Feb 12, 2016 5 min read

CARMICHAELS – When Carmichaels author Billie Allen comes to Flenniken Public Library in her hometown for a book signing this month, she will have her new “Love Interrupted” to share and a great personal story to tell about where her inspiration comes from when she sits down to write.

“I have to have music when I write – either Josh Groban or the Beatles.” Allen said, sitting at the desk in her writing room that used to be her sons’ bedroom.

Around her were copies of her three books of “Superstar,” “Broken Wing” and “Love Interrupted.” Beside them is a pretty red Valentine card.

It was in this room in 2012 that something happened to make Allen believe in angels, the theme that runs through her books about the life and times of a superstar, his family, both dead and alive and the quirky host of heavenly helpers who guide them through hard and sometimes dangerous times.

It all began with that Valentine card.

Allen remembered coming home from work in 2012, tired and still feeling the pain of loss and being alone. Liver cancer had struck her husband Rich Allen out of the blue in 2004 and within five months he was dead, leaving Allen a widow with two children still at home. Now they were grown and gone and Allen was coming home to an empty house with only cats for company.

“I walked into my writing room and there was this Valentine card lying on the rug,” she said. “I opened it up and inside in his handwriting it said ‘I will never leave you.’

“I was in shock.”

Allen knows that the story line to her trilogy was born as she held that card in wonder.

Allen’s first book, “Superstar,” was published in 2014 by Tate Publishing and Enterprises and the response it generated lead to another “Broken Wings” in 2014 and now “Love Interrupted.” Each one was based on the premise that “love doesn’t end.”

As the daughter of former Beth-Center High School Principal William Hall, Allen grew up writing stories as they came to her, filling tablets and tucking them away, unpublished in drawers. After her husband’s untimely death, she turned her love of writing into paying jobs to support her family.

“After Rich died I came out of shock and began writing columns” for the Greene County Messenger and later for Greene Speak, Allen recalled. She held down day jobs in local retail businesses and wrote in her spare time. Her tablets were scattered around the house to the amusement of her twin boys and their friends who kept Allen busy as a mom through their teenage years.

Through these years, odd signs came at odd times that left Allen feeling that her husband Rich wasn’t far away.

In 2005, overwhelmed by trying to maintain the home that “Rich built from scratch” Allen decided to list it with a realtor. “I’m not sure if it was a dream but one night I saw him sitting at the bottom of the bed telling me not to sell. So here I still am.”

Allen went to a spiritual medium in Uniontown while her sons were still home, with their friends sometimes sleeping over and “the first thing she said to me when I walked through the door is ‘your husband wants to know why you’ve turned the house into a hotel!'” Allen said with a laugh.

One night at work, the phone rang and when Allen picked it up she saw the date on the phone change from May 2 to May 3, the date of their anniversary, then back again to May 2. There was no one on the line.

“The boys and their friends would smell his cigarette smoke in the house.” Allen began to suspect that something in love goes beyond death itself.

In the weeks after finding the Valentine card, Mark, the main character of the trilogy made himself known and Allen began to write.

“I knew he was brought up in a ghetto and had to fight and he was Spanish and Irish and was a musician. When he was 17 his mother died and he had to hitchhike to California. I knew he lost his faith and that he had to find it again.”

From there, Allen let the story tell itself and the supporting characters appeared and developed their own personalities as the words came.

“I hear their conversations in my head and I write them down. They’re real to me,” Allen said.

Real character traits also slip into the fictional personalities.

“My sons both have their dad’s sense of humor and so does the grandfather in my story.”

Archangel Gabriel makes his appearance as an advisor to new angels who still feel compelled to watch over their loved ones struggling to get along without them. But who advises Gabriel? The way Allen tells it, God has a dry sense of humor.

Allen will discuss her book at Flenniken Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. Having book signings is a good way for readers to get to know local authors, Flenniken Director Katy Pretz said. The books Allen donated to the library system have been checked out by dozens of times and are available to readers in Greene Washington and Fayette counties through the tri-county Waggin Library Network.

“There’s a couple of other local authors we’ve been working with and hope to continue to support our authors by bringing them to the libraries to meet their readers,” Pretz said.