The House on Crow Mountain
by Rebecca Lee Smith
GENRE: Mystery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
When
her aunt suffers a stroke, New York portrait artist Emory Austen returns home
to the North Carolina mountains to mend fences and deal with the guilt over her
husband’s senseless death. But that won’t be as easy as she hoped.
Someone in the quirky
little town doesn’t like Emory. Is it the sexy architect who needs the Austen
land to redeem himself? The untrustworthy matriarch? The grudge-bearing local
bad boy? Or the teenage bombshell who has raised snooping to an art form? Even
the local evangelist has something to hide. Who wrote the cryptic note warning
her to “Give it back or you’ll be dead?” And what is ‘it’? As the clues pile up
and secrets are exposed, Emory must discover what her family has that someone
would kill for.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT:
The piecrust table still sat upside down where it had come
sailing through the window the night before. Inside the house, bloodstains from
Henry's wounded shoulder streaked across the floor, the oak hall tree lay on
its side like a coffin, and one of the oil lamps had been shattered. Everyone
said it was a miracle the place hadn't caught fire.
I wrapped my good arm around the wooden porch post and gazed
across the meadow at the brilliant azure sky. One lone crow soared overhead. A
harbinger of death or a good luck sign? Its glossy black feathers reflected off
the sun. The bird dipped across the horizon, leading with its sharp pointed
beak, riding the breeze up and down before disappearing behind the woods I had
run for my life in the night before. In the morning light, the deadly thistles
were invisible, blending in with the tall grass to cunningly disguise their
razor-sharp leaves.
James climbed the steps and stood beside me. “Are you ready
for this?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
I raked my fingers through my short curls, the same curls he
had washed so carefully in the sink at the Thompson Motor Lodge. He held out
his bandaged hand, blistered to the bone from holding Daisy's rope, and I took
it.
Sheriff Riley rounded the corner of the house. “We've found
something.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Talking with author Rebecca Lee Smith!
What
is your writing environment?
I either
write in a sunroom flooded with light or on a little table in the corner
bedroom where it is cozy and quiet (unless someone opens the garage door). I am
finding that if I switch up where I write once in a while, the change in
scenery gives me a different mindset. It also helps me stay off Facebook and
focus on the manuscript.
What
is your writing process?
I’m not
much of an outliner, but you have to plan things when you’re plotting a mystery
or you get in trouble really fast. I’m a very linear writer, so after I get all
the particulars figured out (setting, major characters, motives) I just start
at the beginning and keep going. I do use the corkboard/3X5 card feature on
Scrivener to keep my timeline straight and move scenes around if I need to. But
that is all I use Scrivener for. I still write in Word, even though
Microsoft Word and I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship.
What
authors have caught your interest lately and why?
I
started reading Ann Cleeves during the pandemic. She writes cozies but also the
Vera Stanhope and Shetland crime series. I love her books. They kept me sane
during lockdown. I’ve just started Book 2 of Sherry Harris’ Sea Glass Saloon
Mystery series, A Time to Swill, and it’s so good. (Where does she get
those great titles?) My daughter-in-law, who reads anything and everything,
loaned me her copy of a wonderful book called The Scent Keeper by Erica
Bauermeister. It was luminous.
What
was your inspiration for this particular novel?
I live in the mountains of East
Tennessee, and some of my favorite scenery in the world is where the
Appalachian and the Blue Ridge Mountains meet on the Tennessee/North Carolina
border. It’s wild and craggy and breathtaking, and I knew I wanted to set a
mystery there someday. I also knew I wanted to write about a small town that is
full of charm, surrounded by farmland with a thriving artists’ community at its
core. My obsession with long-buried family secrets gave me the nugget I needed
for the plot. Because you can bet your sweet Aunt Fanny that even the most
upstanding families always have a few juicy secrets tucked away.
What
are you working on now and when can we expect it to be available?
The
House on Crow Mountain is a standalone, but the new book I’m still
polishing will hopefully be the first in a new series. It’s about what happens
when the richest, most despised woman in town leaves her fortune to an
unemployed elementary art teacher out of spite, then turns up dead.
What
do you like to do when you are not writing?
Pre-pandemic,
I loved hanging out at the local pub. But now, it’s mostly reading, watching
English murder mysteries, crocheting while watching English murder mysteries,
deadheading the marigolds (one of the few plants the neighborhood deer won’t
eat), and visiting with my (vaccinated) kids, who each live an hour away in
opposite directions. I also walk a rather lively Jack Russell terrier named
Wilbur twice a day. And I’m teaching myself to quilt.
What
is one interesting fact about you that readers don’t know?
I have acted
in or directed over 100 plays and musicals.
Top 3
things on your bucket list?
Ziplining
through a forest.
A hot air balloon ride.
Visiting Florence, Italy (one more
time).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Rebecca lives
with her husband and a dog named Wilbur in the beautiful, misty mountains of
East Tennessee, where the people are charming, soulful, and just a little bit
crazy. She's been everything from a tax collector to a stay-at-home-mom to an
award winning professional actor and director. She loves to travel the world
(pre-pandemic) because it makes coming home so sweet. Her Southern roots and
the affectionate appreciation she has for the rural towns she lives near
inspire the settings and characters she writes about.
www.rebeccaleesmith.com
Twitter:
@rbeccaleesmith
Facebook:
Rebecca Lee Smith
Amazon:
https://amzn.to/3xaBocU
Barnes and
Noble: https://bit.ly/39JTJTl
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3unX18j
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY:
Rebecca
Lee Smith will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via
rafflecopter during the tour.
