Exit Signs by Patrice Locke ❄️ Fun Facts, Book Tour & Gift Card Giveaway ❄️ (Romantic Comedy)

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Tracy Price has a documentary-style life until rockstar Jesse Elliot rewrites her script and takes the wheel to drive her crazy.

In her quest to find a writer missing since the 1930's, Tracy thinks she has discovered exactly how to handle her new relationship. But she may be listening to the wrong voice.

Then Tracy and Jesse find out they've both been keeping some big secrets, and the truth may ruin everything.

Will sharing the missing writer's story open both their hearts?

What the Main Character Eats, Readers Eat it Up

Readers of my novel “Exit Signs” are fascinated by the strange snacks narrator Tracy Price concocts. I know that because it’s usually the first thing they mention to me and it’s listed in almost all the reader reviews.

One reader even asked, facetiously, I hope, for a recipe book. I hate to say this, but Tracy is a snack virtuoso only in her own mind.

And the funny thing is, the snack concoctions almost didn’t make it into the story. They were just about the last thing added to the book. My editor at Soul Mate suggested adding more background information about Tracy, including her favorite foods. I immediately knew that Tracy would not have a handful of grapes or a saltine with peanut butter on it. She wouldn’t throw a banana in a blender with almond milk, and she would never, ever eat carrot sticks.

Tracy is a unique character, and her snacks would have to be unexpected.

Then, as if a cloud were passing over my head, like a cartoon dialogue box, I heard Tracy yelling about her genius in the area of snack combinations. A wheat thin and a square of dark chocolate, a salted, dry green bean and a pineapple life saver, meatballs in chocolate sauce. She carried them all, at one time or another, in a plastic snack bag tucked into the pocket of her blue jeans. And I realized it was a tradition she carried on from her frail, beloved grandmother.

I thank my editor for the inspiration, but I thank Tracy herself for the specific combinations. And I believe they had to come last. Over the course of writing in Tracy’s voice I got to know her very well. But she has a tendency to be a private person, so it took me a while to crack her shell – in a completely non-egg-like way.

That one little detail about my main character turned out to be a key element to her story, something readers were amused by, something they remembered. It reinforced Tracy’s unusual perspectives, her heritage, and her family connections in a way I never expected.

By the way, there is actually an online recipe for meatballs in chocolate sauce. I guess it’s quite a delicacy in some places. I am hoping I never visit those places.

Jesse lunged toward me. It was too late. I had already launched. He reached out but didn’t connect. Instead, I broke the trajectory of my upper body by grabbing him at chest level and sliding down. He was pushed backward into the table, which stabilized our ungainly host-parasite tableau. He softened my landing so that physically I was fine, but my pride was ready for intensive care.

Heaped at his feet, like a demented penitent, I hugged his knees, my face pressed flat into his thighs. I might as well stay down. What’s worse? To stand up and face you, or remain here, nestled between your legs? What do you think? Then, the finishing touch: I erupted into nervous, snorting laughter. He guessed there was no serious injury.

“It’s nice to see you, too. You are okay, aren’t you? Can you stand?” He reached for my arms to unwrap them from his legs and help me up. I jammed my eyelids together to conjure up a do-over, but no such luck.

I would have to deal with it.

He held my elbows in his hands. “I guess we were both in a hurry to see each other.”

I do appreciate your attempt to lighten the mood, but you are standing SO close. I can feel your body heat. Or is that mine? By the way, you smell tart and fresh, like a lime.

I stared at his shoulder. My dignity meter was stuck on empty.

“Enthusiastic greeting. Thanks for that.” He was blatantly amused.

“It was nothing.” I stepped backward to regain a semblance of independence. Don’t mock me. But, you did go to all the trouble to bring your hair. And your eyes. I might forgive you for witnessing my disgrace. That hair.

As a journalist, Patrice Locke wrote a lot of stories with unhappy and even tragic endings. Facts are facts, and a writer doesn't mess with facts. 
But fiction is another world. Patrice began writing novels, where she could control the endings and make them as happy as she wants. The best thing about fiction, she says, is having time to think before her characters speak, so they can say the things most of us only come up with after the perfect moment has passed. 
She loves to write, read, and watch romantic comedies where life always turns out the way it should. Her only obsessive relationships are with semicolons and Oxford commas. 
Though she doesn't like to brag, Patrice is an award-winning artist. She won a gold and diamond watch when she was 13 for decorating a turkey drumstick bone to look like Batman. Alas, that was her last recognition in the fine arts. 
Patrice lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the blue sky is brilliant, the air is thin, and the vistas are breathtaking. She is none of those things, which is one reason she enjoys living among them.