Can a hard-bitten Florida journalist who's seen it all, write a hot, steamy romance novel?

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Since graduating from Emerson College in Boston in 1993 with a degree in mass communications, journalist Tamara Lush has pretty much seen and covered everything.

She's covered more than a half dozen executions, including that of notorious Sweetwater cop-turned serial killer, Manny Pardo.

In 2000, a man she was interviewing, confessed to committing a murder because the victim "was at the wrong place at the wrong time."

In 2009, she convinced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to spill the beans about all of his extra-martial affairs.

In 2012, she wrote about a man who rescues animals from high-kill shelters and flew with him to Alabama where he rescued his 1000th animal.

"It was decided that Rex, a floppy-eared, mixed-breed puppy was Bennett’s 1,000th animal," wrote Lush. Rex rode back to Florida sitting in Lush's lap. (See photo at left)

That same year, the Associated Press named her the AP's Tampa Bay correspondent.

By now you're probably asking yourself, "Well, she's watched men die and rescued puppies from puppy death row...what else is left?"

This...

This morning on Facebook, she wrote: "For the past year, I've been working on a book at night, after work and when my very patient husband was in bed. It's been an interesting and humbling year, to put it mildly. Creative writing has become my escape. Being an author is something I never imagined doing -- I even scoffed when Heather Hanson told me that I should write a book. But last summer, I sat down at my computer and didn't stop."

Lush calls the book, "Florida noir."

On her publisher's website, the book - "Hot Shade" -  is described this way:

Journalist Skylar Shaw covers a plane crash on a Florida beach that leads her to a handsome yet mysterious Italian man...and the conspiracy that threatens all he holds dear.

Romance is the last thing on reporter Skylar Shaw's mind when she covers a plane crash on a Florida beach. Her best source could be a mysterious Italian man, but he's strictly off the record—unless it involves indulging their electrifying attraction to each other. Little does Skylar know, but that crash is only the beginning.

Luca Rossi is hiding a big secret: He's a journalist, too, and his anonymous exposé on the Mafia destroyed his world. Now, after two lonely years on the run, he will do anything to possess this vulnerable American beauty. But Skylar is as relentless as the Florida glare, and the situation ignites when she reports on a gruesome murder in a swamp. Soon erotic nights will bleed into dangerous days, and nowhere will be safe from the heat.

Click here to pre-order "Hot Shade" at Amazon.com