THIF!– Thank Holmes It’s Friday!

THIF!– Thank Holmes It’s Friday!

 

As I’ve mentioned many times on this blog, my first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was published by MX Publishing this year, and I couldn’t have asked for a better publisher.  MX Publishing specializes in Sherlock Holmes-themed work, and if you’re looking for new Sherlock Holmes stories by fans, scholarly work about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or just an entertaining read in general, I highly recommend that Sherlock Holmes fans and mystery readers take a look at their website.

 

MX Publishing is holding a special sale on certain books.  As part of their new promotion, “Thank Holmes It’s Friday!” here are some special deals:

 

Here are the offers valid from 9pm Thursday UK time to 9am Saturday UK time. Only one discount code can be used per customer so please pick your offer. Please consider adding a 'mystery book' to your order too as it helps us spread the postage.

Just A Dollar - Holmes Book of the Week

The Detective and The Woman - $16.95

First in the Holmes/Adler series of four books (so far) by Amy Thomas

Offer $1 Quantity 5

Code at basket THIF-3

Just a Dollar - Non-Holmes Book Of The Week

80 Years Gone In A Flash - $19.95

The autobiography of John Jochimsen - legendary photographer.

Offer $1 Quantity 5

Code at basket THIF-1

Sherlock Book Of The Week

The Monographs $22.95

The definitive guide to becoming Sherlock Holmes

Offer $ 5 Quantity 5

Code at basket THIF-4

Free AudioBook of the Week

A Biased Judgement: The Sherlock Holmes Diaries 1897 $18.95

Geri Schear's first in novel in a traditional trilogy

Offer $ free Quantity 5 US, 5 UK

First five from USA and UK to use contact us form with code THIF-2

 

Check them out before it’s too late!

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

My Amazon Author Page

 My Amazon Author Page

 

If you’re interested in reading some of my work, please check out my Amazon Author Page.  There are links to the publications with my writings in them, connections to this blog, and if you’re interested in buying an anthology with one of my stories in it, or my book Sherlock & Irene, please check it out !

 

–Chris Chan

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^thfrom MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

My Work for Gilbert! Magazine, Part Two

 My Work for Gilbert! Magazine, Part Two

 

Picking up where I left off last week, during the first term of my senior year of college, I stopped by a used book sale and discovered an anthology of Nobel Prize for Literature laureates.  In the introductory essay for the 1936 Prize (Eugene O’Neill) there was an comment about how G.K. Chesterton was nominated for the 1935 prize.  I wondered if Mr. Dale Ahlquist, the President of the American Chesterton Society, knew any more about it. 

 

I wrote to him, and this was the first he’d heard about it.  He wrote to a friend in Sweden who was able to access the files and translate the assessment of Chesterton’s work.  This led to my writing an article on Chesterton’s Nobel nomination, which led to being asked to speak at the annual Chesterton Conference in the Twin Cities that summer.  A few months later, I joined Gilbert! as a contributing editor, and I’ve been writing for them ever since.  In the past sixteen-plus years, I’ve written over two hundred fifty articles for Gilbert!

 

I started by writing a column called “Manalive,” which focused on literary theory.  After a few years, I started writing more TV, movie, and book reviews, and after “Manalive” was discontinued, and focused on reviews, mainly in a column titled “Fear of Film.”  More recently, there was another change of assignment, leading to a column titled “Chesterton’s Great Characters.”  That lasted for a couple of years, with plenty of book reviews along the way.  For the last two years, I’ve been writing a column titled “The Debater,” focusing on the many prominent figures Chesterton debated over the years. 

 

Hopefully, I’ll be writing columns for Gilbert! for many years to come.

 

–Chris Chan

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^thfrom MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

My Work for Gilbert! Magazine

 My Work for Gilbert! Magazine

 

One of my hobbies is promoting the work of underappreciated authors that I really enjoy.  I first discovered G.K. Chesterton’s work in seventh grade.  At the time, I was in the process of becoming a really big fan of Golden Age Mysteries.  I started reading Agatha Christie’s books in January of fifth grade, and by September of seventh grade I’d read all of her mystery novels.  I had a problem.  I wanted to read more books like hers, but I found all of the contemporary mysteries I’d read to be disappointing– too dark, too violent, too nihilistic, and not enough fair play for armchair sleuths.

 

So I looked at Christie’s short story collection Partners in Crime, where her husband and wife team Tommy and Tuppence investigate cases by imitating their favorite fictional detectives.  I decided to track some of them down.  I’d already read and loved all of Sherlock Holmes years earlier.  Most of the other detectives parodied in the book were out of print, but on a trip to Barnes & Noble, I found a copy of The Complete Father Brown, by G.K. Chesterton.  I got it, and read it over Spring Break of seventh grade.

 

By the end of the first story, “The Blue Cross,” I knew I’d found a winner.  I read through the anthology in a matter of days and was crushed that there weren’t more Father Brown stories.  I tried to find more of Chesterton’s work, but at the time most of his work was out of print.  I found a few of his books here and there, and ordered some Dover editions of some mysteries from Schwartz’s, my local bookstore, and those books cemented my appreciation for Chesterton.  

 

Years passed, and I found myself in college.  One evening sophomore year, I was tired and surfing the Internet, and decided to do searches for my favorite authors.  I eventually tried Chesterton and discovered The American Chesterton Society and their magazine Gilbert!  I really enjoyed the online articles, and in the middle of my senior year, I corresponded with the President of the ACS, Dale Ahlquist.  I’ll talk about what happened next in an upcoming post.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^thfrom MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

 

Happy New Year!

 Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year!  I hope that 2021 is off to a great start for everybody reading this!

 

2020 was… to put it mildly… rough for most of us.  I had my difficulties, but I want to focus on the positives now.  This has been my most successful year of writing and publishing yet.  

 

To start, my first full-length book Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” came out this summer, in both paperback and audiobook.  I’ve been brainstorming this book since I was a senior in college, and I finally fleshed it out enough to do this very intriguing premise justice.

 

Not only that, but I’ve had nine new stories and one reprint published in eight different anthologies this year.  I continue to have essays and reviews published in Strand Magazine and Gilbert!   

 

I’ve even gotten some awards news.  My true crime article “Someday the Truth Will Come Out: The Lemberger Family and the Murder that Stunned Wisconsin,” published in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, received the Honorable Mention for the Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.  My short tale “The Six-Year-Old Serial Killer” tied for second place in the 2020 Derringer Awards for Best Flash Story, and I took Second Place in the “Wolfe’s World” category for The Wolfe Pack’s The Gazette Writing Competition for my novella “Time Trieth Truth: Why Nero Wolfe Misjudged St. Thomas More.”

 

Given some other news I’ve been saving, I’m hoping for the best with 2021.  I hope that everybody reading has similar success with their endeavors!

 

 

–Chris Chan

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^thfrom MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.