Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure (Macavity and Me Mystery) by Charlotte Stuart. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure (Macavity and Me Mystery)
by Charlotte Stuart
Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure (Macavity and Me Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – Seattle (where the protagonist lives), Vancouver BC, and a trip up the Inside Passage
Taylor and Seale Publishing (July 29, 2022)
Paperback : 242 pages
Aztec gold artifacts from the 16th Century, a fake treasure map, and cryptic clues leading to a cave in the Canadian wilderness—
• Feuding family members
• A suspicious death and surfeit of suspects
• A sailboat trip up the Inside Passage and . . . a stowaway cat
Two cousins get together to investigate the death of a favorite uncle and to honor his legacy by fulfilling his dream to recover Aztec gold. They are thwarted in their efforts by greedy family members, a jumble of challenging clues, a prank from the grave, and unscrupulous treasure seekers.
What begins with a letter from the deceased leads to a wilderness adventure and ends with revealed secrets and a confession.
My review of Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure
I’ve read several of Charlotte Stuart’s cozy mystery books in her three series, and I recommend all of them! Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure is the third book in her Macavity and Me series. This series stars Bryn Baczek who lives on her boat with her cat, McCavity. She’s got a knack for becoming involved in murder mysteries, and she’s terrible at keeping goldfish alive.
In Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure, Bryn gets a letter from her uncle that she’s supposed to read in the event of his death, but of course, she can’t wait. And a couple of days later, he does die, but not of the cancer he was dying from. Circumstances lead Bryn and her cousin on a search for hidden treasure.
I loved reconnecting with Bryn and her friends (and Macavity the cat) as well as meeting new characters. Charlotte Stuart has a way of really bringing her characters to life and now they feel like old friends. They’re characters that I’d be friends with in real life, but I’d need lots of Dramamine to go on a sailing trip with them! Ever since I read Houseboat Girl by Lois Lenski when I was in grade school, I’ve thought it would be so cool to live on a boat. I’m not sure I actually could, but reading Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure sure made me want to be on the sailing trip through the Inside Passage.
Of the three books in this series, I think Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure is my favorite so far. I really enjoyed the quirky characters, unique mystery, the sailing adventure to search for treasure, the cousin bond, the goldfish….just everything! This is a five star cozy mystery that I recommend to all!
Character Guest Post: What I’ve Learned About Goldfish by Bryn Baczek
The original goldfish mentioned in the first book in my series was an unwanted gift. And if my niece Emma hadn’t given it a name the morning of the same day it died, I wouldn’t have had to keep buying more and more goldfish so as not to face telling her about their deaths. Supposedly goldfish can live up to 45 years, but not on my watch.
There are several things I’ve learned since I replaced Bubbles four times.
First, goldfish are possibly the most popular pet fish in the world. Although I’m not sure that distinction is as impressive as it sounds. How many kinds of pet fish are there? I’ll give them credit for being an ancient fish though—references going back to the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 A.D. Since then, breeders have created quite a few fancy variations, and I can’t imagine they would have gone to all that trouble if their creations lived less than a year. That should have been a clue that I was doing something wrong.
Which brings me to common causes for goldfish deaths. When I finally looked it up, I discovered that the main causes are twofold: bowls that are too small or water issues, either water that’s not filtered or changed often enough. If I had known that, I could have bought larger bowls, although filtering and changing the water a lot doesn’t fit with my overall cleaning habits.
Another thing that took me completely by surprise was that you aren’t supposed to flush a goldfish down the toilet, or, in my case, toss it into the lake from my sailboat that I call home. There are a couple of reasons for this. 1) Their bodies can carry disease, and 2) if they are still alive, they can threaten other species by competing for food and disrupting the local ecosystem. Washington state is currently fighting off what they label as an “invasion” of goldfish. Apparently, I’m not the only one to use a body of water as a dumping ground. To top it off, these tiny members of the carp family can become supersized in the wild as this picture illustrates:
That makes them even more competitive and potentially more destructive. Now that I know this, I will never toss another goldfish into the lake. But it makes me wonder whether I’m personally responsible for some behemoth roaming the depths of Lake Union.
In my research I also came across an article that claims goldfish are smarter than we think. Supposedly they have a three-month memory span, but it wasn’t clear to me what they have to remember. And how did they test for that? One idea I had was that they were able to teach a goldfish a trick and see how long it took them to forget how to do it. But how would they know they forgot?
Maybe they just got tired of performing. The article also claimed that goldfish can tell the difference between Stravinsky and Bach, although how this was determined is beyond me. Did
the researchers make up signs with “Stravinsky” and “Bach” written on them, turn up the music, and have fish give a “fins up” to indicate which composer’s music was being played?
The biggest disappointment I’ve had in reading about goldfish is that to provide them with the habitat they need you have to put them in an aquarium rather than in any kind of bowl, no matter how large.
The size of the aquarium is determined by the number of fish. That means you need to devote a fair amount of space to your pet’s home, space that I don’t have to spare. Furthermore, to maintain an aquarium requires more work than I’m willing to take on. To start with you need things like substrate, filters (undergravel and external), check valves, lighting, furniture and plants. And that’s just the beginning. Then there’s the ongoing and regular maintenance—cleaning the gravel, changing the water, monitoring temperatures, on and on. Right down to checking the fish for unhealthy symptoms of fungus, fin rot and swimbladder disorders.
It all makes my finicky and cantankerous cat Macavity seem like a dream pet. If I’d been smart, I would have fed him the goldfish the day I received them as a gift. Before Emma had a chance to name Bubbles I.
Ode to a Dead Goldfish
You were gold and shimmery,
Swimming round and round.
Round and round. Round and round.
I loved you. And you left me.
No goodbye.
You ungrateful little fish.
About Charlotte Stuart
Charlotte Stuart PhD is an award-winning mystery writer who got her start in academia, left a tenured faculty position to go commercial fishing in Alaska, spent a frustrating year as a political speech writer, enjoyed time as a management consultant, and survived several years as a VP of HR and training.
Her current passion is for writing mysteries with complex characters and twisty plots. Books in her Macavity & Me Mysteries have won a Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, a gold Global Ebook Award, and a Firebird Book Award for humor. Two were NYC Big Book Distinguished Favorites, one was a finalist in Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion contest, and Not Me! is currently a finalist in the Chanticleer Mystery and Mayhem competition.
Charlotte lives and writes on Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest and is the past president of the Puget Sound Sisters in Crime.
Website: https://www.charlottestuart.com
Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/quirkymysteries
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charlotte.stuart.mysterywriter
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19305587.Charlotte_Stuart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cstuartauthor/
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/charlotte-stuart
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/quirkymysteries
Purchase Link – Amazon
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Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure Tour PARTICIPANTS
January 18 – Sneaky the Library Cat’s Blog – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
January 18 – Island Confidential – SPOTLIGHT
January 19 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT
January 19 – Mythical Books – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
January 20 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
January 20 – MJB Reviewers – SPOTLIGHT
January 21 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
January 22 – I’m Into Books – AUTHOR GUEST POST
January 23 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST
January 24 – Paranormal and Romantic Suspense Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
January 25 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
January 26 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – AUTHOR GUEST POST
January 27 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog – SPOTLIGHT
January 28 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
January 29 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
January 30 – Lady Hawkeye – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
January 31 – Elza Reads – CHARACTER GUEST POST
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Thank you, Christy for the opportunity to connect with your readers and for the great review. So glad you like my books!
Charlotte
You’re welcome! Thank you for sharing Bryn’s goldfish knowledge!