Fight the Covid-19 Blues with Free Sherlock Holmes and Solar Pons eBooks; Last Chance to Submit a Story for In The Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes; Sherlock Holmes Author Interviews; and Great Sherlock Holmes Projects on Kickstarter
Belanger Books continues to offer free weekly eBooks during the month of April to provide reading material for those of you currently under lock down due to the Coronavirus pandemic. For this week, we have both a free Sherlock Holmes children's eBook and a free Solar Pons eBook. This is alo the last week for students (and adults) to submit a story for In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (details below).
This Week's Free eBooks
The Reminiscences of Solar Pons
The stories in this book — like their predecessors — are, as Ney MacMinn put it in The Chicago Tribune, much more than imitations — "an excellent series of adventures in detection in their own right." Here once again is the atmosphere of Baker Street and the London of Sherlock Holmes.
Get this fourth collection of stories featuring the Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street by CLICKING HERE.
The Rascal in the Castle
Sounds like a job for DIGBY - the watchdog of Sherlock Holmes!
When one of Holmes's most brilliant enemies returns to threaten a royal wedding, Digby must travel over land and sea to help solve the mystery. Can Digby prevent two nations from going to war? Can Digby cross the ocean without losing his lunch? Will Holmes finally admit that he has a dog?
Menacing "hunds", sinister schemes, and an army of hungry vermin -- lucky for Holmes and Watson that Digby is on the case!
Get this FREE Sherlock Holmes eBook for kids by award winning author Brenda Seabrooke by CLICKING HERE.
Last Chance to Submit a Story to In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes
One of the activities we've provided during the Stay at Home orders has been participating in a writing contest. See the details below, and remember - all submissions are due April 25!
Have you ever wanted to write a mystery? Ever wanted to have your writing published in a book read all over the world. Now is your opportunity!
Belanger Books is accepting submissions for a new anthology of mystery short stories for student readers inspired by the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The anthology is titled In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and will feature stories by student writers as well as professional authors. Net proceeds will go to the Beacon Society to help them expose more students to the original Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as well as newer stories about the great detective.
Requirements: All entries must be mysteries inspired by the Sherlock Holmes stories. The mysteries can be traditional Sherlock Holmes stories, modern versions of Sherlock Holmes, original detective stories with characters similar to Holmes and Watson, or anything in between. The stories just need to clearly be inspired by the Sherlock Holmes canon. Each submission should be at least 1,000 words in length , and be rated "PG" (i.e. suitable for a school library).
Authors retain the rights to their work.
Payment: Authors shall receive a paperback and electronic copy of In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson for letting us use their work in the anthology.
Due Date: All entries must be received by April 25th, 2020
Please send entries to mail@belangerbooks.com or to derrick@belangerbooks.com. Make sure to include your name (first and last), title of your story, story length, and attach your story as a word document. If you are a student also include your grade and name of your school. Writers included in the anthology will be announced in May. All authors will receive a complimentary copy of the anthology and will retain full rights to their stories. If you have questions please contact us at belangerbooks@gmail.com.
Kickstarter Sherlock Holmes Projects
There are currently THREE Sherlock Holmes book projects on Kickstarter! Sherlock Holmes and the Great Detectives is closing in on its second stretch goal. If we reach $3,500 then the book will have an additional story where Sherlock Holmes teams up with Poe's great detective, C. Auguste Dupin. Back the project by CLICKING HERE.
Our friends at MX Publishing always have at least one great Sherlock Holmes project on Kickstarter. Right now, they have two! The first, The Redacted Sherlock Holmes, includes a host of short stories covering fascinating issues and scandals from history reimagined with Holmes and Watson on the case. This Kickstarter project has about a week left in the campaign, and they are just one backer away from reaching their stretch goal!
Since Daniel D. Victor exploded into the Sherlock Holmes world with his historical novel, The Seventh Bullet, he has been noted for combining Holmes with true life, historical figures. His excellent The American Literati series has Holmes working with famous authors from Raymond Chandler to Mark Twain. The latest novel has Holmes working with none other than the man who brought him alive on stage and screen - William Gillette. This is another great work by one of the best Sherlock Holmes writers today. Back the project by CLICKING HERE!
Author Interviews
For the remainder of the Sherlock Holmes and the Great Detectives campaign on Kickstarter, we will be running short interviews with our authors. This week we have a great author interview with Stephen Herczeg where he tells about his Sherlock Holmes adventure with the first teen sleuth, Lois Cayley. You can read the Interview by CLICKING HERE.
Last week, we ran the first part of our author interview with Thaddeus Tuffentsamer on his Sherlock Holmes story collection, The Restrospections of Sherlock Holmes. You can read the first part of the interview by CLICKING HERE.
This week we have the second part where Mr. Tuffentsamer discusses some of his upcoming projects.
One of my favorite
stories in your book is "The Parsimonious Peacekeeper" because
it is a courtroom drama, a rarity in Sherlock Holmes stories. How did that
story develop?
Thaddeus Tuffentsamer (TT): I appreciate you asking that question. That is also one of my favorite stories
because I was not even sure that I was going to write it when I first
considered it. When I began, I didn’t
think that it would be longer than five or six pages as I really thought it
would not be developed past the extremely short story stage.
This story, as well as three others in the book, (The Dunley
Mystery, Hippocrates Shame and His Majesty’s Favor) were all based off of real
Victorian crimes. The last three just
mentioned were never solved, and I wanted to tell them with Holmes able to find
justice for the victims.
In ‘The Peacekeeper’ I modeled it off of a Victorian judge
who had been manipulating the crime scene for his own personal financial
benefit. It was the perfect setting for
Holmes to play off of, and in addition, in this story I was able to use so many
of the established characters. Wiggins,
(Who was actually added to the story on the third draft) Lestrade, Mycroft,
etc. I was also able to use his ‘who’s
who’ library as well as put Holmes and Watson in makeup and place them
undercover, something that I have only done in that story, up to this point.
I wanted to show Holmes’ fearlessness and repudiation of
injustice when he so boldly confronted that judge. I wished to express his steadfastness in
exposing crime, whomever the criminal may be.
The story just kept growing and developing as I wrote and
re-wrote it to become what it finally did.
So many of the story elements in there, (Wiggins, Mycroft, Holmes and
Watson in makeup undercover) were not included in the first draft but made
their way in, in subsequent re-writes. I
think/hope that I was able to craft a well-developed and satisfying
adventure. I think that story went through
six or seven revisions before I finally finished it.
4. Do you have any
plans for more Sherlock Holmes stories?
Yes, I am working on my second collection of Holmes’
adventures now. It is entitled Further Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes and
hopefully it will be ready at the end of the year. I am finishing up the last two stories in it
now.
I am excited about it too as I have done even more research
in Victorian London for this collection.
I have a story entitled “The
Adventure of the Tiger’s Blood” that deals with the downstairs staff that I
had to do a LOT of research on to make it historically accurate.
In “The Adventure from
the Chair”, that story is written by Holmes himself without Watson’s
voice. Conan Doyle did that twice in his
56 short stories. I think I may be ‘one
and done’ as it was certainly challenging to write it this way.
The one that I am most excited about however is “The Giant Rat of Sumatra.” I have read a few others works on this story
and honestly I never found them to be ‘grand’ enough in telling a story that
“The world is not ready to hear” just yet.
In the Sussex Vampire, where that tale was mentioned, it almost seems as
if Watson was not a part of that adventure when Holmes tells him about the Matilda Briggs.
Based off of that, I began with the premise that Watson
would not be in that story. However, it
quickly became apparent that I could not tell it without him. So, how could I tell it without ignoring what
the Conan Doyle canon had established? I
crafted an adventure that takes place just six weeks after Holmes and Watson
meet, so the newness of their relationship spoke to some of these
questions. I also included (behind the
scenes) Moriarty who was building his crime empire in London, as well as the
island of Doctor Moreau, where the giant rat originated from. This story turned into a novella coming in at
just under 100 pages and is the anchor to the Holmes stories in this book. I encourage readers to read this story and
then follow up with The Sussex Vampire
to see how well I did.
I’m also including as a final adventure in the book another
Joseph Bell and Doyle story as I not only enjoyed writing the last one quite a
bit, but several of my readers have reached out to me expressing how much they
also enjoyed it as well. A couple of
them expressed that it was their favorite adventure in the book, which is
extremely satisfying as a writer because I knew that I was possibly crossing
some boundaries with it.
5. Any last thoughts?
Holmes and Watson have become very dear to me and I plan to
continue crafting adventures for them as long as I can come up with quality
stories.
Additionally I have another book coming out by the end of
May or beginning of June entitled Resurrection
Ship and other Stories that allowed
me to delve into my first love, science fiction. It too is an anthology of short stories that
also includes a new Sherlock Holmes adventure set in the early 23rd
century that sees Holmes transported through time to confront and defeat a
Moriarty A.I. that is terrorizing the city.
We have Anyse Lestrade, the ancestress of our dear police lieutenant who
is narrating this adventure, as well as Williams, a synthetic human who becomes
the Watson to Holmes in this new time. I
never thought that I would ever write Holmes in a non-traditional setting, but
it is still somehow canonical and gives a different reason for his “great
hiatus.”
In this book is another story entitled Dirk Diggins, Private Eye that has no tie to Holmes in it, but the
two characters do meet and work together in a separate story that has been
submitted for your next steampunk volumes.
All of my current and future titles are available at Amazon
and can be ordered through your favorite bookstore as well.
Thank you Derrick for giving me the chance to share my
thoughts and connect with our readers in this special way. I appreciate it and all who have supported my
writing over the years. It truly does
mean the world to me!
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