Falcon is much larger now but then it was quite rural with no real "town" and had only a volunteer fire department, A Colorado Springs fire department officer was the chief. I borrowed some of the people and mixed and mingled them to create the secondary characters in Smoke and Spots. Grady and Sully are pure imagination, though, as is Jamie, Grady's nephew/recently adopted son. And so is Lottsa Spots, Jamie's new canine buddy.
Fires have been in the news a great deal lately, especially forest and wildlands fires, with the drought in the western regions and their tragic and destructive result. I also wrote Red Tails in the Sunset to celebrate the brave pilots who fly the slurry bombers and water transports and I will try to get it released again soon. For this story, I just chose a couple of incidents from things I had experienced or heard about in the past to showcase how such a department operates and let readers get to know the real character of the two heroes. As usual, I fell in love with both of them and would happily take either one. Almost sorry they are gay ;-) but this is their story, not mine!! I had my years with my hero fire fighter, policeman and former Marine so I cannot complain, There is a bit of him in all my heroes, too.
I can't speak for other writers, but I find I put somethiug of one or more of my life's heroes into just about every one of my good guys, a bit of me into the heroines when I write hetero stories, and now and then "honor" a non-friend but weaving him or her into a villain! From conversations with other writers, that is not too unusual, really!
Check back in the next couple of days for an excerpt and a bit more about this story! Meanwhile the Canine Cupids initial trio is coming along and so is Crossing Borders. There should be a cover for it soon.
