Trust your heart. Follow your dreams. #PNR #ReaderMagnet #MFRWHooks

Happy Wednesday!

I am revamping my mailing list strategy after moving to a new provider. As part of this effort, I’ve selected one of my most popular romances, The Eyes of Bast, as a new reader magnet. Anyone who subscribes to my new mailing list can download copy of this steamy, suspenseful paranormal romance absolutely free!

The new link for my email list is: https://lisabetsarai.eo.page/kqyq4 If you’re a fan of romance with strong heroines and unexpected twists, why not sign up?

Anyway, in the hopes of tempting new readers to join, I’m featuring The Eyes of Bast for today’s MFRW Book Hooks hop. Enjoy!

Blurb

When instinct tells Shaina to visit the feral cat trap she’s set in Central Park, she listens to that inner voice. The sleek black cat she finds has a terrible secret. Tom is an unwilling shape shifter, cursed by a sorceress who craved a human plaything. Shaina vows to defeat the vicious but seductive witch and save the man she believes is her soul mate—though it might mean losing him forever.

Rave Reviews for The Eyes of Bast

The Eyes of Bast is hard to put down once you start reading it. Between highly arousing sex scenes and nail-biting suspense, it'll keep you turning pages until the very satisfying ending. ~ Ria Restrepo, Amazon (5 stars)

What I DO want is extremely hot sex between one man and one woman, and plenty of it, as they fall in love. And WOW! Does this book have that! ~ Fiona McGier, Amazon (5 stars)

Lisabet brings it all together seamlessly: mystery, thriller, paranormal, black magic, shape shifting, smoldering sensuousness, hot, hot sex and a touching love story. This one has it all. Really enjoyed it. ~ Max Lemberger, Amazon (5 stars)

I picked up this novella, meaning to read the first chapter or two in the time I had before I had to be somewhere. Needless to say, I read a lot more than I intended, and I was very late. ~ Cheyenne Blue, Goodreads (5 stars) 

The Hook

I slipped my key into the front door of my building, thinking about ordering Chinese for dinner. All at once, I heard someone call my name. I glanced around. Aside from an old woman walking her golden retriever, the sidewalk was empty.

Weird. But then it had been a weird twenty-four hours.

Go check the old elm.

I swear, the voice was clear as crystal in my mind. Lack of sleep, I told myself. Or stress. The cage is still in my apartment. There won’t be anything there. But the urge to go back just wouldn’t let go.

Trust your instincts. With a sigh, I turned and headed for the park, pulling my mace out of my purse as I walked.

The sky was still light enough for me to see shapes and shadows, even under the trees. As I’d expected, the area beneath the elm was empty, the grass trampled from my previous visit. Of course, no cats revealed themselves. If there were ferals around, they’d be hiding in the underbrush, wary of my scent and the sounds I made, despite my attempts to move quietly.

Tom wasn’t afraid of me. The thought made me ache. He’d been such a gorgeous, affectionate cat. I hoped he was okay.

“Hello.” The voice was male, low and throaty. I jumped and whirled around.

A man stood behind me, a fairly young man with sleek, dark skin and a wide, shy smile. Although his body appeared to be fit and muscular, he held himself in an awkward manner, as if he had some subtle handicap. His arms hung at his sides, his hands clenching and unclenching as though he didn’t quite know what to do with them.

I gripped my mace more tightly. He didn’t appear at all threatening, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

“Um—what are you doing here?”

“Nothing, nothing…” He shrugged and scratched the curly black locks that covered his head. “I heard your voice. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Had I spoken aloud? I returned his smile, still uncertain whether I should trust him. “I’m fine. Just taking a walk.”

“It’s not safe here after dark, you know.”

His earnest tone made me chuckle. I held up the can of mace. “I can take care of myself.”

Worry furrowed his high forehead. “That won’t help against some of the things that come out at night.”

A chill shot through me. I shook it away. “I was just headed home anyway.”

“Good. You should be careful.” His smile returned, melting my last vestiges of suspicion. He pronounced his English with a precision that made me wonder if he spoke something else as his native language. It wasn’t exactly an accent, but I could tell he wasn’t a native New Yorker.

“What about you?”

“Oh, I know my way around here,” he answered. He ran his fingers through his curls and arched his back a bit, as though stretching. Despite that odd awkwardness, he was lithe and graceful. A brief pang of desire shot through me. “And I have excellent night vision. Exceptionally sharp hearing too.”

I couldn’t figure out why, but something about him felt familiar. “Have we met before?” I asked then cringed, realizing it sounded like a pick-up line. “I mean…um… I don’t mean…” Hot blood climbed into my cheeks, though the shadows were probably too dense for him to detect my discomfort.

His bold laugh rang out in the growing darkness. “Maybe we have met,” he said. “I live in the neighborhood. Do you?”

“Pretty close,” I answered, alarm bells sounding in my head. No matter how handsome and charming he was, I wasn’t about to give him my address.

“Well, then, you never know. You said you were heading home. May I walk with you?”

“Um… Actually…”

He took my arm without waiting for my permission.

Find the buy links for this book at https://www.lisabetsarai.com/eyesofbastbook.html

Be sure to visit the other authors participating in today’s Book Hooks!

Snag the first Accidental Detective novel absolutely free! #CozyMystery #FreeBook #SuperSeries

In The Accidental Detective humorous mystery series by Kris Bock, a witty journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning fifty.

Something Shady at Sunshine Haven is FREE at all e-book retailers for limited time (US/UK/CA)! Also, book 2 is 99 cents, book 3 is 1.99, book 4 is 2.99, book 5 is 3.99. It’s a great time to pick up the first five books for under ten dollars!

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“Kris has done a wonderful job providing a suspenseful mystery for the reader to help solve, as well as shared some interesting and quirky characters.”

Something Shady at Sunshine Haven: When patients are dying at an Alzheimer’s unit, a former war correspondent must use her journalism skills to uncover the killer and save her mother. Kate has followed the most dangerous news stories around the world, but can she survive going home?

With humor and high stakes, The Accidental Detective mysteries prove that danger and friendship don’t retire quietly.

Excerpt

Kate has just returned home to Arizona. She finds an urgent message waiting for her, from Heather, a high school acquaintance who is now the director of the nursing home where Kate’s mother resides. After visiting her mother, Kate joins Heather in her office.

“I have a problem,” she said.

I tensed. “About Mom?”

“Oh, no, she’s delightful, very popular with the staff and the other patients.” Heather shuffled some papers on her desk. “No, this is . . . something else.” She glanced at the closed door, leaned forward, and lowered her voice. “Can I tell you something in confidence?”

My journalism senses, dormant and neglected for weeks, gave a faint tingle before subsiding in exhaustion.

“It depends. I won’t spread gossip. I hardly know anyone around here to tell.” I smiled. “But if you confess to murdering someone, I’ll have to report you.”

“Ha. Nothing like that. I hope.”

I stared at her. “You’d better tell me what’s bothering you. If I can keep it a secret in good conscience, I will.”

Her hands clenched on her desk. “I need to know that you’re not here as a reporter.”

I nodded and settled back into the chair with the trustworthy expression I’d mastered. Or possibly I simply looked tired. “This is off the record. I’m on leave anyway.”

“Okay.” She spread her fingers and pressed her hands on the desk. “Two of my patients died last week.”

My stomach churned. People came to this place for the ends of their lives. My mother . . .

Shut down that thought. Snap into journalist mode.

It was more of an ooze than a snap, but I found a logical question. “Is that unusual?”

“Most of my patients are going to die here eventually, except those in the short-term care wing. Still, people can live for years with Alzheimer’s and dementia, if they are otherwise healthy.” Now she had the soothing, professional voice she’d no doubt perfected on hundreds of patients’ families. “Our usual turnover is one every month or two.”

“Two in a week could be a normal variation then.” Good. I sounded calm, even if part of my mind still ran in circles screaming, “No! Not my mommy!” I cleared my throat and asked, “Was something suspicious about these deaths?”

She sighed. “Not exactly. I mean, they were old, but both women were in reasonable health and died suddenly. One complained of stomach pains and vomited a few times. The other seemed unusually weak and confused, according to the nurse who gave her medicine that evening. With Alzheimer’s patients, it can be hard to identify a separate illness from the normal disease progression.” Her voice wavered. “They were both dead by morning.”

“The vomiting could be food poisoning. That can kill a person in poor health.”

“These two incidents were a week apart, and no one else got sick either time. With food poisoning, you’d expect a wider outbreak.”

I frowned. “What was the cause of death?”

“Officially, heart failure. We file death certificates, but unless the death is clearly questionable, no one would order an autopsy.” She clenched her hands together. “One more thing. Two weeks ago, another woman got very ill, yet she recovered. Now she’s fine. No one else in the unit got sick at the same time and we don’t know what she had.”

“Food poisoning seems unlikely with three patients sick that far apart,” I admitted.

“One of these cases alone wouldn’t worry me, but the three of them together . . .”

Alarm bells clamored in my mind. Was I reacting as a reporter or as a daughter? I dragged in slow, deep breaths to force back the nausea and become the logical, skeptical correspondent. I’d covered stories where hundreds or even thousands of people had died in natural disasters or acts of war. Two old women dying in a nursing home wasn’t much of a story.

Except that my mother was now an old woman living in a nursing home. “What exactly do you suspect?”

“I’m probably being paranoid. But once in a while, you hear stories about a nurse or aide who decides the people in their care would be better off if they didn’t have to suffer any more.” She looked away and whispered, “How could I forgive myself if more people died because I wasn’t willing to ask questions?”

“Have you talked to the police?”

“Definitely not.” Her eyes pleaded with me. “It would be disastrous for the home. People would want to remove their parents and spouses. Even if these deaths were perfectly natural, the rumors would destroy us. I can’t do nothing, but I also can’t put the entire operation at risk over a vague possibility.”

I couldn’t argue with that. The press would love a story about a murdering caregiver, and a false rumor could taint a business for years. I suspected I knew the answer, but I asked, “What exactly do you want from me?”

“I’d like you to investigate. You’re a journalist, you know how to find out things, and I trust you more than some random private detective. I want you to learn what happened, which hopefully will put my mind to rest. Am I being paranoid, or is someone killing my patients?”

Find The Accidental Detective humorous mystery series at all major retailers.

Kris Bock writes mystery, suspense, and romance, often with smart, snarky heroines finding adventure (sometimes against their will) in the Southwest. She lives in New Mexico where she enjoys hiking with her spouse and playing with their ferrets. 

 

In the Tales of a Reluctant Psychic mystery series, a quirky loner who can read the history of any object with her touch gets drawn into mysteries at the museum of oddities where she works. Kris’s romantic suspense novels include stories of treasure hunting, archaeology, and intrigue. Readers have called these novels “Smart romance with an Indiana Jones feel.”

Learn more about Kris and her books at the Kris Bock website. Get a free cat café sweet romance novella, mystery stories, recipes, and more when you sign up for the Kris Bock newsletter.