It's always a pleasure to have our friend Romy Sommer stop by The Hot Pink Typewriter, and today she's chatting about the heroine of her second Harper Impulse release, THE TROUBLE WITH MOJITOS. (How fun is that title?)
Turquoise blue waters. Sandy white beaches. Mojitos... Film
location scout Kenzie Cole has found herself in paradise. Working in the
Caribbean for a week is just what she needs to escape the long line of exes in
her closet. Though the last thing she expects is to be picked up at the resort
bar by a disgraced former Prince!
Luckily for Kenzie, exile is suiting the man formerly known
as Prince Fredrik very well. And it’s not long before his rugged, pirate charm is proving
hard to resist.
But Rik’s been spending his time in paradise exorcising
demons of his own and he has danger written all over him. If Kenzie was sensible she’d run a mile
instead of lose herself to lust - although, they do say sometimes you have to
get lost before you can be found....
Introducing Kenzie Cole, heroine of The Trouble with Mojitos, by Romy Sommer
Kenzie has definitely been my most
difficult heroine to date. I struggled to get to know her and had several false
starts on this story before I really understood her conflicts and what
motivated her.
There were only two things I knew about her
before I began:
(1) she’s petite and fragile-looking, looks
younger than she is, and has ginger hair.
(2) she works as a film location scout.
On everything else about her life she was
strangely reticent and I’d nearly reached the end of The Trouble with Mojitos before I uncovered the secret she holds
closest to her heart. Trust me, that secret came as quite a surprise to me!
Kenzie lives in London where she shares a
flat in Shoreditch with her BFF Lee. Lee’s an art director in the movie
business and encouraged her to become a scout.
What does a location scout do? Kenzie takes
the director’s brief then goes out looking for locations that match the image
in the director’s head. She negotiates permission to film the locations, takes
photographs, then sends the pictures back to the director and his production
team for approval. If the director likes what he sees, she helps set up the
shoot before handing over to the Location Manager who handles the actual shoot
logistics.
It’s a fun job, and Kenzie is determined to
be a success at it. After a series of bad relationships, all she wants to do is
focus on her career. She doesn’t want a man upsetting her plans, and especially
not another bad boy – enter Rik, oozing bad boy appeal...
For what happens next, read The Trouble with Mojitos, available from
Harper Impulse from 17th October.
Join the release date party for The Trouble with Mojitos on Facebook on
17th October here. There’ll be virtual cocktails, fun games,
eye candy and give-aways!
EXCERPT from The Trouble with Mojitos:
“A mojito, please.”
Kenzie sagged against the bar counter, not caring that her order
sounded desperate or her body language suggested impatience. She needed
alcohol, and she needed it now.
The benefit of an empty bar was that the drink came reassuringly
quickly, poured from an ice cold jug ready and waiting, and complete with
swizzle stick and paper parasol. She ditched both and tossed the drink back.
“Rough day?” The dreadlocked bar tender leaned on the scarred wooden
counter.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Thanks, but I didn’t come here to talk.” She’d done enough of that
all day. Talk, talk, talk, and still nothing to show for it. Now she understood
how used car salesmen felt. Used.
It was enough to drive a girl to drink. Or at least to the resort’s
beach bar, since hitting the mini-bar in her hotel room was just too sad to
contemplate.
She didn’t drink alone. For that matter, she didn’t usually drink. Not
these days.
Beyond the thatched cabana, the sky flamed every shade of pink and
orange imaginable as the sun set over the white sand and surf. But here inside
the bar was dark, shadowy and strangely comforting after a day of white-hot
heat.
“She’ll have another.”
She turned to the wryly amused voice, and wished she hadn’t as she
spotted the dark figure at the shadowy end of the long bar. Great. The resident
barfly, no doubt. As if she needed another reason to hate this resort, this
island, and the whole stinking Caribbean.
“I can order my own drinks, thank you.”
The shadowed figure shrugged and turned his attention back to his own
drink. “Suit yourself.”
What was it with the men in this place? Didn’t think a woman could
order her own drinks, didn’t think a woman could do business, wouldn’t even
give her the time of day. She ground her teeth, the effects of the first drink
not quite enough to blur the edges of her mood. “I’d like another, please.”
She ignored the deep-throated chuckle down the other end of the bar as
the barman removed her glass to re-fill it.
The second drink followed the first a little more slowly, and this
time she took a moment to savour it. Now she felt better.
But she was still screwed.
Neil had known it when he sent her out here. He’d known she’d be
stone-walled, he knew he’d set her an impossible task, and still he’d sent her.
He’d expected her to fail. Perhaps even wanted her to fail.
There were days when her past seemed very far behind her. And then
there were days like today, when it seemed she’d never escape the follies of
her youth.
“Sod him!”
“That’s the spirit.” The stranger at the other end of the bar slid
from his bar stool, out of the shadows and into the yellow lamplight.
In another time and place he might have looked gorgeous, but in
low-slung jeans that had seen better days, black long-sleeved tee, with hair in
drastic need of a cut, several days’ worth of beard, and darkly glittering
eyes, he was devastating.
Pirate devastating. Bad boy devastating.
Kenzie swallowed. Double great.
ROMY SOMMER
I’ve always written stories for myself, but
didn’t even think of being an author until I realised that being over thirty
and living in a fantasy world was a little odd. Writing those same stories for
other people makes it a lot more acceptable!
By day I dress in cargo pants and boots for
my not-so-glamorous job of making movies but at night I come home to my two
little Princesses, in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I live, and I get to
write Happy Ever Afters. Since I believe every girl is a princess, and every princess
deserves a happy ending, what could be more perfect?
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