Title: Kissed: Cat Miranda Mystery #1
Author: C.J. Shane
Genre: Cozy Mystery; Mystery Romance
Book Blurb:
Cat Miranda returns to her childhood home in Bisbee, Arizona, to take over her brother’s art gallery following his untimely death. On her first night home, an intruder breaks in. Cat quickly realizes that she is being targeted by a murderer with links to an 8-foot tall painting in the gallery titled “Kissed.” In her struggle to stay safe, Cat finds an ally in Miles Trevelyan, a charming visiting British scholar. The heat rises with more assaults on Cat and between Cat and Miles, too, as their feelings for each other grow. Can they discover what is behind the painting “Kissed” before Cat becomes the next victim? There’s mystery, suspense, and romance in this Sonoran Desert Borderlands tale.
Excerpt:
Cat was excited and happy. She had participated in several of Bisbee’s Great Stair Climbs. For a while anyway, she could put out of her mind the body in the wall of her gallery, the murder which most certainly had occurred, the intruder who tried to break into her house, and the man in the truck who tried to drive her off the road. She could be herself for a little while and have some fun. Have some fun with Miles Trevelyan.
“Fifteen hundred people. That’s a lot,” Miles said.
“Can be, especially if you are all trying to get up a set of stairs at the same time. There are prizes and an awards ceremony, too,” she added.
“I’ll be happy if you just beat my pants off. That’s what you said yesterday.” He grinned at her.
“That’s just an idiom. You can keep your pants on.”
“So how long is this race?”
“Four point five miles.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, but you have to run up nine staircases and over one thousand steps. Also some of the roads we will be running on will gain elevation, too. So it’s not easy.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to just go to that pavilion and drink beer?”
“No. I want to race.”
“Competitive, are we?”
“I’m going to beat you.”
“Beat my pants off? I’m going to hold you to that.”
“Miles, be good. Stop flirting with me.” Cat returned his smile. “Although I bet you have nice legs.”
“Oh, I do. Want to see them?”
“No! I want to be on time for the race.”
They wandered around for a while, then Cat said, “Okay! It’s time to go to our corrals. The race is about to start.”
Cat was bouncing up and down on her toes and grinning. Miles began to laugh.
“Why are you laughing?” she asked.
“Why are you jumping up and down?” he countered.
“I’m excited.”
“I’m excited, too. I’m about to lose my pants to a beautiful girl.”
“Shut up!” Cat smiled. “You have a one-track mind.”
“What do we do now?”
“The gun will go off and the first group will take off,” Cat explained to Miles. “Then it will be our turn because we’re in the next group.”
Miles was looking at the map.
“We’ll run along Main Street, go up Brewery Avenue, then we’ll see the first set of stairs,” Cat pointed to the map. “Seventy-three stairs.”
Miles made a face. “Seventy-three! Sure you’re not trying to kill me?”
“No, I only want your pants,” Cat giggled. She was feeling so good that she figured she’d just play along and deal with the consequences later.
Miles’s eyebrows went up, and he laughed, “That’s my girl.”
“Actually seventy-three is the one with the least number of stairs. The one with the most has one hundred eighty-one.”
Now it was his turn to shake his head in dismay.
The gun went off, and the first wave of runners took off running. Cat was jumping up and down again, and Miles was laughing again.
“Ready? Here we go,” Cat said. Their wave was released, and off they went.
The run down Main Street was easy, and the first set of seventy-three stairs not bad at all. Then the race became more and more challenging as the staircases grew longer, with more and more steps.
Cat looked back at Miles. His face was pink and his strawberry blond hair was ruffled and unkempt as always. He was grinning at her. She figured her face was probably pink, too. She hadn’t felt this happy in months, or maybe even years. She looked up at the sky so blue and down at her feet. In this moment, running with her handsome Englishman, life was good.
Next came one hundred stairs, then one hundred eighty-one, seventy-eight, one hundred fifty-one. After that came a long run back to the west along High Road, Tombstone Canyon Road, Garden Avenue, then another set of one hundred thirty steps.
Cat knew that this was the sixth set of stairs out of a total of nine. She and Miles were not too far from her home. She wondered if he would bail out on her now or continue running. Much to her surprise, he surged past her on the sixth set of stairs. He patted her on her bottom as he passed her. She could hear him laughing as he went past.
Miles was running rapidly, taking the steps two at a time. Cat could see that he was very close to the top.
All that about losing his pants, but the truth is that he just can’t stand letting me win, she laughed to herself. Now who’s the competitive one? Oh, she was going to tease him to no end.
Suddenly and without warning, a man jumped out from behind a tree only a few feet from the staircase. He was dressed in a black hoodie pulled up to cover his head, and he had a blue paper mask over his lower face. He slammed violently into Cat and shoved her off the stairs and onto the rocky ground.
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What makes your featured book a must-read?
“Kissed” was a Finalist for Best Cozy Mystery. New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards, 2021. Reader/reviewers say:
~~a fast-paced, action-packed mystery with well-developed interesting characters. I particularly enjoyed the geographic setting in Bisbee, AZ, near the Mexican border
~~The pages flew by and the scenes were exciting. I didn’t know what to expect with this read. However, I did fall deeply in love with this work of fiction. C.J. Shane is a new favorite writer of mine, now.
~~The main character is strong yet vulnerable and not afraid to show it or voice it. Paired with a handsome visitor, they become the dynamic mystery/crime-solving duo.
Giveaway –
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Open Internationally.
Runs August 8 – August 21, 2023.
Winner will be drawn on August 22, 2023.
Author Biography:
C.J. Shane is an artist and writer, a former academic reference librarian, and a big fan of reading and writing mysteries. She likes to garden and to go on walks with a dog. She lives in Arizona.
Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CJShaneArtBooks/