The Paranormal Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Fans of the bizarre, the dark and the horrific...And, of the one and only Sherlock Holmes, attend:

Coming October 27, 2015!!!

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most recognizable characters in Western literature.  Conan Doyle’s inimitable detective has been the subject of literally thousands of books, movies, television shows, plays and even songs.  With the rise of the BBC series and the release of all copyrights, the beloved character has found a new life among modern audiences. 

In An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 14 authors of horror and mystery have come together to create a unique anthology that sets Holmes on some of his most terrifying adventures.  A pair of sisters willing to sacrifice young girls to an ancient demon for a taste of success, a sinister device that can manipulate time itself, and a madman that can raise corpses from the dead are just a few among the grisly tales that can be found within these pages.

Curl up with a warm cuppa and leave all the lights on.  This is not your grandfather’s Sherlock Holmes.

---

 

The Fairy Pool by Lucy Blue

Sherlock Holmes and the Hungry Ghost by Katie Magnusson

The Diamond Carter Ghost by Matthew Wilson

The Haunted Branch Line by Tally Johnson

The Arendall Horror by Thomas Olbert

Worlds Collide by S. H. Roddey

Time is Running Out, Watson by Adrian Cross

A Voice in the Blood by Dan Shaurette

The Hunt of the Red Boar by Thomas Fortenberry

The Canaries of Clee Hills Mine by Robert Perret

The Chase by Melissa McArthur

The Adventure of the Missing Trophy by Mark W. Coulter

The Case of the Rising Dead by Trenton Mabey

The Adventure of the Slow Death by Harding McFadden

***

Excerpt:

"The Arendall Horror," by Tom Olbert

 

 

 Sandborn led us through the tunnel, into the caves.  As we all entered, torches lit, I sensed something cold and horribly forbidding in the dank interior of those murky caverns.  There was a slimy, rancid stench as if we were walking into a slaughterhouse.  “What is that horrid smell?” I asked.

“Rats, I expect, sir,” Sandborn answered.  “I saw a few of them down here that night, picking at other scraps of itself that thing had left behind.  Then, I heard the poor vermin squealing in the dark as they died.”

Then, I saw it. The torchlight fell on a shadowed corner of the cave.  Dripping milky-white fibers formed a grotesque nest of sorts, containing three large, ovoid, leathery objects.  They resembled egg pods in a spider’s web, though magnified to scale many thousands of times.  I gasped as the horrid things began to split open, bursting from the inside out.  Sickly, milky-white fluid coated the abominable things that emerged, squealing as they clawed their way out.  To this day, I cannot accurately describe them.  The creatures had long, jointed limbs like that of a giant spider, yet they were webbed, like the wings of a huge bat.  Their heads were rodent-like and snarling with six-inch fangs dripping.  Their eyes glowed green in the torchlight.  Scarcely out of their ungodly crèche, they were shrieking and swarming at us with inconceivable speed, slithering on multiple tentacles.

---

 

 

 

http://mochamemoirspress.com/

Visions II: Moons of Saturn

 

 

 

 

Ice mining in space, colonization of extraterrestrial moons, war between interplanetary corporations, and time travelers bent on destruction, with mighty Saturn as the backdrop.

 The theme, Moons of Saturn, provided inspiration for the creation of widely divergent tales centered about the mysterious planet and its system.

 NASA’s Cassini Missions have captured stunning images of Saturn, its mesmerizing Rings of ice and rock, and its 53 officially named moons. These twelve authors present their visions of the Saturn System’s promise, as rich and diverse as the reality of Saturn, its Rings, and moons.

 The second book of the Visions Series, this anthology features: Tom Tinney, W.A. Fix, Thaddeus Howze, Ami Hart, Bonnie Milani, Jeremy Lichtman, S.M. Kraftchak, Timothy Paul, Tom Olbert, Amos Parker, R. E. Jones, and Duane Brewster.

·       In the depths of an ice mine on Dione, embattled troopers combat alien amoeba in the frigid tunnels.

·       Wry humor combines with eccentricity in a tale of time traveling disaster.

·       Enemies team up to complete a mission, in an intense tale of revenge.

·       Security teams from opposing corporations, battle for possession of lunar mining operations.

 

 

Excerpt:

 

 

"Reckoning at Enceladus" by Tom Olbert

 

The exploding glider lit the methane clouds over Titan in a bloody red glow. Gene Grey Wolf gritted his teeth and cursed under his breath in the gunner’s canopy, a torrent of half-frozen liquid methane slamming against his suit, as he struggled to get a radar lock on the two remaining gliders zeroing in on him.  “Hold her steady, dammit!” He yelled at his glider pilot, now turning into the heart of a raging squall, the superstructure of the cloud glider rattling wildly. Gene was reminded of the time he dove his space fighter into Saturn’s upper atmosphere, two Combine laser ships on his tail.

“You wanna try it?” the other man’s voice came blaring in over the radio link in Gene’s oxygen helmet, wild and scratchy.

One of the Combine gliders spread its elevator fins and turned in, riding the storm current as the pilot tried for a flank shot. The attacking glider’s radar silhouette looked like a monstrous dragon fly, its braking fins spreading like great wings as it turned. “Pull up!” Gene yelled. Too late. His pilot was too busy navigating the storm, his glide sails ready to collapse under the pressure. The enemy pilot fired, a plasma volley cutting through the superstructure of Gene’s glider, the braking fins splitting clean off as the glider spun wildly into the storm. Gene fired wildly, trying to take out at least one of the killers. He clipped the wingtip on one glider as the other turned to navigate the storm. “Burn, you scum!”  He swore at the top of his lungs as his own pilot ejected. Blowing his own separation charge, Gene groaned at the lurch of the gun module blasting free from the disintegrating glider. He spun end over end, his head swirling as he triggered his braking chute.

---

 

 

 

VISIONS II: Moons of Saturn

Paperback: 232 pages

Publisher: Lillicat Publishers (August 20, 2015)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0-9916426-2-7

http://www.lillicatpublishers.com/?product=visions-ii-moons-of-saturn

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/570325

A hauning mystery from Rita Monette..

 

Behind every legend lies the truth… 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving is nothing new for ten-year-old Nikki Landry. Her father relocates their raggedy old houseboat several times a year in search of better crabbing spots. However, their latest move has brought her to a mysterious bayou where she feels something is watching her from a nearby island.

Nikki learns of a local legend about something sinister inhabiting those swamps, stealing the souls of dogs...which would explain the strange howling sounds. Papa reassures her there’s nothing on the island but gators and snakes. He should know. He’s spent his whole life trapping and fishing those bayous and swamps…But maybe there’s something Papa doesn’t know.

 

Nikki and her new friends begin to uncover strange happenings from years ago that may have started the old legend…and town folks aren’t talking.

 

Then her beloved beagle goes missing.

 

Join Nikki as she seeks to discover the real truth behind the legend of Ghost Dog Island…before it’s too late.

************

Title: The Legend of Ghost Dog Island

Author Name: Rita Monette

Genre(s): Middle Grade, Adventure, Mystery

Tags: Adventure, mystery, middle grade, louisiana, bayou, dogs

Length: Approx. 204 pages

E-book:  978-1-987976-00-7

Paperback:  978-0-9947490-9-3

Re-Release Date: September 1, 2015

Publisher:  Mirror World Publishing

 

********************

 

Excerpt:

“I’m going to hate Morgan City,” I complained to my dog Snooper, “no matter what Papa says.”

My beagle laid his head on my lap and gazed up at me with his watery eyes. He pretty much agreed with me on everything.

I sat on the deck of our old flat-bottomed houseboat as it glided through the winding bayous. Papa’s fishing boat, filled with baskets of line and crab crates, trailed behind on its rope. We were leaving Pierre Part…Lydia…far behind. I rolled the legs of my overalls up and dangled my feet over the edge.

“Nicole Landry, keep your feet out of that filthy water,” Mama hollered from the doorway of the small living area of our floating home. She wiped her hands on her stained apron, then fixed the comb that held her long dark hair in a pile on top of her head. Mama was born and raised in New Orleans, but left the big city for a life in the bayous with Papa. She never looked back. At least that’s what she always told folks.

“They ain’t in the water, Mama.” I held my legs up so she could see they were dry.

She opened the patched screened door and shooed a fly out, before closing it and going back inside.

I twirled the end of my long black braid. Moving to a new place always gave me a lump in my throat as big as a bullfrog. But I wasn’t going to cry this time. I was ten years old after all.

I’d lived in that same house since the day I was born—as Mama always tells it, "the coldest morn’ of 1946." But I couldn’t rightly recall how many times it got tied up to a new dock. Mama liked to say Papa never let the grass grow under his feet. But I could hardly think of a time when his rubber boots ever touched grass.

Papa grew up in Morgan City, and he said folks there were mighty friendly. But it seemed to me, most city dwellers weren’t too welcoming to my kind, being from the wrong side of the levee and all. And the city was where I’d have to go to school.

“And, as for making friends with any kids there, no way.” I shook my finger in Snoop’s face. “Just to up and leave ’em behind anyway.”

He managed a tiny whimper, as if I was fussing at him.

I thought about Lydia standing on the Belle River Bridge waving goodbye. My eyes burned, and I squeezed ’em shut. I felt in my pocket for her note. I’d read it at least a hundred times since she’d handed it to me, right before I went stomping down the ladder from her tree house. She’d scribbled down her post office box address and "write me," then signed her name with the little heart over the i like she always did.

“Hmph!” I told Snooper. “She’s crazy if she thinks I’m gonna write her after what she did.”

Lydia Hebert was my best friend in the whole world…until yesterday. It was a lot easier to leave while I was still mad at her. But now it felt like an empty hole inside me.

 

**************

Amazon Link:

http://amzn.to/1VbZ7jq

 

 Mirror World Publishing Links:
 

eBook http://mirror-world-publishing.myshopify.com/collections/history/products/the-legend-of-ghost-dog-island-ebook

 

Paperback  http://mirror-world-publishing.myshopify.com/collections/history/products/the-legend-of-ghost-dog-island-paperback

******************

About the Author: 

Rita Monette was born and raised in Southwest Louisiana. She loves to write stories set in the beautiful, yet mysterious, bayous and swamps of her home state.

Her middle grade series, The Nikki Landry Swamp Legends, is based on tales told by her father—who made his living in those bayous—of reasons to stay out of the swamp.

She currently lives with her husband, four lap dogs, and one lap cat, in the mountains of Tennessee. Besides writing and illustrating, she loves watching the many birds that make their habitat on the Cumberland Plateau, working in the garden, and frequenting waterfalls.

 

*******

 

Follow the tour:

 

http://saphsbookblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/blog-tour-schedule-legend-of-ghost-dog.html