The Perfect Hero

Yes, I'll admit, I work with gorgeous guys. It's part and parcel of my job and it's not my fault. It's something I fell into, kicking and screaming...kind of. I'd been writing, editing, and putting together the cover art for romance books for many years. My radar was always in overdrive when it came to men who could actually grace the covers of books us women love to fantasize about. And I'm good at it. I've worked with RT, the Chippendales, Thunder from Down Under, and many others.

So, when my then-boyfriend-now-husband, showed me his comp card, I was taken by surprise, because I wasn't even aware that he'd dabbled in modeling. Yes, I knew he was gorgeous, but him as a model? That wasn't something I expected from my electrical engineer. Yet the second I laid eyes on the picture he showed me, I sputtered, "You need to be on romance covers.

 

He answered, "Yeah, right."

 

So I challenged him. "So you won't mind if I promote you?"

 

"Uh, no...go ahead."

 

Little did he know about my contacts and what they could do!

 

The rest is history. I did my homework and found a competition, that if he won, would pay for him to compete in the Mr. Romance 2003 competition. It was for the Perfect Hero contest from Echelon Press.

 

Of course he won, and went on to place as 2nd runner up and contestant's choice at the Kansas City Romatic Times Convention in 2003. He also won best costume at Heather Graham's Vampire Ball on Friday night.

But I digress.

 

Yesterday, as I was talking to a lady that does book reviews, our courtship came up. I told her a little bit about what brought us together and all the things we'd done since, one of them being his proposal to me during the Mr. Romance contest 2006, in Daytona Beach. We found out later a video had been taken of the event and with the proper permissions, we posted it to YouTube...The Perfect Marriage Proposal. I-Caught, the ABC News magazine program saw it and actually contacted us about using the video...we had two full seconds of television fame!

 

I shared this link with her, and she came back with, "Ohmygoodness!! I have never seen anything so sweet & romantic! You have an amazing man & he has an amazing woman! I actually have tears in my eyes, hearing this! How incredibly sweet & romantic! I am so glad to hear that you two found each other! What a love story! You should have one of your author friends help you with your own true life romance books with your story! I'd definitely want to read such a sweet thing!  There couldn't be a more perfect union & I am blessed to be in the company of such a true love story couple!"

 

After I wiped the tears from my eyes on such an endearing complement, I began to think about what she said. As an author I wondered...would the romance world really want to hear about all the sappy stuff that went into us getting together and what we've done since then? The readers usually want the larger than life kind of stories. Did our story qualify? Did we have enough there to make a full book?

 

I'm not sure. As a published author I know I need to keep the reader entranced. As a woman in love with "the Perfect Hero", am I willing to let the public know everything that went into our courtship and continuing love affair? Others have labeled us as the perfect RT romance couple because of our love for each other. But is this enough?

 

I don't think I'm the right person to write our love story. It's too close and too dear to me. So I guess I'll put the challenge out there to all my fellow authors...are you up, and willing, to write a true-to-life story about us? Let me know, because it seems like some women want to hear our story.

 

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