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Who was your first hero?
Like a lot of young girls, my first hero was my father. One of my earliest memories is when I was a very young child and my dad was carrying me into the house from the car. We’d been on a long trip; it was night time. I buried my head against his shoulder and he carried me and there was simply no better place in the world. He has been a military man, a half-dozen other things it seems, including a private pilot and flight instructor…and he still rides a motorcycle. (Of course, the older we all get, including me—with fully grown children of my own–the more that last point just simply amazes and scares the bejabbers out of me!) When I was young, Mom was the one with the quicker temper, but Dad was the one who could merely tilt down his eyeglasses and peer at me over the top, and reduce me to misery. One glance. All it took. It’s been a lot of years since I needed to have that one glance from Dad, but I have a strong hunch it would still be pretty darn effective. He’s a man of incredible patience who worked with his hands, checked our tires, came to my rescue more than once with most of the pathetic vehicles I’ve owned as a young woman. He called my mom “Honey” so frequently that my older brother called her that, too, for a while when he was a little boy. Dad was often gone for work—always taking care of his family—and always was the rock of my childhood, and probably every hero I’ve ever written has had a piece of my father in him.
So when it came to writing Fortune’s Perfect Match, whose hero, Max Allen, is a flying enthusiast, it was a whole lot of fun to pick my dad’s brain about flying. He doesn’t get behind the wheel (maybe that should be rudder?) anymore, but it’s all still in his head, and I suspect, his heart. Both of my parents have often been a resource for some detail I need about life out on a farm—city girl, here!—or some other area, but this time, it was more than just a detail. It was pages and pages of notes and long conversations; I dearly loved it; and once again, my father the hero, came through.
I’ve married a hero of my own. He holds my hand and he can slay me with a single glance, eyeglasses or no. Most of all, he makes me laugh, and makes me glad that I had Dad’s example to look for, so I could recognize a gem when I found him.
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Growing up, Allison wasn’t overly thrilled moving from one home in one state to another and another and another. By the time her family settled in Arizona, however, she came to learn that each experience—from the orange grove-scented air of Southern California to the wild beauty of Wyoming, from the verdant land of Minnesota to the inexplicable appeal of the Arizona desert—proved wonderfully useful when it came to letting her imagination run riot while putting pen to paper. She continues to make her home in Arizona with her husband and family, whom she credits with remarkable patience for the hours she spends parked in front of her computer, and more importantly, for blessing her life with the kind of love and happiness that she wants her readers to continue sharing with the characters living in the pages of her books. She loves hearing from her readers at Allison@allisonleigh.com or PO Box 40772, Mesa AZ 85274-0772.
