Title: Rum Runner
Author: Tricia Leedom
Series: Key West Escape #1
Genre: Adult Romance, Adventure
Expected Release Date: July 18, 2017
Publisher: Ink Monster, LLC
Perfect for fans of Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Janet Evanovich, this action-packed debut from a fresh voice in contemporary romance offers a sexy and comedic take on love, adventure, and what it means to trust your heart.
English socialite Sophie Davies-Stone has been longing to meet her father since she was a little girl. When he sends her a mysterious medallion and asks her to forward it to him in Miami, she can’t help herself from doing something totally un-Sophie-like. Rather than mailing it as instructed, Sophie hops on a flight to Florida.
But the family reunion never happens. Instead, Sophie is attacked and almost kidnapped by her father’s enemies. Her savior is Jimmy Panama, a cocky and annoyingly handsome former Navy SEAL. Sophie isn’t the only one who’s annoyed. After years of trying to find a way to pay back his CO, Jimmy never thought his debt would get him mixed up with his commander’s uptight, British daughter. He just wants to put her on the next flight home and get back to his low-stress life in Key West, but fate has other plans.
As Sophie and Jimmy embark on a heart-pounding adventure through Key West and the Caribbean, Sophie finds herself falling for the snarky American. Still, her head says Jimmy is all wrong for her, and the more she finds out about him – and her father – the more uncertain she is about who she can trust.
One thing is clear. Sophie is in way over her head, and her greatest adventure might be her last.
The Key West Escape Series
1. Rum Runner – Releases July 18, 2017
2. Bahama Mama – Coming January 2018
I grew up in New Jersey, but my parents owned property in Southwest Florida since I was about 6 years old. I spent my summers in Naples during a time before it was touched by commercialism. When I first visited Key West in the early 2000s, it reminded me of my childhood and my father, a retired U.S. marine and police chief. He passed away in 2008, but he left me with his adventurous spirit, his affinity for steel drum music, and memories of my childhood exploring the gulf coast with him. I still love to travel and explore new places, but haven’t always been able to afford to, so I turned to books to take me on the adventures I longed to have and eventually started writing adventures of my own.
When writing a book, what is your favorite part of the creative process (outline, plot, character names, editing, etc)?
Plotting is my favorite part of the process. I call myself a “loose plotter,” meaning I like to know where the story is going and where I need to be at the end of a chapter, but if a better idea strikes me while I’m writing, I’m not afraid to follow it. Writing a book is usually a pretty solitary job but plotting can be collaborative. I really enjoy getting together with my writer friends and helping each other flesh out ideas. A lot of laughter usually accompanies these sessions, but they always get my imagination flowing and leave me with the itch to write.
When reading a book, what genre do you find most interesting/intriguing?
I have eclectic tastes, but some of my favorite authors include: J.R. Ward, Diana Gabaldon, and Karen Robards, as well as old school Johanna Lindsey and Judith McNaught. I really love anything that has a bit of adventure, an element of danger, and a juicy romance.
If you could co-author with any author, past or present, who would you choose?
Diana Gabaldon. Though I don’t presume to be in the same league as her. I’d actually be perfectly happy just to pull up a chair and watch her work.
Have you always wanted to write or did it come to you "later in life"?
I’ve always had a big imagination. As a child, I enjoyed telling elaborate stories. As a teenager, I wrote and acted out skits with my friends. My grandmother was an avid romance reader for as long as I can remember. She would keep her favorite novels and rate them on the title page using her own system. She passed away when I was fifteen and her books were boxed up and put into storage. A few years later, I found the box of books and spent the summer devouring every single one of them. Reading my grandmother’s favorite books, knowing which ones she liked best, made me feel closer to her. It inspired me to try my hand at writing a romance novel of my own. And though my first attempt wasn’t a brilliant success, the experience motivated me to go to college to learn the craft of writing. From there, my appreciation for the written word grew and I knew I wanted to be a writer.
TRICIA LEEDOM enjoys traveling to exotic destinations and having torrid love affairs with hot, dangerous men... even if it's only in her own mind. When she's not writing romantic adventure novels, she reads voraciously, tweets compulsively, and fangirls over a TV show based on her favorite book series. Tricia earned her BA in Creative Writing from The University of Tampa and her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Her favorite authors include Diana Gabaldon, J.R. Ward, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Karen Robards, and Johanna Lindsey. She lives in Southwest Florida with two very spoiled dogs. Follow Tricia on Twitter and Instagram.
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