Not Me: Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure by Charlotte Stuart Series: Macavity and Me Mystery
on July 28th, 2022
Genres: Cozy Mystery
Pages: 248
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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 catTwo 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.
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
ISBN-10 : 1940224225
ISBN-13 : 978-1940224220
Greetings you guys! Welcome to our stop on the blog tour for Not Me! Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasures. We are the last stop for this tour and I can kick my Mommy in the shin for not signing us up for a review copy. Damn woman! This sounds like the most fun ever. I guess we will just have to read the whole series.
We are very fortunate to be host to one of the special characters from the 3rd book in the Macavity and Me Mystery Series.
Who Doesn’t Want to Find Buried Treasure?!
by Logan Douglas
I’m Logan Douglas, and Bryn Baczek is my marina neighbor as well a good friend. We met in grad school and bonded immediately. Everyone thinks we are brother and sister because we are both tall and have red hair. Bryn tries to claim that her hair is actually strawberry blond, but that’s wishful thinking. Granted, mine is more Tom Sawyer red, and I have the freckles to go with it. Bryn’s cat Macavity is also a redhead. Although he has a white stomach and dark tie-dye swirls on his sides.
But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. You can see for yourself what Bryn and Macavity are like in the Macavity & Me Mystery series. What I want to share are some facts about hidden treasure and caves in British Columbia. In Not Me! Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure, Bryn, her cousin Ellie and I take a sailboat trip up the Inside Passage in search of a secret cache of Aztec artifacts allegedly buried in a cave in the Canadian wilderness. You might think we were crazy to try to find buried treasure there, but there were a number of reasons we thought it made sense.
First, we had a map of sorts consisting of some clues that we pieced together based on messages left behind by Bryn and Ellie’s treasure hunting uncle after his death. Not that the clues were that specific. But we knew the general location and that the treasure was most likely buried in a cave. As it turned out, that didn’t narrow the search as much as we would have liked. And to top it off, Ellie has a phobia about caves. We promised her she could stand watch while Bryn and I searched any caves that looked promising.
You may not have come across many caves on hikes or vacations. But did you know that Vancouver Island is known as “The Island of Caves” because there are more than 1000 caves there? Visitors can take cave tours in provincial parks or hike to popular caves in remote locations. Each cave has varying degrees of difficulty. In some of them you have to use your rappelling skills or climb down ladders or wade through streams or swim short distances. Once you realize Vancouver Island is riddled with caves, it doesn’t take much imagination to think there’s a remote cave somewhere on the island where someone buried a treasure.
Finally, there are a lot of stories about missing treasures that have fueled the dreams of treasure hunters and adventure seekers for decades. Lost gold mines, sunken ships carrying untold treasures, buried pirate booty. Then there is the Jesse James legend about the cache of gold and money he stashed somewhere in Canada. And, there’s lots of speculation about the pot of gold at the end of our fantasy rainbow—looted Aztec artifacts.
The Aztecs were known for their prized gold jewelry, idols and masks. They decorated them with jade, opals, amethyst and turquoise. When Cortes arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, he spent months pressuring Moctezuma to hand over their treasure trove. The Spanish were outnumbered but better armed and managed to acquire numerous artifacts that they melted down into one-kilo gold ingots in order to transport them more easily. Then, on June 30th, 1520, the Aztecs revolted and the Spaniards were forced to leave, pursued by Mexica warriors. Several hundred Spaniards were killed and some of the gold they were fleeing with ended up in Lake Texcoco. But who is to say that a few Spaniards didn’t escape with a pack full of gold ingots or artifacts?
World War II also played a part in scattering art worldwide as the Nazis struggled to hold onto what they had stolen from museums and private collections, including artifacts from countries around the globe. Not all of this has been recovered, so again, who knows whether a piece of art or group of artifacts found its way to British Columbia by some circuitous route?
Granted, treasure seekers don’t often end up with much to show for their efforts. And the three of us knew we might fail. But it felt like a grand adventure at the time. And it was a way to honor the dreams of a favorite relative.
What we didn’t count on were other treasure hunters eager to get their hands on the same Aztec artifacts. Greedy relatives who had their own ideas about where the treasure was buried. And a stowaway cat who didn’t like being cooped up on a boat or walked on a leash.
If you’d like to know more about where we went and what we found, please join us as we wend our way north from Seattle to the wilds of Vancouver Island in Not Me! Speluncaphobia, Secrets and Hidden Treasure.
This sounds better than The Hardy Boys! We are definitely going to take a closer look at this series.
About the Author
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
Thank you to Lori at Great Escapes Tours for inviting us on this blog tour. We had fun today!
Lots of Love,
This sounds like a fun read though I wouldn’t want to be rapelling through any caves! I didn’t know that fun fact about Vancouver Island.
Sure miss you around the blog world…..hope you life calms down soon so you can rejoin us. 🙂
Honestly all I needed to see was fake treasure map and I was sold! This looks like fun.
Aztec artefacts! What fun-that does sound interesting.
It does sound interesting!