Ambiguous Heroes

I’ve been musing this week on the Choc-lit blog on the nature of heroes. Alan is here, in his Sheriff of Nottingham era, as an illustration of the kind of actor who plays heroes and villains with equal talent. And because it’s always nice to look at a picture of him. Thanks to Mary for this one. If you want to have a look at another actor who’s equally at home on both sides of the tracks, check out the Choc-lit blog today, as it was my turn to chose Wednesday’s hot man.

That’s how I like my actors, and that’s how I write my heroes. They all have some pretty dangerous stuff in their past and with a flip of the coin they could be either hero or villain. Not necessarily the sort you want to cuddle up to. So my heroines have to be the kind of women who can handle that. I’ve got four men in my life at the moment.

Devlin – the hero of Never Coming Home has worked for an un-named government agency that does unspecified things – dark deeds, done in the dark. He’s retired from that now, but he can’t change his past and has great difficulty in believing that Kaz can accept him for what he is. He’s also pretty good in a fight, which is useful when you’re chasing bad guys all over Europe, trying to find out what happened to your daughter.

Jay – he’s the hero of the other book that made the final in the American Title contest, Out of Sight, Out of Mind. (If you want to know more about that, have a look at my website.) Jay has a big problem. He doesn’t remember who he is, or anything about his past. He has a horrible suspicion that it’s something pretty black and that somehow he’s a threat to Madison, my heroine, who’s trying to help him. And of course, he’s right.  

Oh – and he and Madison can both read minds. Just so you know.

Luke – he’s the hero of The Last Thing You See and an old friend. This one is a bottom drawer book. I love the story – and Luke, naturally - but it was an early effort at romantic suspense. When the third person who read it gave me exactly the same list of things that were wrong with it, I heaved a sigh and put it away. But I love the book, and after a couple of years I have an idea of what I’m going to do with it. It’s a Romeo and Juliet story, only Luke survived the tragedy and now has to live with it.  And without Miranda – until he gets a very strange e-mail. I’m really looking forward to going back to this one to try again with it.

Zack – he’s the man in my work in progress. I call it that, but The Camelot Game is still very much at the thinking about and research stage. Zack is a slightly different hero, maybe a little less of an Alpha, which may be the effect of issues he has from someone trying to bury him alive. Kate, my heroine, gets to come to his rescue on one occasion, and he’s confident enough in himself to be OK with that. This book is a treasure hunt, with stolen art work and conspiracies and clues to an old Victorian mystery. The research is going to be fun, but time consuming, I think.

So – those are the men in my life – or at least on my pages. I hope you’ll get to meet them all one day.