Will John find true love with Meg after that model dumped him? Will Alex rescue Kristen and her dog in time? How did those marijuana plants the Pasadena police found next to John’s homing pigeon loft get there anyway?

Ah, the story lines 96-year-old Hilda Lassalette has rolling around inside her head.

“People are always surprised that a woman my age is writing romance novels,” she says. “They make me feel like Grandma Moses.”

“Fishing for Love” — the first in a trilogy of romance novels featuring triplet brothers with psychic powers — came out this week on Amazon.com. It’s the first book Hilda has sold. Pretty impressive for a woman who turns 97 next month.

“I might need a little help from upstairs to finish them,” she says recently from her Whittier home, polishing up chapter four of her second book in the trilogy.

“For a long time, I didn’t want my editors to know how old I was. I thought if they found out they’d be worried young people wouldn’t want to read a romance novel written by a 96-year-old woman.”

Turns out romance has no shelf life.

“We don’t feel that an author’s age is often considered by readers,” says Rebecca J. Vickery, who owns an independent press and published Hilda’s book. Her publishing company pays its authors a “high percentage of royalties,” she adds.

“Readers care more about finding a well-written story they can escape into or one that contains characters to which they can relate. Hilda provides this and more in her book. She is such a sweet person and talented author.”

Hilda started out writing on the school paper at Whittier High where she graduated in 1934. “They sent me out to write about all the things the students were doing on campus. The interesting stuff.”

Some of that interesting stuff would find its way into her future romance novels. By ’38, Hilda had found her own romance and was married. She began working as a stenographer for the General Petroleum Co. in Los Angeles while raising two children. Her husband of 61 years, John — the romance in her own life — died in 1999 at age 83.

By then Hilda had been a charter member of the Writers’ Club of Whittier for 20 years, and sold more than 40 short stories to teenage and young adults magazines. But never a romance novel until her 96th year.

“I chose romance novels because I liked reading them,” she says. “I bounce ideas off other writers in the club and they critique them. Like the one I’m working on now. They think I have to give the hero and the girl more time together in the first chapter, so I’m going back over it now.

“I don’t plot things out ahead of time. It’s whatever hits me. Many times it’s just reaching back on your life.”

Like that chapter with the marijuana plants and homing pigeons, she says. It’s true.

“My father raised homing pigeons. They used to pick up seeds from hemp plants, and when they flew home they’d drop the seeds in the weeds outside the loft.

“The police found the marijuana plants growing there, but they didn’t cite my father,” she says.

That’s her story and she’s sticking to it.

Hilda’s thinking about taking a break from the psychic triplets to finish another book she started six months ago about a young woman named Amy and her computer she calls the demon.

“She’s broken up with her boyfriend and meets this guy through an internet dating agency. They start going out, but her computer doesn’t like the guy so it starts interfering in her life, deleting all his messages. She begins to hate the computer.

“I can relate to her,” Hilda says. “This is my fifth computer and I don’t understand it any better than my first. I call it the demon. I hate it. Some days I get so frustrated I feel like throwing it out the window.”

The other thing that frustrates her is when people she meets can’t believe a 96-year-old woman is cranking out romance novels.

“They think I should be sitting in a rocking chair knitting,” Hilda says. “Well, that’s not going to happen. Physically I may be slowing down, but mentally I’m no different than I was 20 years ago. I’m just grateful to God I’m still around doing what I love.”

Helping Meg find true love with John and his homing pigeons. Giving Amy the nerve to throw the demon out the window.

Showing us all romance has no shelf life.

To order the Kindle or paperback print version of her book, go to Amazon.com, click on books, and enter Fishing for Love by Hilda Lassalette.

Grandma Moses would appreciate it.

Dennis McCarthy’s column appears on Friday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.