Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Kris Bock to HJ!
Hi Kris Bock and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, A Stone Cold Murder!
To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:
Petra Cloch has the psychic ability of psychometry – she can glimpse the history of an
object by touching it. She’s starting a new job at a museum full of peculiar collections
and odder people. She wants to settle into this small town quietly, without letting anyone
know about the paranormal senses that have already cost her most of her family and
friends.
Everyone says her predecessor at the museum died when he had a heart attack and his car
ran off the road. But as Petra is cleaning out his office, she picks up a slab of jagged
crystals and gets flashes of rage, fear, and death. How can she convince anyone else that
the car crash might not have been an accident? She’ll have to learn more about the victim
and who might have wanted him dead.
Please share your favorite lines or quote(s) from this book:
We all have secrets. Mostly not big secrets. Petty stuff like bad habits or pleasures we’ve
been told are shameful. Biting one’s nails, or preferring the remake to the original song.
What inspired this book?
I’ve read mysteries with characters who have psychometry and felt they made it sound
too easy. I think it would be pretty unpleasant to touch something and feel people’s
emotions.
That got me thinking. What might one do to avoid having to touch anything that might
carry memories? When would you tell people about your gift/curse? Too soon, and they
may dismiss you as lying or nutty. Too late, and you’ve invaded their privacy, unless you
can avoid touching anything where they’ve left emotions.
I decided Petra would have a lot of pets, so she can get comfort without socializing with
people. She studied geology because rocks typically haven’t been handled a lot and don’t
carry emotions. I set the series in New Mexico, where I live, but in an even smaller town
loosely based on Fort Sumner, with the museum inspired by the Billy the Kid Museum
there.
How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?
If Petra touches a watch or ring someone has worn for years, she can sense the wearer’s
personality and what they care about most. It feels rude, like spying on people, so she
avoids close relationships except with her many pets.
Her new job is supposed to focus on the rocks and minerals wing of a peculiar private
museum. Then she touches an object used as a murder weapon and senses the emotions
of the killer and the killed – but that doesn’t mean she can identify the killer. If she
doesn’t want murderers to go free, she has to find evidence beyond the psychic senses she
hides, which means (shudder) talking to people.
Petra hides herself so much that it was hard to get to know her in some ways. I think
she’s still figuring out some things. She’s convinced herself she can never have a
romantic relationship, but maybe that will change. She ends the book with new friends
and is developing a “found family,” which she never expected either.
What was your favorite scene to write?
I wrote this opening scene in an attempt to figure out Petra’s voice. I wanted the series to have some humor, but could a character who is pretty isolated, repressed, and antisocial
also be funny? I think I found a darker humor that worked.
It’s no fun sorting through the belongings of a dead man. I assume that’s true for
most people, except maybe antique dealers or historians. But I think it’s worse for me.
That’s not because I’m a narcissist. (As far as I know. I admit I’ve never been
tested.) It’s because of my psychometry. It might sound cool to pick up vibrations left
behind on objects, giving me glimpses of the items’ histories. But I didn’t want to know
more about the man who’d had my job before me. Everything so far suggested Reggie
Heap was an ordinary man who had more chest pains and heart palpitations than he let
on. I might have warned him to get that checked out, if he hadn’t already died of a
massive heart attack that killed him even before his car ran off a mountain road.
It was my office now, and I needed to scrub away all traces of the former occupant.
Does that sound harsh? I’ve lived with this gift, or curse, for thirty years, and I had to
control it or it would drive me insane. I mean that literally, and not in the My head
literally exploded actually figurative sense. Think about it like this: It might sound cool to
have telepathy, if you assume you could choose when and where to use it. But imagine if
you had to hear every thought of every person nearby.Yeah, you’d probably just stay home.
What was the most difficult scene to write?
Writing the scenes where Petra uses psychometry was challenging because I had to figure
out how her sense works and what it looks, sounds, and feel like to her. It’s even harder
when she’s reading something unpleasant!
I took some deep breaths, stretched and flexed my tight hands, fought against my
instincts to pull back, and smacked my palm down on the spot of blood.Peyton had given me boxes for packing up Reggie Heap’s stuff. I grabbed an empty
one and started loading rocks and minerals into it. I’d definitely keep the frothy, seafoam-
green Smithsonite. Maybe not the stringy bit of copper, which was interesting but not all
that pretty.A sample as big as two fists together was made up of cubic crystals in a lovely shade
of lilac. Some marks showed where small pieces had broken off, which might be why it
was in the office instead of on display. Fluorite, with some impurities to give it the purple
shade? Tests could confirm that, but I wouldn’t need them if it was properly labeled.
I picked it up with both hands.Rage. The desire to hurt.
Fear. An explosion of pain. Panic dissolving into darkness.
I staggered and dropped the mineral. When my vision cleared, I was leaning against
the desk with both hands pressing down on it. Fortunately, I’d dropped the crystal cluster
on the desk and not my foot. It would have been hard to explain breaking my foot in that
manner.But not as difficult as explaining why I thought these crystals had been used as a
weapon.
Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?
I write nonfiction and fiction for all ages, so my writing varies quite a bit. (I write for
children as Chris Eboch and mystery and romance for adults as Kris Bock.) My style
overall is brisk with dry humor, so this fits in that sense.
What do you want people to take away from reading this book?
Mainly I want people to have fun!
Petra learns things about herself in the series. She has to decide when to risk trusting
others, when to let them see who she really is. I think and hope a lot of readers will
identify with that. We’re works in progress and often still figuring ourselves out all
throughout life.
What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?
Books two and three in this series are done. Death at Rock Bottom: A Reluctant Psychic
Murder Mystery Book 2 is scheduled for July 30, and book 3 for next year.
I don’t have any other novels scheduled, and I’m enjoying the break. I have a book I’m
ghostwriting, and I’m catching up on things. Then I might start a weird Sherlock Holmes
project I think will be fun.
Thanks for blogging at HJ!
Giveaway: An ebook copy of A STONE COLD MURDER + one additional Tule ebook of the winner’s choice
To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Do you believe in psychic powers? Do you have any psychic gifts yourself?
Excerpt from A Stone Cold Murder:
Chapter One
It’s no fun sorting through the belongings of a dead man. I assume that’s true for most people, except maybe antique dealers or historians. But I think it’s worse for me.
That’s not because I’m a narcissist. (As far as I know. I admit I’ve never been tested.) It’s because of my psychometry. It might sound cool to pick up vibrations left behind on objects, giving me glimpses of the items’ histories. But I didn’t want to know more about the man who’d had my job before me. Everything so far suggested Reggie Heap was an ordinary man who had more chest pains and heart palpitations than he let on. I might have warned him to get that checked out, if he hadn’t already died of a massive heart attack that killed him even before his car ran off a mountain road.
It was my office now, and I needed to scrub away all traces of the former occupant. Does that sound harsh? I’ve lived with this gift, or curse, for thirty years, and I had to control it or it would drive me insane. I mean that literally, and not in the My head literally exploded actually figurative sense. Think about it like this: It might sound cool to have telepathy, if you assume you could choose when and where to use it. But imagine if you had to hear every thought of every person nearby.
Yeah, you’d probably just stay home.
Otherwise you might, oh, see a vision of your dad kissing someone who is not your mom, and accidentally destroy your parents’ marriage at age five, just as an example. Or have your junior high friends pressure you to psychically spy on the boys they like to see if their feelings are returned. How about having word of your ability spread around high school, so everyone either thinks you’re a liar or is afraid to let you touch them or anything they’ve touched?
I had to work my way through eight years of part-time college doing landscaping, because waiting tables or working retail would bring me into too much contact with strangers’ items, and the constant barrage of information is exhausting, even when the information is tedious and unimportant. Psychometry has done very little good in my life so far.
Not being independently wealthy, or even aloofly middle class, I couldn’t just stay home. I was about as far from a people person as one could be, so I needed a job that paid well enough that I could live alone, just me and my pets (ten at the current count). Ideally, the job wouldn’t bring me into contact with a lot of other people or their stuff. I hoped I had that job now, working in a small museum in a tiny town in a state with something like twenty people per square mile.
Being a museum curator gave me a nice excuse to wear white cotton gloves, although it might seem strange to do so while clearing the desk of family photos and stray pens. Fortunately, no one was around to ask. I didn’t like wearing gloves though. I didn’t want any information from my touch, but I felt oddly clumsy, like trying to clean a dimly lit room while wearing dark glasses.
I’d boxed up all the personal items, so it seemed safe to take off the gloves. I glanced at the four tall filing cabinets, which had decades of records of purchases and donations. Sorting through them would give me a good idea of what the collection held as well as a chance to make sure everything was properly filed. That would take days though, and it could wait. I started rubbing the desk down with a cleaning wipe.
Someone appeared in the doorway and said, “Knock, knock.”
“Hello.” I straightened, keeping the wipe in my right hand. I try to keep my hands full when I meet new people to discourage handshaking, but it doesn’t always work. I dislike shaking hands, but not because of the psychometry. It’s because I’ve read the statistics on how many people don’t wash their hands after using the restroom.
He strode in and thrust out his hand. “I’m Kit Carson.” He looked about midthirties, with brown hair and a thick brown beard that hung halfway down his chest.
I dropped the wipe and offered my hand a bit warily. I was confident I wasn’t meeting the nineteenth-century frontiersman, but did he know that?
His handshake was firm, and he wore no rings that might give me an unwanted jolt of insight. He had a nice smile and long-lashed brown eyes that seemed ready to laugh. “Kit Carson Banditt, that is.”
“Oh. You must be Peyton’s . . .” Son or grandson? The museum’s founder and owner was well into his seventies, so it could go either way.
“Grandson. I give tours, work in the office, and cover the front counter sometimes. Welcome to the Banditt Museum.”
He gave my hand another squeeze. He’d held it for a weirdly long time, and believe me, I know all about weird. As far as the psychometry, I don’t get that much information from touching someone’s skin. Maybe a sense of their mood, but no more than you could get from studying facial expressions. But sometimes handshaking brings me into contact with a ring, watch, or sleeve. Emotions and memories seem to cling to inanimate objects longer, for some reason. Then I might learn that the boss at my temp job had not been on an important phone call for the last hour but rather having video sex with his boyfriend.
Okay, maybe my dislike of shaking hands did have to do with the psychometry. I really don’t care what other people do, but I don’t want to know about it. Also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, please wash your hands.
I withdrew my hand and tried to make my smile politely impersonal. “Thank you. I’m looking forward to getting settled in.”
“If you get lost, just holler and someone will come find you.” He chuckled, but the museum was a maze. Peyton had escorted me to my office, but I gave it about a twenty percent chance that I could find my way back to the entrance without at least three wrong turns. “Dad said you’re an expert on rocks, but you ought to learn about all the other stuff we have here too. I’d be happy to show you around.”
My nerves pulsed. “Peyton said I’d only have to work with the rocks and minerals, not the other artifacts.”
I studied geology because rocks are quiet. They tell stories, in the layers of sand and pebbles deposited by seasonal floods, the crystal size that identifies plutonic versus other volcanic rocks, the clamshells and crinoids that prove some mountains were once underwater. But they don’t shout with grief or anger or fear, the way human artifacts can. I’d taken the curator job with the understanding that I’d only have to work in my wing.
Kit shrugged. “If that’s what interests you. But you might get questions from visitors, so it’s good to know what else is here and how to find it. I have to tell you, the mineral wing isn’t that popular. Most people only plan to stop at the museum for an hour or two, so by the time they get all the way back here, they’ve already spent more time than they planned and they’re anxious to hit the road.”
That sounded fine to me, but if I wanted to keep this job, I probably shouldn’t tell the owner’s grandson that I’d be happy to be left alone in the least popular section. I doubted I’d had much competition for the position, since the job didn’t pay well, and most people wouldn’t want to move to a town of 2000 people in New Mexico. But rent was cheap, I didn’t care about access to the cafés and clubs you’d find in big cities, and there weren’t a lot of job openings for geologists with bachelor’s degrees who didn’t want to go into oil, gas, or mining or substitute teach high school science.
“I’ll try to update the collection to make it more appealing,” I said. “I can’t promise it will be the first stop for passing tourists, but maybe we’ll give them a reason to make a longer stop on the way back.”
“I wish you well, but I imagine the outlaws and lawmen will always be most popular.” He smiled with the smug satisfaction of someone with job security. “If you’re not a fan now, you will be once you hear the stories. All true!”
“Well, maybe I’ll pick up a book from the gift shop.”
He gave a derisive huff. “No need. I know everything there is to know, and I’m happy to share. We could talk over lunch sometime.” He winked. “I like to think I’m more entertaining than a book written by some scholar.”
“I’m sure,” I said neutrally.
I wasn’t sure if Kit was flirting, trying to relieve his boredom, or just aggressively friendly. If he led tours, he probably had to be outgoing and cheerful with strangers. The museum’s survival depended on tourists, so they’d want to give people a great experience. Peyton had told me that most of the Banditt Museum’s customers were people driving across country on Route 60. They looked for interesting places to stop for an hour or so in order to break up the drive, and the museum had good reviews. Visitors came for the stories and artifacts relating to the Wild West and, according to Peyton, often stayed for hours to explore all the little treasures in the sprawling, mazelike building and still left wishing they’d allowed more time for the visit.
I hoped Kit was this friendly with everyone. I had zero interest in dating, especially a coworker. It’s too awkward with the psychometry. I don’t want to tell someone I just met about it, because they’ll think I’m crazy or lying. Or if they believe me, they back off because my ability is creepy. But if I wait until we get closer to tell them, it’s like I’m invading their privacy up to that point. People don’t like thinking you know things about them they haven’t told you.
I glanced around the tiny office. “Well, I have lots to do here. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Sure thing.” He left with a cheerful wave.
I relaxed a little. He didn’t seem offended by the brushoff, and he could take a hint. Or else he hadn’t noticed the hint and would be persistently pesty.
I looked around the office. Besides the desk and file cabinets, it had wooden shelves along one wall. They held some rather nice geologic samples, though presumably not quite nice enough to make the main collection. I picked up a piece of smoky quartz. A prism, longer than my hand, thrust up like an obelisk from a cluster of smaller crystals at the base. A little label on the bottom confirmed my identification, while a clean spot on the shelf showed how much dust had piled up around the samples.
I might as well clean the shelf and its displays. While I was at it, I could check all the labels so if anyone asked about the specimens, I’d sound like I knew what I was talking about. The easiest way to clean rocks is to run them under gently flowing water, as long as they’re not made up of minerals that dissolve easily. The museum might have an outside hose. It would take a few trips, but I could carry several specimens in a box at once.
Peyton had given me boxes for packing up Reggie Heap’s stuff. I grabbed an empty one and started loading rocks and minerals into it. I’d definitely keep the frothy, seafoam-green Smithsonite. Maybe not the stringy bit of copper, which was interesting but not all that pretty.
A sample as big as two fists together was made up of cubic crystals in a lovely shade of lilac. Some marks showed where small pieces had broken off, which might be why it was in the office instead of on display. Fluorite, with some impurities to give it the purple shade? Tests could confirm that, but I wouldn’t need them if it was properly labeled.
I picked it up with both hands.
Rage. The desire to hurt.
Fear. An explosion of pain. Panic dissolving into darkness.
I staggered and dropped the mineral. When my vision cleared, I was leaning against the desk with both hands pressing down on it. Fortunately, I’d dropped the crystal cluster on the desk and not my foot. It would have been hard to explain breaking my foot in that manner.
But not as difficult as explaining why I thought these crystals had been used as a weapon.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Book Info:
She hates her gift – but it just might save her…
Geologist Petra Cloch can touch an object and sense the emotions of the people who’ve held it. It’s a miserable way to live. She studied rocks because they rarely ‘talk’ to her and she’s dodged friendships so she won’t need to explain her gift or feel like a voyeur. But when she takes a job as the rock and mineral curator at an unusual western history museum and picks up a jagged crystal in her new office, flashes of rage, fear and death hit hard.
Everyone says her predecessor died in a car crash, but what if he was murdered? Under normal circumstances, Petra would never become involved, but what if the previous curator died because of something he did on the job? She could be next. Petra knows she’ll need evidence, not her psychic sense she hides. Can she trust her chatty colleagues who invite her to lunch and to join a book club? And what about the far too watchful Sheriff who keeps showing up unexpectedly…
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Meet the Author:
Kris Bock writes romance, mystery, and suspense. Learn more about Kris and her books at the Kris Bock website. Get a free cat café novella, mystery stories, recipes, and more when you sign up for the Kris Bock newsletter.
In Kris’s mystery series, the Accidental Detective, a witty journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning fifty. This humorous series starts with Something Shady at Sunshine Haven. Her romantic suspense novels include stories of treasure hunting, archaeology, and intrigue. Readers have called these novels “Smart romance with an Indiana Jones feel.”
As for romance, in the Accidental Billionaire Cowboys series, a Texas ranching family wins a fortune in the lottery, which causes as many problems as it solves. Kris’s Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series features the employees and customers at a cat café falling in love with each other and shelter cats. Kris also writes a series with her brother, scriptwriter Douglas J Eboch, who wrote the original screenplay for the movie Sweet Home Alabama. The Felony Melanie series follows the crazy antics of Melanie, Jake, and their friends a decade before the events of the movie. Sign up for the romantic comedy newsletter to get a short story preview.
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