First-time Author has Farmington Hills Roots

The only thing author Allison Leotta has in common with Anna Curtis, the protagonist she created for her first novel Law of Attraction, is that they’re both sex crimes prosecutors.

“Anna started out as a much more functional, happy person with a tame childhood similar to me. But I realized for the character to work for the book needed a darker background, a darker history… That’s when she started to evolve into this person who had some of the same experiences as the victims she was working with in her job,” explained Leotta, 37, who grew up in Farmington Hills. She now lives in Tacoma Park, MD with her husband Michael, a fellow lawyer, and their two children.

An alumna of Michigan State University and Harvard University – where she received her law degree – Leotta followed in the footsteps of her father, Alan Harnisch of Bloomfield Hills.

“My dad was a lawyer and he was a prosecutor also. He always had incredible stories. To me, he was a super-hero fighting crime and putting the bad guys in jail. I think that inspired me,” she said. “There’s no other career where you feel like what you’re doing on a daily basis is helping the world as much. I think it’s the best legal job in America. It’s an incredibly satisfying feeling to put a sex offender in jail and get him off the streets.”

Her work as a sex crimes prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia inspired her to write Law of Attraction. In it, sex crimes prosecutor Anna Curtis defends a woman named Laprea Johnson, whose boyfriend brutally beats her the day after Valentine’s Day. Laprea lies under oath and her boyfriend is exonerated.

The next day, she’s found dead and her abusive boyfriend is the prime suspect. To up the stakes, Curtis’ boyfriend, a public defender named Nick Wagner, takes Laprea’s boyfriend on as a client, creating all sorts of personal and professional dilemmas.

“You just see some of the most heartbreaking things – the worst things people do to each other. I was thinking all about it all the time. You also see moments of great courage and love, and it just seemed like it would be a good book. I think I just started processing this very intense world by writing about it,” Leotta explained.

So far, Law of Attraction has been receiving critical acclaim. Rave reviews from Washington Post, Detroit Free Press and Library Journal, among others, are posted on Leotta's Web site. Currently on leave from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Leotta is hard at work on the second Anna Curtis novel. Tentatively titled Discretion, it’s slated to be out some time in 2012.

“It’s impressive that Ms. Leotta had the creative talent, energy, and discipline to write a novel while performing the challenging job of a prosecutor,” said Kelly Higashi, chief of the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. “We wish her well.”

Keep up with Leotta on her Web site, allisonleotta.com.