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Legendary explorer Gullivar Jones joins British spies Abigail Bradshaw and Archibald Smart to find the Fountain of Youth before Hitler or Stalin can use its fabled waters to create armies of immortal soldiers.
GULLIVAR JONES AND THE TREASURE OF THE TSAR is my latest read, now FREE during this month's BookFunnel promo, Adventures to Start the Holiday. Authors aboard are offering eight FREE novels for your reading adventure.
Gullivar Jones first appeared in Edwin Lester Arnold’s pioneering 1905 pulp novel, Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation.Â
Part hapless tourist, part intrepid explorer, Lieutenant Jones risks all to protect a Martian princess, Heru, his guileless enthusiasm, duty to country, and gentlemanly heroics shining every step, lurch, and leap of the way.
In this new adventure set thirty years later, retired Captain Jones -- now in his early fifties -- and two British agents race to find the Fountain of Youth.
The only link to the Fountain’s location is a 1914 expedition shrouded in such secrecy, Jones and company must travel the globe seeking obscure clues. The expedition’s leader, Tsar Nicholas II, needed the water to cure his hemophiliac son Alexei, while assuring the malevolent mystic Rasputin never learned of its powerful secrets.
Though Edwin Arnold never penned another book, Gullivar Jones became a trailblazer, inspiring Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels and his own Mars-based swashbuckler, John Carter. Jones has made a few appearances since, as he and his story are in the public domain.
Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I featured Gullivar Jones in this novel as part nod to his century-old history, and part humorous take on an illustrious family of explorers.
Gullivar is a super-likable action hero, with just enough edges to get the job done, but not so macho that he overshadows his partners, the villains, and even the story itself. Abby and Archie, the two British agents Gullivar teams up with, are strong personalities in their own right -- Abby wise, witty, and wonderful; Archie a genius who speaks ten languages and knows everything about, well, everything.
The villains -- and there are plenty -- include real-life Nazi doctors, a fictional Soviet double agent and her hulking, one-eyed henchman, and a Jones family friend turned sinister Dr. Moreau type blinded by visions of scientific immortality.Â
The story begins in the present day, after an online DNA test reveals a long-lost member of the Jones family.
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