Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway: The House on Crow Mountain by Rebecca Lee Smith

Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for The House on Crow Mountain by Rebecca Lee Smith. This book tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book as well as an intriguing guest post about crows from the author. There's also the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card. Be sure to visit the other stops on the tour for more content. Enjoy!

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Title: The House on Crow Mountain

Author: Rebecca Lee Smith

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

Publication Date: July 14th 2021

Print Length: 221 pages

Genre: Contemporary Mystery

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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.

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Bookshop * Half Price Books *

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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.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rebecca Lee Smith 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.

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GUEST POST:

- Which true life mystery do you find the most intriguing and why?

Crows. They are clever and mysterious, soulful and intriguing.

In my newest mystery, The House on Crow Mountain, crows don’t have a leading role. They barely have a walk-on. During the first couple of drafts, the western North Carolina mountain wasn’t called Crow at all, even though the birds are very prevalent in that part of the state. But somehow, those fascinating birds kept showing up, hovering in the background, fighting each other for an abandoned burrito on the ground, cawing and clicking in the trees, flying in circles across the meadow. They seemed to want to be a part of the story, so I took the hint and made them a permanent fixture.

Not everyone is crazy about the shiny blackbirds. Some people think they bring good luck, but others consider them a bad omen. I’ve always thought they were intelligent and dramatic. Not quite as big as ravens or rooks, but the kind of birds who are smart enough to steal sunflower seeds out of a backyard feeder while the blue jays and robins have their backs turned. The kind of birds who will wink and grin when they see you, but won’t take crap off any of their winged brothers and sisters.

I read once that crows can recognize human faces, and when one of their own dies, the others gather around the dead crow to stand silently and pay their respects. They make and use tools, fashioning tiny hooks from flexible twigs to extricate insects from fissures and cracks. Mark Mancini states in his wonderful article “12 Fascinating Facts About Crows” that “the birds use cars like oversized nutcrackers. They have learned to put walnuts—a favorite treat—onto the pavement, then wait for a passing vehicle to smash the nut, after which they will swoop down and eat the delicious interior.”

Then, of course, there’s the fact that three or more crows are called a murder. A murder of crows. How could anyone, especially a mystery writer, not love that?

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GIVEAWAY:

Rebecca Lee Smith will be awarding a $25 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Good luck!

(All the Ups and Downs is not responsible for this giveaway, its entries, or the prize. Goddess Fish Promotions assumes all responsibility for this giveaway.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway