Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Keys To The Murder Castle

 My story Keys To The Murder Castle is now available at HyphenPunk! And I would like to direct your attention to my author bio for that particular story, because it mentions a little bit of news… Don Queerxote, my first story published with HyphenPunk, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize!

This is my first nomination for anything (on my own; Nothing Without Us was nominated for an Aurora), and even though it's very statistically unlikely for me to win seeing as thousands of people get nominated every year, I don't care. I'm excited.

So, onto the story!

Keys To The Murder Castle is… well, it's sort of queer Frankenstein and the fairytale Bluebeard, but with historical serial killers? But it's also about female empowerment and moving on from grief? But also murder?

I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say this much: HH Holmes was a real person, and so was his hotel where he murdered people during the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. My story diverges from the real story, and involves my own personal theory about who was behind the Jack the Ripper killings in 1888 London, and Mary Jane Kelly was also a real person.

HH Holmes apparently named his pseudonym after Sherlock Holmes, so I named my main character after Irene Adler, the only woman to outsmart Holmes.

It's a dark story. The main character has done some things she really regrets, and plans to do more in the pursuit of her good intentions. Such as working with HH Holmes. But at its heart, it's a story about moving on from grief, doing the right thing (or at least, the least bad thing), and not getting so lost in the past that you lose sight of your future.

And I hope you enjoy it.

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