People are racist about redheads in a way they’d never dare to be about black or Asian people.
Mick Hucknall
Anyone who’s read the book and knows me would have no problem figuring out that the female main character, Robbie, is loosely modeled after my granddaughter. Focused, athletic, beautiful, brilliant (she’s premed), early 20s, cute, and 5’7″ with a dimple and cute figure, she’s the ideal prototype. Because it’s fiction, Robbie has gray eyes and wears locs. And other stuff, but my cutie pie granddaughter was an ideal starting point.
Rogan, on the other hand, was quite the challenge.
I love men. I think men (good men) are the best ever. The list of men I like ranges from – as my grandmother (RIP) once said – from the blondest blond to the deepest chocolate. My grandmother was a trip! Because I tend to be very conservative, my actual experiences are few, and I have been completely mono for the last 18 years. That’s also how I roll. However, fantasy is cheap. Let me continue before I get into TMI territory!
At the bottom of my physical attraction list are (were) red-haired men. How, then, did the romantic main character end up being a redhead? And with freckles, no less. Because, dear reader, I decided to confront my prejudices and just go for it.
Red-haired men are in variate ranges of sexiness. In my experience, however, I never really considered them. I thought that Rogan would be a good first attempt at making a romantic hero red-haired.
First of all, Rogan is half Scot and half Spanish. He speaks Gaelic and Spanish as well as American English. In my mind, because he was born in Vegas and is the offspring of international parents, he also speaks a smattering of Mandarin, Japanese, and, of course, French. Rogan’s a classically trained chef after all, and that means French!
I purposely made his physique like the ones I’ve observed on soccer players because they (as well as tennis, hockey, and volleyball players, for instance) have the same basic physique. Muscular and athletic, but not bulky like bodybuilders, American football, or Rugby players. Even the slimmer fitness models are starting to look like bulky weightlifters, making them more unappealing.
That being said, I noticed that many romantic heroes were over 6 feet tall, bulky bodybuilder types with impressive biceps and a big, broad chest, and were either dark-haired or blond. I’m not speaking of the black romantic heroes because they’re in a different category. The next full novel I’m writing is Derrick’s Daria, and Derrick will be my ideal black romantic hero.
Trying to decide what kind of man Rogan would be wasn’t difficult. I’ve worked in the hospitality industry before, I have friends who work in the hospitality industry, and my oldest son still works in the hospitality industry, albeit no longer in Vegas. When he left Las Vegas, he was snapped up immediately because the Las Vegas hospitality experience is pure gold to the rest of the country. Even he was surprised!
Some people hate “gingers.” I don’t know why because I think red hair is absolutely beautiful. I just hadn’t seen a man that was both red-haired and sexy. Most redheads I observed or knew were deathly pale, sometimes with freckles, sometimes not, and seemed to be nerds no matter what. I wanted to take Rogan out of the nerd territory, put him into sexy territory, and Frankenstein his overall look.
I found a bunch of people who, surprisingly enough, were already sexy, even though they were redheads. I did not know that Michael Fassbender was a redhead. Who knew that Benedict Cumberbatch was a redhead? Others include Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Spencer Tracy, Robert Redford, Seth Green, and Prince Harry. Many redhead actors hid it in their movie roles. So I was surprised to see that there were already sexy redheaded men out there. Who knew!
Remember, Rogan is half Scot and half Spanish. Sexy Spanish men are almost a cliché. The sexiest Spanish man I know is Rafael Nadal of tennis fame. He has the body and the complexion I imagined for Rogan but with different face and hair.
Ultimately, I ended up blending Rogan with a couple of (ridiculously handsome) male models and adding a little extra in besides, such as a specific tattoo and body hair. All told, I think I used about six or seven different people to combine the yummy ideal man with red hair whose shoes I would not kick out from under my bed.