Witches, murder and crystals – and a giveaway!

by Posted on

By Liz, super excited that Witch Hunt is coming to life!

I got my ARCs of my new series last week.

Aside from the fact that I love the cover and that everything is purple, I’m just really thrilled about this series. It brings together all the things I’ve been fascinated with for most of my life: witches, cats, murder (of course) and maybe one lesser-known obsession. Rocks.

Yep, I’ve been obsessed with rocks and crystals since I was little. In one very famous story my mother told for years, I had this doll carriage and some lovely dolls to put in the carriage. But I chose to use it for other purposes. One day when we were out for a walk, a woman stopped to ask me if she could see my dolls. I happily pulled down the blanket and showed her my rock collection.

Apparently, she thought I was weird. I have no idea why.

As I got older, I stopped picking up rocks off the street (mostly) and instead turned to crystal shops. I became fascinated with the stones and their meanings, and their many healing properties. Since it was getting to the point where I needed a tax write-off for my many purchases, of course I had to make Violet Mooney a crystal store proprietor.

That means she gets to spend all day with beauties like this lepidolite, a stone that promotes spiritual transcendence, emotional balance, prayer and goodness, as well as grounding and balancing mood swings. Which means that I get to spend extra time in crystal shops too, learning about different stones and about the business overall.

I’m lucky enough to have an awesome shop nearby, The Funky Hippie, with an amazing proprietor, Nicole, who has not only become my primary supplier, but who is happy to also share her wealth of knowledge.

In the book, Violet is happily running her crystal shop and knows she has a talent for helping people by prescribing the right crystals for their particular situation. What she doesn’t know is that she’s a witch, and that it’s very likely her dormant powers have been working under the surface to help her along the way.

Violet and I both believe crystals are amazing tools that bring so much good into the world. One of the reasons I’m so happy about writing these books is that I get to share that information with people. One of the best things about being an author, for sure.

Readers, do you have a favorite rock, crystal, or other obsession? Leave a comment below for a chance to win! I’ll be giving an ARC to two commenters!

Published by Cate Conte / Liz Mugavero

Cate Conte writes the Cat Cafe Mysteries and the Full Moon Mysteries. As Liz Mugavero, she writes the Pawsitively Organic Mysteries, the first of which was an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel. She lives in the Boston area with her rescue pals.

95 Thoughts

  1. Congrats on the new book, Liz. It sounds like Big Fun. I am also a crystal junkie. My favorites are the large white quartz a friend brought back from Brazil and a green chunk of malachite from South Africa. Crystals are beautiful and alive with magic!

  3. Congratulations, Liz! I love the cover, and how cool you have an expert nearby to consult with. (Ooh, and we share a release date. Party time!)

  4. I’ve loved rock and crystals since I was a little kid. We had to do rock collections when I was in sixth grade for our science class. The museum in my hometown sold bags of different kinds of rocks that I always loved — quartz and mica were my favorites.

  5. Congratulations on your new book coming out. Love the cover! I don’t have a favorite rock, but we went to Mackinac Island last summer and picked up some rocks from the water (which to me are pretty😊) and have them displayed around our mailbox. When I see them it reminds me of the wonderful time we had there!

    1. Thanks, Sherry! I do that too – I love picking rocks from the beach, still. I have a whole bunch of them interspersed with my other crystals.

  6. Congratulations on the upcoming release! Absolutely LOVE the cover! Purple is my favorite color so I’d immediately be drawn to it, but beside the color, it’s just a cool cover. Can’t wait for the opportunity to read the book.

    Love the amethyst stone. Since it’s good for cleansing one’s energy field of negative influences, it might be really good to have some around – which I do.

    We use to collect, shop and take vacation around clowns. It all stemmed from a childhood event and with the death of our daughter needed something to channel towards. We had many, many years of fun, adventure and excitement becoming personal friends with Emmett Kelly Jr., actually becoming clowns under his direction, and traveling to meet up with him and the rest of our clown gang. Sadly Emmett passed and my health has made clowning a thing of the past. With downsizing when we moved to our dream destination 3 years ago came downsizing to a huge extent our clown collection. Hubby and I love photography. Photographs take up a whole lot space and give one joy to look at while remembering the fun in taking them. So now we collect photographs and memories from the trips we are fortunate enough to make. This year baring any unforeseeable circumstances we are headed to Utah to all the national parks in the state. I see more photos to add to our collection in our future.

    Thank you for the fabulous opportunity to win an ARC of “Witch Hunt”.

    Have a wonderful Tuesday!
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

    1. Kay – that’s such a fascinating story! Thank you for sharing! Sounds like you had a lot of amazing adventures. I hope your photos keep all those lovely memories alive.

  7. Before my surgery my husband took me to look at stones in this quant little shop. I began talking with to owner and explained my surgery was coming up and I was worried about the outcome. She lead me over to these beautiful crystals and stones She picked up this one beautiful stone and told me to rub my thumb over it. She told me this is a worry stone Whenever you feel stressed you rub your thumb over the center and your worries go away. I took that stone into surgery with me and continued to run my thumb over it and the next thing I remember was waking up in recovery, relieved it was over. I still have this beautiful stone in my jewelry box. When I feel worried about something I place it in my pocket and know it is there soothes me.

    1. I’m so glad you found your worry stone. I’ve had a number of different worry stones over the years and always felt better when I had them with me.

  8. Congratulations on the new book, Liz! I’ve always loved the glossy black of hematite(?). I have a couple necklaces made of it that The Hubby brought back from somewhere (Central America, I think).

  9. Looks like a great book! I’ve been a rock hound since I was a little girl (many, many years). I especially love agates. They are so much fun to find, especially on the shores of Lake Superior. I also love rose rocks. They are a rare rock found in only a few places, one of which is just a few miles southeast of me in Oklahoma. They have a haunting legend (tears of the Cherokees that fell from their faces during the Trail of Tears).

  11. I love crystals and rocks. I love the Himalayan salt Rock lamps. I have 5 of them. This book sounds great!

  12. Looking forward to this new series! Been reading your treats since you were “just” Liz 😉

  13. Congratulations. I just got to see lots of “pretty rocks” at the Tucson Gem Show…I love the purple amethyst the best. 🔮

  15. I love crystals, particularly amethyst. I don’t know much about their healing properties, but I would like to learn. Congratulations on your new series, and thanks so much for the giveaway!

  16. I used to always pick up interesting rocks when I was a kid. I still have one that glows under a black light

  17. No favorite rock here. I’m trying to come up with an obsession that isn’t obvious or somewhat normal (Disney, murder…mysteries) but I’m coming up blank.

  18. Mom became a rock collector after meeting a rockhound at an antique/collectibles fair. Dad polished the interesting pieces she found, and she created bracelets out of the bits and pieces. She discovered geodes along the way and I have one of them! I learned about the fascinating healing properties of some of the crystals as she shared the knowledge she acquired. I am going to LUV this new series. Congratulations, Liz!

  19. I was that child picking up rocks everywhere we went. I still pick one up now and then. My children do the same…so…we have a lot of rocks. Lol. I add them to our planters and make jewelry with the prettier stones.

  20. I have a creek at end of my property so I have collected some unusual rocks when I take a walk there. I have a rocks with fossils in them. I have one that even looks like a heart. I’ve also found a few arrowheads. I have them lined up on a shelf in the entryway so when my family or friends visit, they can pick up and admire.

    1. I love that. I’ve been meaning to add an arrowhead to my collection – my store just had a few gorgeous ones in but I didn’t get there in time!

  21. Congratulations on your new series! It sounds so interesting and I love the cover! I don’t know much about rocks or their healing properties, so your series would be educational for me too. I love to pick up pretty seashells when we are at the beach and have started a collection of sand dollars. Thanks for the chance to win a copy of your new book!

  22. I love this post, Liz! I am looking forward to your new series! I also love rocks and crystals! I have a tray with them all piled up in my office in front of my vision board. I love to pick them up and look them over often. I love amethyst, citrine, hematite and all the different jaspers.

  23. Congrats and what a cute story. I’m not much into the rock thing, but my oldest daughter just loves them. Just visited and spent a day at the beach and of course came back with a bag full of sand dollars and other treasures.

  24. Congratulations! I love that purple cover! My favorite would be amathyst (however it’s spelled) 😁

    Olomuss at gmail dot com

  25. I liked collecting rocks as a kid. I still occasionally look for neat ones when I’m working outside. I remember going fossil hunting to the quarry in grade school- I still have them!

  26. Looks like an interesting book! I would love to have a crystal ball but have not found the right one.

  27. Witches, rocks and Crystal’s fascinate me too. I used to pick up rocks in my grandma’s driveway and my PawPaw used to run them in his rock polisher for me. My grown up obsessions are yarn (I crochet) and jigsaw puzzles.

    1. Puzzles used to be one of my favorite things too. I really need to get back to them. I actually had my hand on one at the store the other day then thought, how quickly would the furries destroy this? LOL

  28. I love the cover, congrats on your new release! I don’t have any obsessions really but I used to collect all kinds of things when I was younger.

  29. Purple is my favorite color. The cover is amazing. I like crystals too and what they mean. Its fun learning about them! I have rocks I collected most of them are big. Rocks are interesting and fun to collect. Purple would be my favorite crystal 😊

  30. I have several crystals that I keep on my desk. They each serve a purpose. Thanks for the giveaway. Can’t wait to read this new series.

  31. Congrats Liz! Can’t wait to read. Purple is one of my favorite colors. I know about amethyst and quartz, but don’t know the meanings of the rest of the rocks & crystals. One day I will take the time to learn. Thank you for the giveaway chance.

  32. Awesome giveaway! Thanks for the chance! ❤🙂👍🤞📚
    Congrats on the new series!🎉🎈🎊
    I love quartz, but any crystal is beautiful in it’s own way.

  33. Congrats on your new series! I’ve always been rather fond of Amethyst. So pretty, purply and sparkly!

  35. Congratulations on your new series! I can’t wait to read the book. I also had a rock collection when I was younger. I really like the many different types of quartz. I’m going to find a crystal shop nearby and find a Lepidolite crystal.

  36. Love jade, lapis lazuli and amethyst. I have a black obsidian ball and a small crystal ball along
    with wands with various stones and crystals. Some of the wands are stick pins while others can be worn on a cord or chain.

  39. I love books about magic and witches. I am Edith’s sister and we share the love of books. I cannot wait for this to come out.

  40. Congrats on your pretty book! My great uncle used to have a collection of polished rocks that were beautiful. Sure wish I had one of them!

  41. Very excited to read this! I wear mala beads all the time and am always looking for interesting stones to put on the end of the string.

  42. We have a small rock collection. My favorite is the black lava rock but there are so many beautiful ones out there. When polished, they really shine.u

  43. Congratulations and I love the cover. As kids, we always were on the lookout for cool rocks/stones, as we all got older, 3 of my siblings gave that past time up, but 2 of my sisters and me still love it ! I passed this love on to my kids when they were little, my oldest son still loves it. Then when the grands started coming (14 of them now).. again, rock/stone adventures began!. Several of the grands still love doing it. I always love finding rocks, stones with faces or hearts naturally on them. I collect all sorts of stones, rocks, crystals, gemstones and more. Do I have a favorite, gosh, there’s so many, with special meanings, metaphysical abilities, I would not know where to start! Thanks! nani_geplcs(at)yahoo(dot)com

  44. Congratulations on the new series. It looks great. My favorite crystals are amethyst and rose quartz. Thanks for the chance.

  46. I have some special stones including a very large moonstone, but my daughter has an enormous collection. Congrats on your book, it sounds really good.

  47. My favorite rock is my painted rock that belonged to my sister. We still have my son’s rock collections from when he was young. He is now 36. He has a tray of colored stones like the one in your picture. We like geodes and used to collet them.

  48. My favorite crystal is a rose quartz in the shape of a heart that I have had since we were in middle school. The new cover is awesome! I can’t wait to read the book!

Comments are closed.