Upcoming Sherlocks Holmes Projects; More Solar Pons; Our First Spanish Language Children's Book (Dragonella); Plus an Author Interview with Elizabeth Varadan

Solar Pons Kickstarter a Smashing Success

We want to start this blog entry by personally thanking everyone who backed the first four original August Derleth Solar Pons books on Kickstarter.  Because of the campaign's success we can officially announce that we will run a second Kickstarter for the remaining books in the original Solar Pons series in October.

A special thank you goes out to Arkham House for giving us their blessing in putting this project together, and to David Marcum who painstakingly restored and digitized the original texts. David is also putting together a "Bonus" book of previously published but uncollected in a single volume Solar Pons material (The Apocrypha) which will be part of the upcoming Kickstarter. Our plan is to have the complete set of original Solar Pons books released by Christmas of 2018!

Dragonella in Spanish! An Author Interview with Elizabeth Varadan

Belanger Books has a growing line of Children's and Young Adult books. We are excited to have our first Spanish language children's book in the award winning Dragonella by Elizabeth Varadan. We interviewed the author via email about her children's book and here is what she had to say:


Belanger Books (BB):  Tell us a little bit about Dragonella.

Elizabeth Varadan (EV): Dragonella is the only dragon at her new school – a school with students who are various legendary creatures. On meeting her first new friend, excitement makes flames shoot out of Dragonella’s mouth, frightening all the students and getting her in trouble with the teacher. Her struggles with flame control get her into more than one difficulty, but ultimately she overcomes the problem and wins the respect of her classmates.


BB: Dragonella has a wonderful message about embracing our diverse talents. Did you have the message in mind when you wrote the story or did that come later in the drafting process?

EV: I didn’t have any message in mind when I first thought of the story. I had this image of a poor little dragon getting into trouble because of her flames, and ran with the “what if” factor: “What if this happened? What could happen next? What next?” It was great fun to come up with things.  Then, in subsequent drafts submitted to my writing group for comment, more than one message emerged: The importance of not judging someone who is different; the development of self-control, both in terms of disciplining one’s reactions and in turning a liability into an asset. When I visit schools, the theme of bullying is one first and second graders pick up on right away. I’ve been quite heartened by how many themes are imbedded in the story that have relevance for young people.



BB:  How did you work with Brian on the delightful pictures?

EV: Well that was just my lucky fortune. One of the publishing team (Brian Belanger) is an accomplished illustrator and did the illustrations. The first pictures he showed me just captivated me. And in every class I’ve read to, children talk about how much they like the pictures.

BB: You have other upcoming projects from Belanger Books. Can you tell us a little about them?

The Carnival of the Animals, coming out later this year, is a collection of stories for children based on Camille Saint-Saëns’s musical suite of the same name. Writing this involved a lot of research, because the stories take place in different lands, and they all have to occur before 1886 when the suite was actually published and performed. Again, this was great fun to write: thirteen fanciful tales told in fairytale or folktale style. I was fortunate to connect with the illustrators through a mutual friend. Their style is reminiscent of the black and white illustrations in the old Andrew Lang Fairy Books and suits these stories very well.


BB: Any last thoughts?

EV: Well it’s been a great pleasure working with the publishing team, Derrick and Brian Belanger. They expend good energy on behalf of their authors and stay in regular contact; they are easy to contact and easy to work with. I feel fortunate to have discovered them.

Dragonella is available in both English and Spanish editions on Amazon.com!

Upcoming Sherlock Holmes Projects

Besides our Solar Pons reissues, Belanger books has two exciting Sherlock Holmes books to be released in 2018!

Sherlock Holmes: Return to the Canon

This upcoming collection of traditional Sherlock Holmes stories (title still not set) is made up of sequels to the original Sherlock Holmes stories. If you've ever wondered "What happened to...?" after finishing stories like The Speckled Band, The Dancing Men, or The Mazarin Stone, then this is a collection for you! All stories are brand new and edited by the great David Marcum. Look for the book to be released in autumn 2018.

Rascal in the Castle!

And speaking of Canonical sequels, Digby, the delightful dog from Scones and Bones on Baker Street returns in his second outing with Sherlock Holmes. How is this Canonical? Well, the book is a sequel to Scandal and Bohemia and features Irene Adler!  You won't want to miss this upcoming wonderful Sherlock Holmes adventure for kids written by award winning author Brenda Seabrooke!

If you haven't read the first outing with Digby then get your copy of Scones and Bones on Baker Street today!

Also, look for a Belanger Books Kickstarter for new Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian Children's Books in September!

That's all for this update!  Stay tuned for more exciting news from Belanger Books coming soon!

Belanger Books is a small press owned by artist Brian Belanger and author Derrick Belanger specializing in new Sherlock Holmes books, Children's books, Steampunk, and genre specific anthologies.  Some of our books have been #1 bestsellers in their categories on Amazon.