Today's guest is Becky Johnson, author of the mystery suspense novel, TOUCHING DEATH. Please leave a comment or question for Becky below to let her know you stopped by!
About the Book:
Title:
Touching Death
Author: Becky Johnson
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 209
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Author: Becky Johnson
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 209
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Rachel Angeletti knows things. She always has. With one
touch she sees secrets, emotions, lies. Her gift helps her to be the best
museum curator in Chicago. It also
makes her personal relationships difficult.
Her life is complicated enough when a run in with her ex and an unanticipated vision sends her reeling. One touch and she sees death. One touch and she is thrown into the midst of killer’s dark fantasy. Now Rachel is in a fight for her life against a killer she knows too little about.
With danger stalking her around every turn Rachel is in a thrilling race against the clock. Can she catch a killer before he catches her?
Touching Death will take you on a riveting, page-turning, journey into the mind of a killer and the heart of a survivor.
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Book Excerpt:
I was eleven the first time I saw
someone die.
It was hot. The kind of hot where your
shirt sticks to your back and every breath feels thick and heavy. The waistband
of my plaid, pleated school uniform was itchy. It was always itchy, but in Chicago in early September with the
temperature in the nineties, I could barely stand it.
“Look,” my best friend April gave my
arm a sharp and eager tug, “I can’t believe he’s talking to her.”
I looked across the museum where she
was pointing. Jonathan Adams. With
his dark hair and blue eyes he was the cutest guy in our class. He was talking
to Carol, the prettiest girl in our class and our sworn enemy. April had such
an intense crush on Jonathan. She had already named their children and when we
played the name game she always wanted to get him.
While April plotted revenge on her arch
nemesis, I looked across the Ancients room in The Chicago Museum of
Anthropology and Archeology to where Billy Masters stood by a glass display
case. His hair was unruly and stuck up in odd peaks from his forehead in
complete disregard of the rules. His white, button-down shirt hung out over his
waistband. Technically, he was wearing the school tie; he just wore it tied
around his belt loop, a bright red flag of rebellion. I never wanted to admit
it, but when I daydreamed and played the name game, I was always looking for
Billy Masters.
Our class slowly moved through the
large room. My teacher, Ms. Daniels, stood at the front of our group lecturing
on the Egyptian Empire. With her graying hair pulled back into a tight bun, her
stockings sagging around her skinny legs, and her soft and squeaky voice the
lecture didn’t keep my attention. Her high-pitched voice faded to the
background as I gazed at the surrounding exhibits. They were all so beautiful
and fascinating. My imagination ran wild with stories and images. I imagined
hands cupping a bowl or pulling a comb through a child’s hair. In my mind’s eye
a thousand stories and possibilities ran wild.
We walked through the center aisle of a
room, clustered with pottery and remnants of houses. I felt the strangest urge,
the almost all consuming desire to touch. My fingertips itched. The power of it
drew me. The crumbled edges of the pottery bowl almost begged me to touch them.
Only a velvet rope and a few feet separated me from that tantalizing edge.
One
touch. No one will know.
I didn’t even realize I’d stepped
forward until the velvet rope stopped me from going any further. Vaguely, I
heard my teacher discussing social structure and family groups, but the
pounding of my own heart overpowered all other noise.
Rachel, the past whispered, “come. See. Life and death.”
I reached my hand out and my fingers
brushed the edge of the bowl.
Laughter.
Raised
voices.
Yelling.
Screams.
Crying.
The images bombarded me -- a woman sat
in front of a fire pit making dinner for her family. A dispute nearby grabbed
her attention. Two men were fighting. The crowd surged and pulsed with the
energy of the fight. Screamed words sounded foreign to my ears, but the emotion
made perfect sense -- fear, anger, uncertainty.
Only the woman with the bowl saw the
little boy standing too close to the fighters. Only the woman with the bowl saw
the danger. She screamed his name. Her screams went unheard in the din. The
crowd moved with the fight, their bodies cutting off her view.
The bowl was clutched tight in her
fingers as she struggled forward, pushing people aside. It grew eerily quiet.
The crowd slowed, then paused responding to a different energy. Shoulders and
heads slumped as they parted before her. The little boy was on the ground. A
bloody rock lay near him. She dropped the bowl as she surged forward,
screaming.
I awoke on the ground in front the
display my face wet and my throat raw with the echo of the screams still
ringing in my ears.
About the Author
Books are Becky Johnson's passion and always have been. She
used to get in trouble in school for reading during class!
Becky has Master's degrees in social work and history, and for her day job she is a social worker. In her writing she tries to answer a question that is important to both social work and history: Why? She always wants to know why people do the things they do or feel the way they feel.
When not reading or writing she enjoys yoga, photography, cooking, and makes a pretty mean chili!
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