A Stoop to a Rake

A Stoop to a Rake is the sixteenth in a series of Queen of Gondal books and is a quasi-historical AU of the BBC Sherlock series set (more or less) in three fantasy kingdoms devised by the Bronte children. You might like to refer to their suggested reading order, family trees & series information.

Charis plays a dangerous game and realises too late that the stakes are far higher than she imagined. Now only her wits, her nerve and her gambler’s instincts stand between her and the Pretender’s plans for the three kingdoms. And she is very far into enemy territory, and feels so very, very alone.

Warnings: The author chooses not to warn.

Advisory: The time period is the late seventeenth century and readers should bear in mind that this saga contains the doings of a set of supremely dysfunctional more-or-less European Royal families steeped in the “divine right of kings” ideology of monarchy, filtered through an early nineteenth century Romantic/Gothick sensibility and then depicted using the freedom of expression afforded by the early twenty-first century internet.

Furthermore, if the Greek myths contemplated it, some member of the Royal houses of Gondal, Angria or Gaaldine has probably put it into practice somewhere.

Gentle reader, consider yourself advised accordingly.

Acknowledgements:
As every, thanks to caulkhead for betaing and shezan for invaluable suggestions as to tension building.

The original central cover image is based upon a photograph of the painting ‘Jagdfalke. Öl auf Leinwand’ by an anonymous Italian follower of Gentile Bellini in the 17th century. The fonts used in this book are from the Source Serif Pro font family by Frank Grießhammer.

The images and fonts were used under license detailed on their respective website pages at the date of this book publication.

As usual, Russ from shoes for industry designed the book cover, produced the books and compiled the on-line work.

The opinions, prejudices, faults and spelling herein are all my own work, and I apologise in advance for them.

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This novella is rated Teen (15). You might also like to consider other books set in the Sherlock fandom or read more books in the Queen of Gondal series.

- First Edition: 15th Nov 2014
- 2nd Edition: 12th Apr 2021

This work is created as a transformative work on a not-for-profit basis. All rights in the underlying properties are those of their respective holders.