Desert Gold: A Southwest Adventure Romance is 99 cents at major ebook retailers and free in Kobo Plus

A legendary treasure hunt in the dramatic – and deadly – New Mexico desert….

The lost Victorio Peak treasure is the stuff of legends—a heretic Spanish priest’s gold mine, made richer by the spoils of bandits and an Apache raider.

When Erin, a quiet history professor, uncovers a clue that may pinpoint the lost treasure cave, she prepares for adventure. But when a hit and run driver nearly kills her, she realizes she’s not the only one after the treasure. And is Drew, the handsome helicopter pilot who found her bleeding in a ditch, really a hero, or one of the enemy?

Just how far will Erin go to find the treasure and discover what she’s really made of?

“The story has it all—action, romance, danger, intrigue, lost treasure, not to mention a sizzling relationship….”

This is book 1 in the Southwest Romantic Suspense series, followed by Valley of Gems and Silver Canyon. Each novel stands alone and is complete, with no cliffhangers. This series mixes action, adventure, and romance in New Mexico and Arizona.

Readers say:
“Fast, fun, romance and adventure. What more can you ask for?”

“Kept me on the edge of my chair. It’s one of those books I couldn’t put down.”

“Ms. Bock sets a fast pace from the start as she introduces us to Erin, Camie, Drew, Tiger, and other assorted characters.”

See the Treasure Hunting Romantic Suspense series page on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4niqV8a
or all retailers: https://storyoriginapp.com/collections/04df3742-fdb4-4213-984e-efbfa5997e88

Excerpt:
In the beginning, it had been a whim. Something to distract her from the tedium of teaching history classes at a small science college where students didn’t value history. Researching lost treasures was fun, and she’d written a few articles about it for magazines. Reading the books on lost mines and buried treasures, you’d think the entire country was covered with them. The Southwest had more than its fair share, from miners who lost track of their remote gold mines, to prospectors who had buried bags of gold and never returned to retrieve them, to bandits who had hidden stolen loot and been killed.

But among all the legends, all the fact and fiction, one story stood out. The Victorio Peak legend had it all. A Franciscan priest and a swindler. Torture, murder, a government cover-up. Where was the truth, among all the stories? Erin wanted to find out.

Over time, and with Camie’s encouragement, she’d started to take the treasure hunt more seriously. It wasn’t so much for the treasure itself – that would most likely belong to the government or the landowners. But from the start, she’d recognized the potential, should she ever unearth new information. Forget academic publications; this was the kind of story which could capture the general imagination and catapult her into success as a writer of popular nonfiction. It would make her reputation, open up new job opportunities – change her life in ways she hardly dared dream.
She touched the book gently. The pages were falling out; she didn’t want to risk carrying it around. Instead, Erin snapped a picture of the petroglyphs with her phone. That would be enough to show Camie for now.

She put the book back on her shelf among the hundreds of others she either owned or had borrowed from various libraries. Then she flipped through her stack of topographic maps and found the right one in southern New Mexico. She tucked the phone and the map into the small waist pack she used when biking around town.

Erin shook her head. Who would’ve thought that she, the quiet, studious girl who’d spent her entire adult life in academia in one way or another, would be planning such an adventure?
She grabbed her bike helmet, wheeled the bike around her house, and mounted. At the corner, she paused and looked both ways. The long frontage road was dangerously narrow, with a cement wall on one side and a ditch on the other. Fortunately, traffic was normally light, and at this time of day the road lay empty. Erin pushed off, still grinning from her find. She rode on the right side, by the ditch, instead of facing traffic, because it was just too scary to ride alongside the wall when a car passed.

She’d gone a block when she heard the hum of a car engine as it pulled out from a side street behind her. She rode along the very edge of the pavement, even though the car would have plenty of room to pass her without oncoming traffic.

Erin glanced over her shoulder. The black SUV twenty feet behind her hadn’t bothered to pull out into the road at all. Jerk. When would drivers learn to share the road with bicyclists? Erin pulled onto the two-foot wide gravel strip between the pavement and the ditch. She couldn’t stop without risking a skid, but she slowed so the SUV could pass.

The engine roared. Erin glanced back again.

Black metal bore down on her. Her heart lurched and the bike wobbled. This guy was out of control! She whipped her gaze forward, rose up in the seat, and pumped the pedals with all her power, skimming along inches from the ditch. He was just trying to scare her. She’d get his license plate and –

She felt the bumper hit her back tire. The bike seemed to leap into the air, and she went flying. The dried mud and weeds of the ditch seemed to rise up to meet her.

She didn’t even have time to scream.

Purchase Links:

All retailers: https://storyoriginapp.com/collections/04df3742-fdb4-4213-984e-efbfa5997e88
https://amzn.to/4niqV8a
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/series/southwest-treasure-hunters
https://books.apple.com/us/book-series/southwest-treasure-hunters/id1526553591
https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/92529
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22Southwest+Treasure+Hunters%22?Ntk=P_Series_Title&Ns=P_Series_Number&Ntx=mode+matchal l

Meet the Author

Kris Bock writes romance, mystery, and suspense. In the Accidental Billionaire Cowboys series, a Texas ranching family wins a billion-dollar lottery. Can they build new dreams and find love amidst the chaos? Her Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series features the employees and customers at a cat café. Watch as they fall in love with each other and shelter cats.

In the Accidental Detective humorous mystery series, a witty journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning fifty. In the Reluctantly Psychic mystery series, a quirky loner who can read the history of any object with her touch gets drawn into mysteries when people bring troubled artifacts to the museum of oddities where she works. Learn more at KrisBock.com

Where To Find Kris

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