Rootie Simms

Truly Julie was born and raised in the wilds of the Florida Everglades. She makes her living as a tour guide, protecting tourists from hungry alligators and rabid souvenir vendors. She’s twenty-seven, single and prefers to be called by her initials-TeeJay. Bluffing her way into a high-paying job, TeeJay takes a Turkish princess on a tour of the Everglades. Unknown to TeeJay, the spoiled princess has made plans to ditch the tour and party with in Miami with Lady Gaga. Keeping the rowdy teen under control becomes vital when TeeJay discovers the princess is the target of an international death plot. TeeJay is then forced to drag the incorrigible teen deep into the Everglades while fending off a psychotic Indian tracker, Crazy Ike and his swamp-stompers and a squad of trained assassins. The men chasing TeeJay and the princess have guns, jeeps and satellite communication. TeeJay has a klutzy teenager, an empty Band-aid box and wildlife knowledge.Whose weapons will prove more deadly?

Rootie Simms writing career began with her first novel: Naughty Notes. Written when she was ten years old, the book had lurid scenes of little girls doing the can-can and flashing their white cotton underpants at little boys who yelled, ＂Whoo! Whoo!＂ She was rewarded for her unsettling exposé of the fourth grade with (what would soon become) a permanent chair in the principal’s office. Her next honorarium came in high school when she rewrote the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In her version, Goldie’s food theft was rationalized by her fondness for marijuana. She was rewarded for this insight into Goldie’s baffling character trait with a three-day suspension so she could, ＂Think about what she did.＂ As an adult she was a freelance writer for national magazines that included Cosmopolitan, GQ, Essence and The New Yorker. She didn’t actually sell any articles to those magazines, but she certainly did write for them. In some magazines circles she’s still known as Slush Pile Sally. Her feature length movie, My Fair Lidy, was produced by Sand Woman Productions. She notes that if you didn’t like the movie, don’t blame her because they didn’t film the movie she wrote. She also wrote the plays, Christmas Matzo at the Doublewide Diner, Friday Night Vows, It’s all in your mind and Shameless Women. All were produced and received rave reviews from the dozen or so people who actually came to the theatre. Her optioned work includes Randolf the Marionette, a children’s television show optioned by Worldgate Studios, and The Locket, a short optioned by CS Productions. Neither of which has ever seen the light of day-but at least the checks didn’t bounce. As the author of the Truly Julie novels Rootie has a lot in common with her main character. She was a tour guide for ten years in Florida where she taught British tourists to beware of Florida’s two biggest predators-alligators and Mickey Mouse. One devours flesh, the other wallets. Like Truly Julie, Rootie lived in the Everglades and developed a deep appreciation for wildlife, swamps, and reckless men. Rootie requests that you buy her novels because she has a beer and trans-fat deficiency that requires daily maintenance.