Where did Huck's Legacy come from and who is it dedicated to?

 

The stakes are high – life or death – and the chance for a happily ever is in jeopardy.

 

 I'm often asked where I get my ideas. Most writers are asked the same question. Mine usually begin with an image or a character. Huck's Legacy, now available, is no different. I'd wanted to write another novel involving motorcycles in some way and I happened across a photo of French singer and actor Tom Leeb. His smoldering good looks inspired the character of Huck - a Mississippi raised man working undercover as Huck Morgan. He's working for the DEA as an undercover agent, infiltrating a notorious gang in LA called The Diamondbacks (like the rattlesnakes) so he rides a 1998 Harley Davidson Road King bike.

His real name is Henry Beauregard Baskin. Huck's nickname is handed down from his grandfather, just like his name. 

Tom Leeb

So Huck riding his Harley down Hollywood Boulevard was an early image and I built a story around him.

Enter his love interest (I do write romance, after all), a young woman on the run from Tennessee. Her name is Summer Tatum although her true first name is Sarabeth.

She wears a jacket like one I bought in my 20's, wore to California, and yes, strutted down Hollywood Boulevard late at night wearing. Inspiration for the story number two.

 

Huck noticed her and when he stops at a local diner, she's his waitress.

From there, the story unfolds so no more spoilers....here's the blurb, then an excerpt:

Blurb:

 

He's an undercover DEA agent, trying to infiltrate The Diamondbacks, an infamous motorcycle club, in Hollywood. When Huck sees a beautiful woman who intrigues him, he wants her. Summer is on the run from an incident back in Nashville that put her in fear for her life. Working as a waitress in a diner near Hollywood Boulevard, Summer is drawn to the bad boy biker. Their mutual attraction fires a wild passion and shared nights but as the danger increases, passion turns to something deeper, something real.  When he's outed as a Fed, he's about to be executed when Summer steps in to save him. Although he's seriously injured, they escape the Diamondbacks and leave Hollywood but trouble follows them all the way back to his hometown in Mississippi. The stakes are high – life or death – and the chance for a happily ever is in jeopardy.

 

 Sensitivity warning - there is some language, just saying.

 

Excerpt:

“Welcome to Neon Nights,” she said in a patented singsong. “Would you like a cup of joe while you look over the menu?”

Her voice poured over him like rich caramel or soft velvet. He caught a hint of a Southern accent, one with slow heat and some Tennessee twang. Intrigued by the way she spoke, Huck glanced up and did a double take. At close range, she was beautiful when he’d thought her merely pretty.

“I’ll take a cup of coffee,” he told her. “What kind of pie you got?”

“Chocolate, coconut cream, banana cream, apple, pecan, and strawberry.”

So he could hear her voice one more time, Huck asked, “What’s the blue plate special?”

“Beef stroganoff or Cobb salad,” she drawled. “If you look over the menu, there’s plenty more—burgers, hamburger steak with gravy, sandwiches hot and cold, meatloaf, chicken, or you can order breakfast anytime, 24/7.”

“What do you recommend?”

Her lips twitched. “What’s next? Are you going to ask for the wine list? If I had a choice, I’d go with the beef stroganoff. It’s the best of the specials in my opinion. That, or just get a burger run through the garden, maybe a Jack Benny.”

Huck knew a little diner lingo. “Grilled cheese with bacon? All right. I’ll take one with a side of fries.”

“I’ll be back with your coffee.”

Her name tag read “Summer” and he wondered if that was her real name. If so, it suited her. She radiated a sense of calm, quiet beauty that evoked the serenity of summer.

When she brought the coffee pot, she turned over the cup already on the table and filled it. “Your food should be up before long,” she told him.

“Thank you. I’m Huck.”

“As in Huckleberry Finn?” she asked, with one raised eyebrow.

He laughed. “No, not quite. More like ‘I’ll be your huckleberry,’ an old Southern saying.”

With a quirky grin, she said, “You know, it rhymes with…”

Huck completed her sentence. “Fuck. Yeah, I’ve heard that one so often if I had a dollar for every time I have, I’d be a rich man. It’s Huck Morgan, by the way.”

He expected she’d offer her name in return, but she hesitated before she did.

“Summer Tatum,” she told him. Then, she walked away, her sweet ass bouncing to an unheard beat beneath the cheesy uniform. She intrigued him, so much he’d almost blundered and told her his real name and why he was nicknamed Huck.

I never fucking screw up like that. I can’t. I won’t. If I do, the entire investigation is gone and with it two years of my life.

 

This one also has a dedication - most of my novels do.  This one is for my cousin, Bill, who would have turned 63 on October 11, the day before Huck's Legacy releases. He passed away unexpectedly in November 2021.

 

Dedication:

For my late cousin, my summer brother and lifelong best friend, Bill Sontheimer. Together we borrowed his brother’s books to read the sexy, hot parts until we figured out just how the act worked. We drank too much, drove too fast, and shared a rock-n-roll soundtrack for our lives. As Janis sang, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

 

I hope I've intrigued you enough to pick up a copy this week!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKWFLB4W

https://www.evernightpublishing.com/hucks-legacy-by-lee-ann-sontheimer-murphy/

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hucks-legacy-lee-ann-sontheimer-murphy/1144198314

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1463147

https://www.bookstrand.com/book/hucks-legacy-mf

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/huck-s-legacy

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Huck's bike and car!

Balfour House Vicksburg MS - in the novel it becomes Baskin House.

Segue from summer into fall

 

 

In my memories, summer moved with a slow surety, a graceful procession

toward autumn that almost stood still. I remember the long summers of my

childhood, sunlit days that stretched between the shores of spring and fall in

what seemed like forever. Picnics in the park, catching lightning bugs after

dark, sliding down sun warmed slides and swinging on chain held swings  

creaking as I pumped my legs to make them soar high. Summer meant evenings on

the porch eavesdropping on the adults in the warm darkness, listening and

learning.

Summer meant nights spent with my grandparents on their porch, my

attention caught by their tales of times gone by. We waved at the neighbors,

and if we were lucky, we might get an ice cream cone from one of the

vendors that plied the neighborhoods of my hometown, their music calling kids

from every direction like the Pied Piper.

Somewhere in the middle the Fourth of July loomed like a bright icon and

we anticipated it with eagerness that only kids can have. July 4 in those years

lasted at least a week or so it seemed as we gathered at one relative or

another’s house to shoot fireworks, drink lemonade, and eat fried chicken, hot

dogs, and hamburgers. Several of those Fourth celebrations were held at my Aunt

Janet and Uncle Bill’s house in St. Joseph. As all-American kids, we played

baseball in the neighbors’ big backyard, ate cookies, played hide and go seek,

nibbled on watermelon, and waited for dark when the real fun began.

Even after the Fourth of July came, then went, summer continued like

something out of an enchanted fairy tale. Our school never began until the day

after Labor Day Monday so we had extra weeks and all of August. We went to the

cool, dim branch library, Washington Park, and checked out books, then read

to the soft whir of the fan on hot afternoons or out on the porch.

Sometimes several generations of the family would meet at one of the

largest parks in my hometown for cookouts and barbecue.

 On other occasions we had family reunions, some with as many as four and even five generations present. My deep interest in family history was sparked at one of those reunions after a conversation with my great-grandfather’s youngest brother when I was nine.

Summer now, however, seems to fly past on wings at warp speed.

So as the days of summer move past me and around me in a blur of activity,

I try to enjoy the brilliant sunrises, the often colorful sunsets, the

blooming flowers around me, the quiet down moments on the porch or deck, and

catch a little of that summer time magic.

 

Now it’s Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer in our culture. The observance began out of the Labor Movement in the late 1800’s, a time when unions grew and strengthened, when workers first had someone to speak for their needs, and child labor became less common. First observed on the first day of May (and still is in most parts of the world), President Grover Cleveland signed the law fixing Labor Day on the first Monday of summer in 1894.

Autumn is my favorite season so I’m ready for those crisp fall days, cool night, bright leaves.

 

Bring it on!

 

Do you still write books?

 I'm an author with more than sixty titles and more on the way with four currently under contract in various stages of the publishing process. I write for four publishers at this time - Evernight Publishing, World Castle Publishing, Champagne Books and The Wild Rose Press. Although I've been writing for most of my life - we'll get to more about that in a moment - I've been a published author since 2010. 

My latest release was on June 28 and the one prior to that May 15 and on February 8. If you count the backlist and no longer in print title I put up on Kindle Directing Publishing at the end of June, that's 4 this year so far.  That's not counting a story in an anthology from Evernight that's upcoming or a contract signed this past week for Book 2 of my Laredo series.  Last year, 4 total....for more, just check out my author page on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B004JPBM6I?i

My books are sold in many places, not just on Amazon, for the record but that's the easiest list to access that has them all.

So yes, I still write books. I have several completed manuscripts not yet submitted and many in my ongoing Laredo series. The first title in that will release from World Castle Press. When I have a date, so will you.

Almost from the time I could read, I wanted to be an author, to write books. Before I became one, I wrote many things, had short stories and non-fiction in many magazines and anthologies. I worked in both broadcast radio and print journalism, eventually serving as the editor over two small town regional papers at the same time.

I wrote my "first" novel at the age of ten, penning it in the back of my blue cardboard three-ring binder in the 5th grade. Needless to say, it was excellent practice but didn't advance anywhere although my dad thought it should.

So, yes, I still write books and always will.