Meet My Character Blog Tour

This will be interesting!

I was nominated by the lovely Sara DeLaVergne for a blog tour with questions about the main character in my WIP. It’s a chance to get to know my MC with a few basic questions that will reveal a little about who she is.

And away we go!

1. What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Ava Mae Monaghan. She is completely fictional.

2. When and where is the story set?

The story begins in March of 2005, when Ava is 12 years old, in a tiny made-up town in northern Michigan called Bluffton. But she’s not there for very long once the action begins. Pretty soon she’s taken to a centuries-old castle, then an island in the North Sea that is hidden by a pearlescent mist to everyone except those who are meant to be there.

3. What should we know about him/her?

Ava is a stubborn little cuss who can talk to animals and whose midnight blue eyes turn blood red when she is enraged by something. Not just a little angry, but a serious fit of rage. And she has the capacity to hurt people with what happens when her eyes turn red, although she is, by nature, a non-violent person. There is something she doesn’t know about in her history that makes her act this way, and it’s very hard to control.

Also, she has severe retrograde amnesia from an accident that caused a brain injury. She’s had it since she was five and doesn’t remember the first years of her life. She doesn’t know she has it, though, since her dad made up false memories for her to protect her from the life that nearly killed her when she was young.

4. What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

Ava is kidnapped by people associated with her young life and she’s finally told who and what she is. She’s part of a magical race of beings (phantoms) that act as protectors of humans and, you can probably guess, there’s something special about Ava that sets her apart from the rest of her race, which is why she was targeted as a young child and nearly killed. Her family is the closest thing the phantoms have to royalty because of certain gifts and sacrifices they make for the good of the phantom race.

The rest of the story is her setting out to prove she can live up to her mother’s talents, who was the greatest living phantom at the time of her death, which was right after Ava’s brain injury. Ava needs to prove to herself, and the rest of the phantom community (who all hate her because of what she is due to something an ancestor did 300 years ago), that she can be what they need her to be. This takes place at boot camp by the means of Ava protecting a book that keeps all of the phantoms’ secrets (written in code, of course) from the hands of the bad guys. She sacrifices herself to keep the secrets of the phantoms safe from evil clutches. 

5. What is the personal goal of the character?

Whoops! Looks like I answered this in the question above. My bad. 🙂

6. Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

The title is: The Phantom Apprentice: Book of the Scribes. Since I’m actively seeking representation for traditional publishing, there isn’t any more information than what you’ve read here.

7. When can we expect the book to be published?

Ooooo!!! If I had my way, it’d be published tomorrow! I’ve been querying since February and had one agent request the full manuscript, but so far, I’ve received polite rejections. I’m not giving up, though, so I’m hoping to be in print no later than 2017. Yikes! I wish it could be sooner, but I’m being realistic. Especially since this is the first in a series of middle grade novels.

 

That’s about it, folks! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a little about Ava. She’s been with me for over ten years, so her and I are quite close. The rest of the series is already mapped out, and I wish I could divulge, but I wouldn’t want to give too much away.

As for nominations, I’d like to hear from Caroline Sibley, Herminia Chow, E.H. Bates, and YOU! I’d like everyone to participate that would like the chance to chat about their characters. I always love to learn more about my bloggy friends’ stories.

So, happy writing, all!

 

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.” 
― Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

“You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.” 
― Joss Whedon

“I don’t know where people got the idea that characters in books are supposed to be likable. Books are not in the business of creating merely likeable characters with whom you can have some simple identification with. Books are in the business of creating great stories that make you’re brain go ahhbdgbdmerhbergurhbudgerbudbaaarr.” 
― John Green