The Perfect Man For Everywoman

By vagueonthehow

I've just started writing a new single title. It's at such an early stage I haven't even decided on a working title yet, but I already had a pretty good idea of my hero's attributes before I sat down at the keyboard. As always, I based the best bits of his character on my lovely OH. That leaves me free to indulge my fantasies, and dream up a hero who's gorgeous to look at as well as a real Alpha male.  That means tall, dark, handsome, preferably with tousled hair.  Of course, he's got to be well muscled with a good broad chest (heroines for the comforting of). The funny thing is, that description sounds like my OH, too. That's the point where I start trawling the Internet to add a little variation to my mental images. My daughter has a thing for Ian Somerhalder, so he was first up on my inspirations board under the heading "hero". Pretty hunky, huh?

Then, while I was drafting this blog I had Classic FM playing online. Their home page featured a photomontage of a recent performance of Parsifal with Jonas Kaufmann in the title role. Now, I don't care for Wagnerian opera, but the photograph of Jonas having his clothes torn off by a bunch of wicked women (all in character, of course!) almost made me a convert. Oh, yes, and Jonas sings like a hero, too.
Here's a clip - at first I thought it was floodwater sloshing around their ankles, but to judge from the state of those bedclothes, they must have Ribena on draught...

It's going to take a bit of work to track down a likely picture of a heroine for him. His Cinderella is an unhappy girl who has got into the habit of eating to get herself through life's ups and downs. Then a life changing experience leaves her destitute. She could solve all her problems in an instant by selling her home to our hero (above) but disaster changes her. After being betrayed by her ex-boyfriend, she's assumes he's trying to trick her. At first she can't see past our hero's battle-hardened public image at first, and in any case she's too stubborn to take his money. That would be too easy!  It's only when she glimpses the real man behind the mask that she decides a compromise might work - but only on her terms. He's not a man to see a woman starve, though, so there are going to be fireworks. I'm visualising a twenty-five year old Dawn French while I write, but as I can't find any suitable pictures of her, there's currently a gap on my inspirations board under "heroine".

Have you got any  suitable candidates? There's a signed copy from my backlist for the best suggestion!

Christina Hollis has written both Historical fiction and Modern Romance/Presents for Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd, as well non-fiction for national magazines and prize-winning short stories. Her current release, Lady Rascal is available for download from  Amazon, iTunes  and many other retailers. Christina loves to hear from readers - you can contact her through her website or her blog.