Finally it's the release day for
A Case of Poisons! I've been really excited about sharing this book with everyone, and I hope you will all be able to get a copy and enjoy the book as well =) Today I've got lots of fun things planned for you to celebrate the release, including behind the scenes about the writing process of
A Case of Poisons and a special character interview with Tobias and Scamp.
My friend and fellow-writer, Mara, is also helping me celebrate the release by posting an excerpt from the book on her blog, so check that out here:
http://667bakerstreet.blogspot.com/2013/06/book-feature-case-of-poisons.html
But first, let's do the "door prizes"
***GIVEAWAY DETAILS!***
To celebrate the release, I'm doing a couple giveaways. There's still the one from
Goodreads for two signed paperback copies, but just for the release, I'm also giving away an e-book copy, and a poster with the lovely cover art on it to two lucky winners. This is what you have to do to win:
Leave me a comment, and put your email address in it. If you don't want to display your email to everyone, email it to me here: sirwilliamssquire@gmail.com But please give me your email address, otherwise I won't be able to contact you to tell you you won!
The giveaway will run for a week, and anyone who comments on this post and leaves their email in that time, will be added to the drawing. Next Monday, I'll be announcing the winners here on my blog, and then I'll also be emailing the winners. The e-book winner will receive thier e-book in any form they want from Smashwords, and the winner of the poster, will need to supply their mailing address to me through email so I can send it to you =) Very easy, and very fun.
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| Book, poster and bookmarks, all awesome giveaway prizes! |
Purchase Links:
*Don't Forget!!*
There's still time to donate to help me promote "A Case of Poisons" so I can afford a book tour and advertisement to make the release even more awesome =) If you like what you see here, please go to my Indiegogo campaign page and consider parting with a bit of spangle to help me and Anthony.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/new-action-packed-steampunk-mystery-series/x/3259500
Remember! It's not just benefiting me, if you donate, you will get something in return, weather it be e-book, signed paperback, or other fun stuff. There's also a chance to name a character in the next book, so do check it out!
Now for even more fun stuff:
Behind the Scenes of writing A
Case of Poisons
The Story
Usually after I publish a book, I write a “reasons for
writing this” post, but since I didn’t have any real reasons for writing A Case of Poisons like I did for On a Foreign Field or By Blood or By Bond—it was more of just
a fun book all the way round—I’m going to give you a little “Behind the Scenes”
instead.
If I were pressed at all to give a reason for starting the
Anthony Maxwell series, it would be because I have always wanted to write a
mystery novel. I’ve always loved mysteries, and last summer, about this time,
actually, I came up with the idea for a mystery novel where the villain uses
strange, fabricated poisons to kill people. That was all I had, (there was also
something to do with a mysterious moor at night, but you’ll have to wait for
Book Five to see that) and Anthony didn’t really come along until later.
Eventually I did find a name for him, but it was one night at about 4 in the
morning when he finally came to me and said “We are writing the beginning of my
story now” and as the dutiful writer, I went along with it and wrote about half
of the first chapter in my note book:
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| Official first page of Anthony ever! |
And that was all I had for a while. The first chapter. I
spent all summer mulling over the villain’s exact motives while I wrote By Blood or By Bond and its backstories,
wondering even what decade I wanted A
Case of Poisons to be set in. I actually originally had thoughts on the
villain being involved in the Crimean War, but that was putting everything a
little earlier than I really wanted it. I wanted Anthony in the London of
Sherlock Holmes. I love steampunk set in that time period, and couldn’t resist
making this book a steampunk. I didn’t do it because it’s “the thing” now
(besides, I was a steampunk fan before it really became “the thing” in the last
few years or so) I did it because I love steampunk. And there’s the possibility
of airships, which *spoiler*, you will see in Book Four. I could go into the
story of how this would not be the first time I’ve written steampunk, or about
airships, but I think I’m going to have to wait for that story until the
release of Book Four as it will make a lot more sense to everyone then.
Despite that, I also wanted to have the option of playing
around with pre WWI plots and such later in the series. Because... I just might
take advantage of that.
So pretty much, that was how the story was conceived. It
took a lot of sweat, coffee, (and more coffee) to get it the way it is now, but
that was how, as is hopefully obvious, it all began (to quote Anthony)
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| The official case all mapped out |
The Characters
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| Sir Anthony Maxwell |
Writing a Victorian mystery novel, I pretty much figured
that people would compare it to Sherlock Holmes. I would, if I was picking it
up for the first time. So initially I was a bit worried that Anthony would come
across too much like Holmes, since I am a diehard Sherlockian and I already felt I was being influenced by Doyle. I don’t really know why, because, truthfully, Anthony had that all covered himself, and he certainly isn’t like Holmes. There might
be a few similarities that Sherlockians will spot, but I assure you, they were
not done intentionally, (and if they were, you’ll likely know) and there’s only
so far you can go into writing a Victorian mystery novel set in London without
emulating Doyle a bit.
But no, I would not say Anthony is much like Holmes at all.
Nor would I say that Tobias and Scamp are anything like a Watson. Truthfully,
the Anthony series is like if you took Holmes and crossed it with Prisoner of Zenda or other swashbucklers
of the same era. In fact, there are actually some similarities to Prisoner of Zenda. I did somewhat base
Tobias off of a supporting character from it. It’s definitely both mystery and
adventure series, and I felt I needed somewhat of an action hero to lead it.
Anthony came to me as himself, and he, thankfully,
ended up being just who I had in mind to play lead role. Tobias and Scamp came
soon after, and I really didn’t have any trouble pinning their personalities
down either. Why the trio instead of the traditional hero detective/sidekick?
Well, pretty much for that reason. I have always loved trios, and I really like
having the guy-guy-girl trio, particularly if they all act like brothers and
sister, which is definitely the relationship Anthony, Tobias and Scamp share.
Scamp is the kind of girl who can be “one of the guys” and Tobias and Anthony
know that, thus, they don’t worry about her any more than they worry about each
other. Scamp, in turn, never tries to be better than them because she’s not one
of those kick-butt-and-take-names heroines who I never care for. They all watch
each other’s backs and hold no genderal biases between each other. This is the
kind of relationship I love to read about, but, frankly, never really get to
because in everyone else’s books, it always ends in a love triangle. Well,
sorry to disappoint love triangle fanatics, but there will be absolutely no
romantic interest between my trio. I’m not saying there won’t be outside
romantic interests later *hint hint*, but certainly not between these three.
Now for a little bit about the other characters you meet in the
series. I’ll start off with Archie and his urchins. I adore urchins, and I
really don’t think anyone should write a Victorian story without including
urchins. Archie wasn’t based off anyone in particular, but I love him. He’s
smart, and proud, but he will do anything to protect the younger children he
keeps under his wing. I loved writing his somewhat father-son relationship with
Anthony, because Archie is so stubborn, he doesn’t like to accept help from
anyone, but Anthony takes care of him anyway. He’s definitely one of my
favorite characters in the series.
And then there’s Inspector Garrett. No, he’s not really like
Lestrade, in fact, I kind of shamelessly based him off of Inspector Japp from
Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Anthony likes to pretend he doesn’t know what he’s
doing, but Garrett is actually a lot smarter than he gives him credit for, and
Garrett is always there when he needs him, acting as brute force if nothing
else. The second book is going to be really fun because you get to see the two
match wits as a wager to see who can solve the case first!
And that was just a little sneak peak into the characters
you have to look forward to by reading A
Case of Poisons. I wish I could talk about the villain, but that would be
telling too much ;-)
The Steampunk
As I said, I wanted this to be a steampunk. A Case of Poisons does not feature as
many steampunk inventions as the series will in later books, but I did take
liberties with the technology of the time to create a steampunk feel to the
story.
First off, we have the contraptions, which are motorcars
that are used more widely than horse drawn cabs in my book. I based them off of
actual Victorian cars, and crossed them between the sportier-looking ones from
the 20s and 30s. Some are steam powered and others are electric (go green,
right?) There were actually both in the Victorian era. The Electrobat was the
first electric car. I would post a picture of my contraptions, but I tried to draw one and it just didn't turn out, so unfortunately, you'll just have to use your imagination.
The weapons were really fun to come up with. I love
designing weapons, and some of the ones you will see in A Case of Poisons and likely in future Anthony Maxwell books as
well, are as follows:
The Eagle’s Claw: This is a small curved blade that is
folded into a mechanism that can attach to the palm of one’s hand. When the
release button is pressed, the blade pops out. It’s used mostly in street
fighting and such other dirty work as that.
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| Eagle's Claw blueprint |
The Broadsman’s Barker: Typically a gambler’s weapon
(broadsman is Victorian slang for ‘card sharp’) Tobias carries one of these.
It’s a small, thin pistol that is attached to a mechanism that is worn on the
wrist so that the pistol can be hidden up one’s sleeve. You can either have a
Manuel release in which you shake the pistol from the mechanism into your hand,
or an automatic one where you hide a release button in the palm of your glove
(of course this is the kind Tobs has).
Suicide Pistol: This is my favorite. It’s a pistol that you
can reverse the barrel of so that it is pointing behind you. Perfect for when
you have an enemy with a gun to the back of your head!
And then of course Anthony has his boots with the secret
sheathes for his shortsticks which, when he clicks the heels together the
shortsticks pop up.
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| Shortsticks |
But the technology isn’t the only thing that can be advanced
in steampunk either. You can also go the scientific rout, which leads us to:
The Poisons
Okay, I’m not going to lie, this was my favorite part of
researching this book. I’ve never been a fan of science, medicine (apart from
historical cures), or microbiology, but I have always found toxicology a fascinating
subject—no, don’t run away yet! It’s because poisons can be hidden, they’re
subtle, and leave less trace of the murderer than a stab wound or gun shot.
I’ve always enjoyed poisoning mysteries more because it left more to figure
out. Without giving too much away about the story, the poisons I chose to use
were, for one, all organic, taken from animals that were certainly not
indigenous to Britain.
All the poisons I use in the book are portrayed accurately.
I got them all from my new favorite writing reference book Book of Poisons which is an actual legitimate Writer’s Digest book.
See, they know what we need. It classes everything so wonderfully it was very
easy to find exactly what I needed.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go into a lot of the poisons
as much as I wanted nor did I get to use all that I had on my little list (cue
evil laughter) but there might be another book with poisons in it later (in
fact, it’s most likely), so I hope to have more time with them then ;-)
The Things One Finds Out When
Writing Mysteries
I always like to say that I learned about pretty much
everything by reading Trixie Belden and Sherlock Holmes, certainly more than I
did in school anyway. I never actually realized why this was before I started
writing mysteries myself. (Okay, I actually realized why when I watched Castle and saw all the weird stuff he
knew from researching) but I never really applied that until I set out to write
my own. Think of all the random knowledge that has popped up in the Sherlock
Holmes stories that has helped him solve a case: The lion’s mane jellyfish, the
KKK, the Australian hunting cry, how to measure how tall a tree is from its
shadow—to name only a few off the top of my head. I learned a ton reading those
books, and that’s because there is no accounting for what you may have to
research when going into writing a mystery. Without giving too much away, here
are some of the random things I had to research for A Case of Poisons:
Poisons, of course, but I had to do deep research into
symptoms of poisons, particularly that of the brown recluse spider as you will
see why when you read the book.
Ancient British royalty.
Ancient Egyptian history and rebellion.
And a bunch of other numerous things I never foresaw when I
started the book. I can’t wait to see what the next one brings.
Some Fun Facts (mostly) Relating to A Case of Poisons
This you probably already know, but I’ll say it again: A Case of Poisons is my first official
mystery novel. I never even wrote an old mystery novel in my years of young
writerhood (I refuse to acknowledge certain stories from when I was 11 that
really were not mysteries at all even if I termed them that at the time)
A Case of Poisons
is my first published novel in the First Person, and actually only my second
written novel in first person perspective, but now you will be seeing a lot
more of it as it’s quite addicting.
Writing First Person is addicting.
Though I had the idea for the villain first, he took me
forever to figure out while Anthony just came strolling along.
I really had no character building to do on Anthony at all.
Once he decided to talk to me, he came as a whole package.
The ‘side-kick’ villain in this story (you’ll have to read
it to find out more about this subject) was actually the original conceived
villain for the piece in its very very early days.
I came up with the term ‘shortsticks’ and the fighting style
to use them when I stole my brother’s friction rod after he had finished the
science experiment it belonged to.
I could not sit down to write or read this story without a
cup of coffee. I’m drinking one as I write this.
My music inspiration for writing this was the soundtracks
for the new Sherlock Holmes movies. They were really perfect.
Anthony Maxwell has seven planned novels, and probably will
have more.
The actor I would choose to play Anthony would be Jonas
Armstrong (Robin from BBC’s Robin Hood)—Random Robin Hood Fun Fact: I actually liked Guy
better
Also, not only a fun fact, but a reason to buy the book: there is a sneak peak of the first chapter of Book Two in the back of the book.
Both the Paperback and the E-book, so you e-book readers should thank me ;-P
~~~
And now I'd like to introduce Tobias and Scamp who have agreed to do an interview for your benefit today!
Interview with Tobias and Scamp
Hazel: For readers
who don’t know you, why don’t you two introduce yourselves?
Tobias: I’m Tobias
Farley, ex-broadsman thanks to an incident that I will talk about later. I’m
also a champion charmer, but unfortunately my prowess is not used in this story
nearly enough, Hazel.
Scamp: I’m Scamp—you’ll
have to read the book to find out my real name—I was a street lass for most of
my life until I met Anthony. I also have a Gypsy heritage through my
Grandmother. And, as you probably know, we are Anthony’s partners.
Hazel: What’s it like
working with a private detective?
Tobias: Sometimes
exciting, sometimes tedious, all the time unexpected, and on rare occasions
terribly dangerous as “The Case of Poisons” will tell you.
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| Tobias and Scamp in for their interview |
Scamp: I find it always
invigorating, though sometimes Anthony will leave us in the dark and that is
quite annoying. It’s not that he means to, it’s just that when he starts really
thinking and is at the end of the case, he just dashes off without a care in
the world but to solve it. He always makes sure to clear things up once the
villain is apprehended, though.
Hazel: What was the
first case you all worked together?
Tobias: I believe Scamp
worked a case or two with Anthony before I came along, but the first case we
all worked as partners, well, it wasn’t exactly the greatest achievement of our
career. In the early days, Scamp and I didn’t really get along…
Scamp: I had never had
any brothers, but I instantly knew that Tobias was exactly like the annoying
brother I had never been graced with. We never agreed on anything back then. In fact, this case
actually changed that.
Hazel: How was that?
Tobias: During a part of
the case—it was a string of jewelry thefts where the thief would send small
children down the chimneys of houses to unlock the doors for the others to get
in—we were waiting up on the rooftop of a rich house that Anthony suspected
would be the next target. It was in the middle of the night, raining, and we
were all freezing.
Scamp: Unfortunately,
Anthony had miscalculated, and the house that was actually getting robbed that
night was the next one over. So we were sitting there freezing, trying to hide
behind the chimney of the house when we realized we weren’t even in the right
place. That was when Tobias got the brilliant idea to jump over to the other
roof to apprehend the thieves.
Tobias: Admittedly not
one of my greater moments. As everyone can probably guess, I didn’t really make
it, and I was hanging from the eves two storeys above the ground, with wet,
freezing hands that were slipping more and more by the second. Anthony and
Scamp quickly made the decision that they would split up: he to chase after the
thieves who had taken flight as soon as I had jumped over, and Scamp to help
me.
Scamp: He was not happy
about that at all, especially when I was able to jump to the other roof without
a problem—I had been doing it all my life, after all, with much shorter legs
than I have now. I hauled him back up just as he was slipping and ever since,
he was eternally grateful to me for it, though he forgets sometimes.
Tobias: So that’s the
story, and we did apprehend the thieves in the end, so I suppose it all worked
out for the best.
Hazel: Tell everyone
how you met Anthony.
Tobias: I met Anthony
when I was being attacked by four bruisers from a local gambling house where I
used to sharp cards. It can probably be assumed that I don’t do that anymore.
He saved me lots of broken bones that day, and once I had found out what he
did, I decided that I might as well join him.
Scamp: I met Anthony when
I tried to pick his pocket. Then he had the gall to invite me to dinner. I
thought he was just another no-good cad that London had far too many of, and I
was all set to teach him a lesson his grandchildren wouldn’t forget, but he
turned out to be a very kind—if somewhat naïve—fellow, and I decided I liked
him enough to stick around. It was a favour, really. He needed someone to look
after him if he was going to make a habit of inviting ladies to tea. Others
might not hesitate.
Hazel: What do you
think is the success of your partnership?
Tobias: Ultimately, our
friendship and undying loyalty to each other. I know it sounds fantastic, but
we would all gladly take a bullet for one another. I think it all partly comes
down to the fact that none of us ever really had a family. Anthony mostly just
had his Aunt, never any siblings. I left to “seek my fortune” when I was
thirteen and was just a rash chap without any meaning to my life and too few
real friends, and Scamp’s family died when she was very young, leaving her to
live on the streets to fend for herself. We are a motley crew who doesn’t
really fit in any one place, and I think that’s what attracted us to each
other. Because we never fit in with anyone else, we fit in with each other and became
a family of our own. The three of us are brothers and sister in everything but
blood. We even have extended family; Archie is kind of an adopted son to
Anthony, Inspector Garrett and Doctor Reynolds are sort of like cousins, and of
course Mrs Hutchings looks after us all. I love this family more than any I was
born into.
Scamp: I second Tobias
heartily on everything. Apart from our tight friendship, there’s also the fact
that we all bring a different skill to the table when we work. There is no squabbling
over rolls when we are solving a case, we all know our parts instantly and we
all count on the other to get his part done. We’ve had great success in that
apart from a couple of our first cases.
Hazel: Before you
leave, why don’t you tell readers a little about why they should invest in the
Anthony Maxwell series?
Tobias: Hazel, you are
shameless, making your characters promote your books for you! But as for why
readers would enjoy the books, well, there’s me, of course. I’m dashing, blond,
and single, I might add.
Scamp: Not necessarily
what Hazel meant, I think, Tobias. Apart from my colleague’s own
self-promotion, there are definitely some better reasons why you should all get
into the series. For the first part, Anthony is a very engaging narrator. He
might drink too much coffee, but he’s a good fellow. There are many
misadventures in this book, and certainly more to look forward to in later
books as well. There’s all the good stuff, chase scenes, fight scenes, even
torture…
Hazel: But not true love
(Sorry guys, The Princess Bride is
way after your time)
Tobias: And this one has
lots of poisons. And urchins, and also mummies *shudder*.
Scamp: And if that’s not
reasons enough, well, let us know how we can try harder.
Hazel: Thanks so much for giving us time out of
your busy schedule to interview you two!
Tobias: My pleasure!
Though I’m quite looking forward to the vacation you promised before you start
writing the next one.
Scamp: Likewise. But it
was a pleasure to be invited to speak on your blog! Until the next book, then!
~~~
If you missed the character interview with Anthony Maxwell on Mara's blog, check it out here now!
Thanks to everyone who stopped by to be part of the release! Don't forget to leave your email in the comments below to enter the giveaway! =D
