The Rum Runner: The Legend of Captain John Stewart

By Doralynn Kennedy (Indie author, 2025)

Genre: Fiction/Gothic Romance

Pages (print): 530

Via: Author request

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book for honest review.

“Mercy with a mouth like a trap.”

Kimber: Okay, Mom. I give up. What’s a “gothic romance”?

Mom:  “Gothic romance” combines dark, suspenseful settings with intense, often forbidden love, blending horror, mystery, and passion. It’s often characterized by moody, atmospheric settings. Crumbling mansions. Haunted castles. Foggy forests. They shape the story’s tension, drama, and intrigue.

Kimber: You mean like a nice, thick juicy Porterhouse steak sizzling on the grill?

Mom. Sighs. Something like that.

Well, friends. We don’t usually gravitate toward “gothic romance.” But when we received a review request from author Doralynn Kennedy for her latest book, The Rum Runner: The Legend of Captain John Stewart, we accepted it on the strength of her prior work. A formidable author and prodigious writing talent, Kennedy has published in multiple genres, including romantic suspense, Gothic romance, Christian fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. We’ve reviewed a couple over the years, including Thirteen Miracles and The Mystery of the Fox Down Dog and Other Stories. Enjoyed them.

So even though we’re not really big “gothic romance” fans, we decided to take a chance on The Rum Runner and Book One: Cliff House. It’s the first book in a three-novel omnibus collection. We’ll get to the other books later. But were we ever surprised with Cliff House. Here’s the skinny:

When the past refuses to stay buried and an external hurricane mirrors an inner storm, love becomes a dangerous game of shadows and secrets in this deliciously moody and atmospheric read set in Maine.

The Plot

Caroline came to steal his secrets. But he stole her heart.

When Case Pharmaceuticals’ investigator Caroline Oliver arrives at a decaying mansion on the Maine coast as a hurricane closes in, she expects corporate secrets tied to rumors of immortal life. Instead, she finds a house that’s alive – and a man who should not exist.

Edward Kelly, rumored to be a long-dead Prohibition-era smuggler Captain John Stewart, is now a billionaire businessman of impossible age. Haunted by a century-old curse, he’s spent decades hiding from a past that refuses to stay buried. A hundred years earlier, a private nurse named Ruth Wilson stepped into his world of passion, smugglers, and secrets, and fell in love with a man the sea refused  to drown. Now the past and present collide.

Because some storms do not end with the water. Some follow a man ashore and wait for him in the dark...

The Rum Runner is a masterful, highly readable blend of spooky haunted house with a mind of its own, supernatural mystery, and a generational curse tied to Prohibition-era rum runner and Cliff House owner Captain John Stewart, aka: Edward Kelly. The historical context is – duh – rum running – and smuggling during the 1920s. This includes speakeasies, murder, mayhem, and one super creepy house help duo, Mr. and Mrs. Yardley.

It may be the first book we’ve read where a house is a main character. Like, sentient. Hungry. Jealous. And if Cliff House is a trap, what does that make Edward? Is he really flesh and blood or… something else?

The Rum Runner grabbed us in Chapter 1. Didn’t let go until the final page. As noted above, we’ve enjoyed Kennedy’s prior novels. But The Rum Runner is a whole new level of excellence and expertise. It’s Kennedy’s best work yet. And thoroughly un-putdownable. Like this:

Superb writing and masterful storytelling propel a plot that hits you with relentless momentum. The plot-punching narrative and dynamic characters combined with breathless pacing pour out a story that’s as smooth as a rum-soaked sunset. It’s also as creepy and compelling as the water-soaked beams and stones of Cliff House. The story creates a subtle but distinct line of rising tension and intrigue as we follow Caroline in and out of the rhythms of the house and the stories within while the “creep-out factor” soars into the stratosphere.

Haunting, mysterious and exceedingly eerie, The Rum Runner would make a great movie. (What’s Vincent Price or his progeny up to these days? Hmmm…) “We sail!”

Again, kindly note that this omnibus collection includes three novels. It’s a heavy lift, clocking in at over 500 pages. Book One, Cliff House, clocks in at 174 pages.

Cloaked in a shroud of secrets that echo through the story like ghosts of yesteryear, this exceptional gothic romance caught us on a cliff, haunting our thoughts long after we turned the last page.

We loved it! You will, too!

Our Rating: 4.0

Join us TOMORROW for our review of Book Two: Rum Runners. And don’t forget the Porterhouse! “Cut loose!”