$.99 sale 5/25-30: A romantic mystery:
When Audra finds a murdered woman, she’ll have to stand up for herself to help
the victim. It’s a risk, as is trusting the mysterious man who works with
deadly birds of prey. But with danger all around, some risks are worth taking. 4.3 star average with 23 Amazon customer reviews.
Finding a dead body changes a person.
22-year-old Audra Needham is
back in her small New Mexico hometown. She just wants to fit in, work
hard, and help her younger brother. Going for a walk in the woods with her
former crush, Jay, seems like a harmless distraction.
Until they stumble on a body.
Jay, who has secrets of his
own to protect, insists they walk away and keep quiet. But Audra can't simply
forget what she's seen. The woman deserves to be found, and her story deserves
to be told.
More than one person isn't
happy about Audra bringing a crime to life. The dead woman was murdered, and Audra
could be next on the vengeful killer's list. She’ll have to stand up for
herself in order to stand up for the murder victim. It’s a risk, and so is
reaching out to the mysterious young man who works with deadly birds of prey. With
her 12-year-old brother determined to play detective, and romance budding in
the last place she expected, Audra learns that some risks are worth taking – no
matter the danger, to her body or her heart.
“Another action-packed suspense novel by Kris Bock, perhaps
her best to-date. The author weaves an intriguing tale with appealing
characters. Watching Audra, the main character, evolve into an
emotionally-mature and independent young woman is gratifying.” Reader Ellen R.
Inspiration for the Book
A couple of years ago, I met a local falconer. I tagged
along on hunts, as he released a falcon after homing pigeons on a cold winter
morning or let a hawk chase rabbits on a spring afternoon. (For those of you
who are squeamish, the birds of prey don’t succeed as often as you might
expect, but they get exercise.) I visited the falconer’s home to see newly
hatched hawks and falcons. I even wrote an article about him and
his birds for a local publication.
Raising falcons is an intense, time-consuming, and expensive
hobby, so I don’t plan to get into falconry myself. But as an author, I could
do the next best thing – I could write about it.
In What We Found, a young woman
stumbles on a dead body in the woods. Audra gets drawn into the investigation,
but more than one person isn’t happy about her bringing a murder to light.
Fortunately, she has some allies, including her brainy 12-year-old brother and
self-appointed sidekick, Ricky; a sophisticated Navajo coworker, Nascha; and
her goofy but loyal boss, Eslinda. And because this is suspense with a dose of
romance, she has a love interest – Kyle, a mysterious young man who happens to
be the brother of the murder victim.
Kyle is recovering from physical and psychological wounds he
received during military service. He finds some peace helping his grandmother,
Nancy, work with the falcons and hawks she keeps. Audra gets her first tour of
the aviary from Nancy:
A beautiful bird sat on a perch.
I couldn’t identify different kinds of falcons and hawks, but this was clearly
a bird of prey, with a sharply hooked beak and long claws on the yellow feet.
It was only about a foot high, but the tiny black eyes rimmed with yellow had a
fierce look, warning that this was not a cuddly pet.
“This is Lucy,” Nancy said. “She’s a peregrine falcon, an old
girl like me. She was a rescue.” The bird turned her head and shrieked, her
little pink tongue visible in the open mouth. Nancy ran the back of her fingers down the
bird’s breast.
I’d never been this close to a
falcon before. She had beautiful coloring, dark brown on the head and back,
with a white throat that gave way to a mottled pattern of cream and brown on
the breast. I had the urge to reach out and stroke her like Nancy had, but I wasn’t sure the bird would
take that from strangers, and anyway it seemed rude.
I drew closer and could tell one
wing was different, part of it missing. I got a sudden image of Kyle and
wondered if Nancy took in injured creatures of all kinds. “Are all your birds
rescued?”
“No, but several are. Once I had
birds, people knew me as ‘The Bird Lady’ and started bringing me injured birds.”
She smiled at the falcon and I could feel the connection between the two of
them. “In the summer, the hunting seasons are closed and the birds are molting.
You can’t fly the birds, so I started breeding them. I think it’s good for
their health, to pair up.”
That made me think of Mom. I was
reading symbolism into everything.
The falcons are realistically portrayed in What We Found, so they don’t help solve
the crime or anything like that. But the falconry aspect helped me develop
thematic elements of the story, added some unusual action, and provided readers
with insight into an usual pastime. One reader wrote, “The falconry aspect was
almost as intriguing as the unveiling of the murderer!”
Writers hope to create characters readers will love.
Secondary characters – villains, love interests, sidekicks, friends and family
and others – can make the story world feel real, add tension and complications,
and provide comic relief. They can also allow the main character to express
herself in different situations and with different kinds of people, thus
letting readers get to know her better. Each story requires a different cast of
characters, but I like to include strong female friends, a gentle hero, a few
quirky minor characters, and fascinating animals – wild or otherwise – if they
fit.
For another aspect of the book, read the real story of our
accidental involvement in a murder case, the experience that inspired What We Found, in a guest
post on Digital Book Today.
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