I Need a Hero

Applicants, please form a neat orderly line, whilst I whittle you down.

Do you need to be tall, I hear you ask?  Dark and handsome?  Well, quite possibly.  Successful in everything you do?  (And I do mean everything!)

Or can you have a few flaws?  To make you, how shall I put it, just that little bit more human?  More believable?  To enable you to grow, as the story grows?  And you find yourself clearing every hurdle I can create on your way to happiness – with the woman of your dreams?

You’ll be glad to know I’m not as prescriptive as I used to be.  When I first read ‘Gone with the Wind’, at the tender age of 11, I was horrified to learn that Rhett Butler had a moustache.  Facial hair – eek!  How could anyone cope with that?  Then, of course, a few years later I saw the film and I was bewitched, beguiled and not at all bothered by such minor details.  He could have had a beard too, and I would have begged him to turn round and tell me that quite frankly, he did give a damn, that tomorrow was in fact today, and that today he would stay with me for all eternity.

But I digress.  I still need a hero for my first book.  And I’m sure you’re getting impatient.  So, after very careful consideration, I choose Saul Preston.

Yes, he’s tall.  Yes, he’s dark and handsome.  Or, rather, he is to my heroine, Kate.  He’s also rather successful.  He owns an art gallery in the West End of London, as well as being the managing director of an aircraft leasing company.  But he’s human.  He has pride, and it’s got him into rather a pickle with the lady he loves.  Actually more like a whole jar full of pickles, but now, three years later, he’s finally got an opportunity to retrieve the situation.  To show her his ‘True Colours’ and be the hero of her dreams.

Do not despair, though, all you hopeful heroes out there.  I’ll be back, soon, with book number two!

If you’d like to share with me what you think makes the perfect hero, I’d love to hear from you.

Who knows, we just might have the same dream…