BREAKING AWAY my Work In Progress

My friend Taryn Raye and I were playing tag  and I ended up being IT so the challenge is to do a short interview about my WIP (Work in Progress). Since everything you do while writing a new book helps you flesh out your characters, I accepted her challenge. 

What is the working title of your book?

BREAKING AWAY

Where did the idea come from for the book?

BREAKING AWAY is the third book of my SEAL TEAM Heartbreaker series. It’s Flash’s story. He’s missing in action at the end of the first story and throughout the second one. It’s time Flash’s story is told.

What genre does your book fall under?

My book is romantic suspense.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Steven Amell. He’s a Canadian Actor and has done some really strong stuff thus far on HBO. He’s rugged, masculine, built and a fine actor. I just saw him last night on his new show Arrow.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?  

  Navy SEAL is forced to go on the run until he can prove his innocence, when the smuggled museum artifacts he’s transported from Iraq trigger the murder of his FBI contact. 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It will be self-published.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The last book BREAKING THROUGH took me seven months to write. I’m hoping BREAKING AWAY will take less.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I can’t compare them to any other SEAL books out there because they’re a little different than most others.  I'm not saying that in an arrogant way. Just that my thoughts on the guys themselves may be a little different than what other writers envision for their books.

My books delve deeply  into the personal conflicts that most military people have to deal with. Their sacrifices, the pain that it causes them.  These are real situations that the guys and women who love them have to face. BREAKING AWAY deals with Flash who’s been betrayed by an FBI handler and been cut loose from his team because of it. When he contacts the FBI they try to take him down and almost kill him. So, he goes deep underground and he’s on the run until he can figure out how to prove himself innocent of murder. And prove he isn't a smuggler. That he actually was duped into it. 

SEALs head for water when their at risk, but he’s been dropped in the desert country of Nevada.And is totally out of his element when he rents an apartment from a woman with secrets and problems of her own. And this brings trouble knocking on her door.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I read an article about the museum in Baghdad being looted by people right after the city was taken. And how artifacts were being sold as souvenirs to service personnel. Several of the men who purchased them from street dealers turned them in after they came home and realized that the souvenirs they'd bought were actually the real deal. So what if they were being smuggled into the US through use of military transport? And what if a Navy SEAL were approached to do some undercover work to expose the real culprits responsible for that. And what if this Navy SEAL was someone who had a reputation for gambling and they thought he might be bought because of it. And the actual guys who approach him are bad guys and not who they say they are?

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The book isn’t the normal Romantic suspense with a Navy SEAL. My guys are SEALs through and through. They eat sleep and breath the life. They sacrifice for it. And they love as hard as they work.  The conflicts that consume them are realistic conflicts that any one of them could truly face.This book will be more of a stretch than the other books in the series. SEALs don't do police investigations in the US. Their business is usually conducted covertly in other countries, like South America, Africa, the Middle East. They use covert technologies to gather intel as well as take the bad guys out. 

They search out drug dealers, smugglers, terrorists, and work with other agencies in these countries. But this man has been used as a courier to transport a museum piece worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And he was duped into doing it because SEALs keep their mouths shut and keep things to themselves. So by keeping the code of silence,  he's put his life in danger and on hold until he can figure how to make things right.

I hope you found the premise of my book interesting.
And don't forget to go check out Taryn's post as well. 

Write on,
Teresa R.