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Michael Sims is our guest blogger during the week of April 13th. If you have any questions for Michael Sims, add a comment to any of his posts.

Here is more information about The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime: Con Artists, Burglars, Rogues, and Scoundrels from the Time of Sherlock Holmes

Read an excerpt here.

An exclusive collection-the first- ever gathering of rogues from the gaslight era.

Collected here for the first time: the best crime fiction from the gaslight era. All the legendary thieves are present--A. J. Raffles, Colonel Clay, Simon Carne, Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, and the Infallible Godahl--burgling London and Paris, conning New York and Ostend, laughing all the way to the bank. Also featured are stories by distinguished writers from outside the mystery and detective genres, including Sinclair Lewis, Arnold Bennett, and William Hope Hodgson.

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To celebrate National Poetry Month, Penguin will continue sharing poems via our Twitter Feed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through the end of April!

Here is a list of the poems we've shared so far:

"The Ruined Maid" by English poet Thomas Hardy

from Penguin Classics collection SELECTED POEMS by Thomas Hardy

Listen: http://song.ly/2y3t

"Origin of the Days" by contemporary African American poet Terrance Hayes

from HIP LOGIC

Listen: http://song.ly/2s74

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When I was twelve I began dreaming of joining the Black Panthers and waging war on white America after I read Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice. That same year I heard the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." and was immediately down with the British working class struggle against whatever it was that was oppressing them.  I loved rebellion, and it didn't matter if there wasn't one exactly tailored to a white kid from a semi-rural part of Ohio. I would make the ones at hand fit. My rebelliousness eventually led to my incarceration in a facility for problem juveniles, and then to my running away.

It was only after I put Hella Nation together that I realized most of my subjects are runaways of one sort or another, from the anarchist kids of "Wingnut's Last Day on Earth" to the couple profiled in "Mad Dogs and Lawyers" who fled their staid lives as San Francisco attorneys to become involved with a member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Even though my own attempt to run away led to personal catastrophe, I still have a feeling for those who are attempting to make the break.

Even as a twelve-year-old, I sensed that my yearning to become a militant Black Panther was not only doomed but ludicrous. At the same time, the call of rebellion was intoxicating. For this reason, I am drawn to rebels of all types, however doomed, ridiculous or even reprehensible the cause. I like rebel stories because for a time at least, I'm able to go on the road to revolution, and at the end of it go home.

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I've been thinking a great deal about urban fantasy tropes the past few months. Can you imagine what it would be like to live with a werewolf? Would he get mad if you insisted on cooking his steak? And what about the shedding? I´m thinking a new vacuum cleaner would be in order. You´d also need to put away the good silver forever. With a vampire, you´d have to keep blood in your fridge and see about finishing the basement, like, yesterday. If you were married to a fairy, you´d have to scour the house from top to bottom and get rid of the iron. I´m looking around my house, realizing it´s not very fairy-friendly at all.  No wonder I haven´t seen any since I´ve been in Mexico. -grin-

For the last four years, I´ve been immersed in another culture. In my daily life, I speak a different language. I do business in Spanish. If I order food, it´s in Spanish. Sometimes I find myself thinking in Spanish. I cuss in Spanish.  The folklore of Mexico is different, too, and it flavored my writing of Blue Diablo. (If you´re interested, you can find some examples here.) As I celebrate the release of Blue Diablo, I am proudest of the fact that I bring something new to the genre. Other people are already doing a brilliant job of exploring vampires, werewolves, and fairies (sometimes all of the above), so I wanted my contribution to the genre to be fresh and different. I´m delighted  to report that most of my ARC readers report they´ve never read anything quite like the Corine Solomon series.