Lorraine Heath has become a powerhouse in the romance genre over the past 28 years, publishing more than 60 novels while garnering both critical and commercial success.

In her latest novel, the recently released Girls of Flight City, Heath tells the story of three women, a civilian flight school in a small Texas town and the British pilots training there.

Heath recently took time out to speak with the Tribune about the novel, her own ties to the Terrell community and the path to becoming a published author.

On Girls of Flight City

“My dad graduated from Terrell in 1935. My mom was a young girl growing up right outside of London during the war so I heard lots of stories about the bombings and those sorts of things. I was just really interested when I found out that British pilots came to Terrell to learn how to fly.

“My interest in writing the story (Girls of Flight City) was sparked about 30 years ago when I was reading an article in the Dallas Morning News about Virginia Brewer. She tended the British cemetery that’s inside the Terrell main cemetery. It was just something that sparked my interest as something that I might want to write about some day. One of the other things that fascinated me was there were so many women that were also involved, managing the British Flying Training School there and training the pilots. I just thought it was a really interesting angle for a story. This is a little bit of that unknown history that I wanted to share.”

On research and accuracy

“I tried to be very conscious of the fact that there would be people who did know the people that were at these schools or that their may still be people that were at these schools. It did present a little bit of a challenge. I really wanted to portray these things as accurately as possible

“For this particular book, I read two or three books that were histories of the British Flying Training Schools in the United States. One was specific to the school at Terrell. I also did visit the Terrell museum to look at the various memorabilia and different aspects of the time period. I also visited the British cemetery.”

On becoming a writer

“I have always loved writing and I always thought that someday I would write a book. I got my degree in psychology, but it is hard to get a job with a BA in Psychology. You really need a Master’s or a Doctorate. I ended up working for the IRS. Eventually I got a job in training there, being a technical writer. Since I had never done technical writing before I signed up for a night class in technical writing.

“The first night the instructor asked us to introduce ourselves and tell her what we would do if we could do anything we wanted. She called on me first and I said that if money was no object, I would buy a house in the Hill Country with a second floor that was just windows, and I would sit up there and just write. It occurred to me on my way home that if that was my answer, I would need to sit down and start finding time to write.

“I read a romance novel in 1990, it was the first time that I had read one, and I fell in love with the genre. I knew that it was the type of story that I wanted to write, so I started sitting down on this typewriter and started pecking out a story. I guess I had done about four rough drafts, because it is no fun to edit on a typewriter, and I came home from work and the typewriter was gone. My husband had bought me a computer. He said that he thought I might be serious about this writing thing. I sat down and started writing a new story and that was the one that I first sold.”

On still finding joy in writing

“I find it still to be very exciting. I also still find it unbelievable that this is what I get to do. I get to tell these stories and someone is willing to put them out into bookstores and there are people out there that read them. I do have a habit that I started with my first book where I go into a bookstore and buy one copy. I have that thrill of pulling my book off the shelf and actually buying it.”

Girls of Flight City is available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Walmart and everywhere books are sold. Her next novel The Return of the Duke, will be released in July 2022.