit more fraught with peril than he had assumed.
Then the shocking developments start happening so fast and so relentlessly, their whole world torn asunder while they’re confronted with every atrocity mankind ever invented that the reader is left hanging in the ropes like an exhausted boxer, and yet thirsting for more. Truly, the phrase ‘unputdownable’ must have been coined with this fic in mind.
As we follow Sherlock and John on their journey we meet hundreds of characters. The characters from the series are of course designed to various positions in life in a totally different setting and yet they remain IC throughout, no mean feat. All of the OC’s, and we meet lots and lots of those, are well-rounded and lovingly drawn. As this is a Victorian novel there is a lot of sickness and death and outrageous treatment of innocents and the reader becomes invested in what happens to the OC’s almost as much as what happens to John and Sherlock and Mycroft and Irene and Mike Stamford and Molly and Angelo and… need I go on?
Honestly, I could go on and on and on about this fic, but in the end, to quote a certain consulting criminal, “I would try to convince you but… everything I have to say has already crossed your mind!”
For I do hope to have convinced you to go and read this right now. You truly won’t regret it that you did.