Like most people, I’m a huge fan of Jordan L Hawk’s Whyborne & Griffin series. The socially inept scholar-sorcerorWhyborne and his detective lover are one of m/m’s most unusual and delightful pairs, falling in love as they investigate occult mysteries and take on unearthly cults in late 1890s America. I adore the combination of sexiness and spookiness, the period feel, the wonderfully Lovecraft-tweaking atmosphere of the town of Widdershins and the brilliantly researched Egyptology. They’re fun.

But Whyborne and Griffin aren’t the only gay Victorian occult detectives on the block.I’m a massive nerd for 19^th-century pulp fiction, and I’ve been writing stories myself, about the ghost-hunter Simon Feximal and his sidekick, narrator and lover Robert Caldwell, solving supernatural problems by fairly unconventional means in late 1890s England.

Occult detectives. Identical period.Both of us happily queering our countries’ respective traditions of cosmic horror.Uh-oh.

And then Jordan decided to take her heroes to Egypt for Necropolis (Whyborne& Griffin 4)– which meant they’d be stopping off in London. Turning up on Simon Feximal’s turf.My turf.

Well, that was always going to get nasty…

When Whyborne and Griffin arrive in London, they clash head-first with Simon and Robert, who are investigating a series of terrible occult deaths with an ancient Egyptian flavour. I think it’s fair to say that some of our heroes enjoy subsequent events more than others.

Remnant is a free novella (because we love you), narrated in alternating chapters by Percival Endicott Whyborne and Robert Caldwell. It’s set a few months after the events of Stormhaven(Whyborne& Griffin 3) and a few years after Butterflies. It will be available on 11 March from Smashwordsand Are, and we hope readers have as much fun with it as we did.

London, 1899. The beautiful people are dying…

A malevolent power is attacking London’s bright young things, and the only clue to what’s happening is written in ancient Egyptian script. As ghost-hunter Simon Feximal and his companion Robert Caldwell investigate the mysterious deaths, the arrival in London of a notorious scholar-sorcerer seems to hold the answer to more than one of their problems.

Dr Percival Endicott Whyborne and his lover Griffin Flaherty are on their way to Egypt. But their quiet break in London turns dramatic when they encounter the hostile ghost-hunter who suspects the worst of Whyborne – and his flirtatious sidekick, who seems to think a great deal too well of Griffin…

Jordan L Hawk’s heroes Whyborne and Griffin meet KJ Charles’ occult detectives from the Secret Casebook of Simon Feximalstories in a mystery that takes all four through the decadent underworld of Victorian London in pursuit of an ancient and deadly evil.

Jordan L Hawk is the author of the Whyborne& Griffin series (Widdershins, Eidolon, Threshold, Stormhaven) as well as the SPECTR series. KJ Charles is the author of the Charm of Magpies series (The Magpie Lord, A Case of Possession). The second Simon Feximal story, Butterflies, is also available as a free download.