That’s the first thing I thought of too! The random modernizations are so jarring because everyone’s manner of speaking and all of the situations are just so retro.

Sometimes it’s people who usually read historical romance and don’t realize that regular historical fiction is different.

I also like gothic fiction and historical horror, but a lot of the readers expecting gory horror are disappointed.

So yeah…it’s just people not understanding what they’re picking up.

The Mormon sequence in A Study in Scarlet is absolutely wild. But after learning about the Mountain Meadows Massacre I can see why he made some of those choices.

I know exactly what you mean. I’m a big fan of historical fiction and some of my favorites have absolutely dismal ratings on Goodreads. I tend to like historical fiction set in the 19th century that is written in a style that emulates 19th century writing. I’ll go to the reviews and it’s just reviewer after reviewer saying how boring they found the book. If that’s the main complaint, I’ll ignore them.