Amy Lignor, The Heroe's Companion

 

 

 

 

Tallent & Lowery - The Perfect Couple

 

I love romance. I am always looking for the perfect couple whenever I pick up a book in any genre. Finding the perfect balance between personalities is something that truly makes a book memorable in my eyes.

 

One of my biggest and most important goals when it came to creating Leah Tallent and Gareth Lowery was to make them unique. Their banter, their wit, their hearts and what they believe in, their families and career choices - I wanted all of these factions to meld extremely well. And I wanted to make sure that  between all the thrill rides, chases and puzzle solving, their relationship continued to grow and shock readers with new revelations in every book.

 

With 13, Leah Tallent came into mind in an instant; it helps that her brain operates the same as mine. She has the job I would kill for. I’ve said in many blogs that I would beg the NYPL to let me live in their basement. That building, all those books, Patience and Fortitude outside on the steps - that is the perfect location for me. Leah doesn’t live in the basement, of course. She’s the Head of Research and has such a passion for that library she even spends Sunday mornings there reading and drinking coffee from a coffee pot that had to have served King Arthur at one time…it’s that old. She enjoys the ‘smell’ of the books, and that’s what I call paradise.

 

Leah is also ‘fun’ sarcastic (as opposed to mean). On the first page, readers find that out as she stands outside the library with a teenage tour group who roll their eyes and stick their gum on the regal back of Fortitude. Leah tells the absolute truth. She’s an honest woman, sometimes brutally and always funny. (And when you meet her family in The Sapphire Storm, you end up laughing because you finally see exactly why she is how she is).

 

When she meets Gareth, who has the nerve to be in her library one Sunday morning ruining the cornerstone of the historical building to retrieve a book that was placed there by Andrew Carnegie back in 1901, Leah basically wants to call the cops and have the stranger carted off to prison. But even though she’s set in her ways, Leah has the ability to bend. When Gareth begins speaking about why he’s there, and the huge puzzle he’s trying to solve - the librarian comes back full force and her love of research takes over.

 

The friendship between them opens the doors for them to lean on one another, and the love and passion that forms effects them both in their own individual ways. But when Tallent & Lowery succeed, readers will be thrilled for them and, hopefully, pick up ‘The Sapphire Storm’ just to see what the duo will have to face the next time around.

 

With ‘The Hero’s Companion’, Leah & Gareth get involved in their most personal puzzle yet. And fans will be amazed by the twists and turns in their relationship as more ‘secret’ doors from both their pasts begin to open.

 

They are alluring and addictive to me, to fans, and to each other. And that’s what makes Tallent & Lowery the perfect couple.

 

Until Next Time, Everybody,

Amy