Next in my Character Traits is Rosalie Griordano, created by author JD Spero, for her romantic suspense novel, The Secret Cure. JD says she was inspired by a real life observation to create this character. Intriguing. Here. I will let her take over this post.
A brief introduction to your character
In The Secret Cure, Rosalie Giordano is as fiery as she is beautiful. In her mid-30s, she and her hot hubby start to plan for a family … until she is struck down with a mysterious illness that leads to temporary paralysis. From the first chapter, readers experience the dichotomy of her spunky, strong personality despite her not being able to move.
How did you come up with the character and his/her name?
I don’t remember. My parents had a friend named Rosalie years ago and it came into my mind as I started writing and I went with it. I like both the full and short version, Rosie. Though now I keep running into other book characters named Rosie. It’s like when you buy a new car and then keep seeing it all over the highway.
Tell us more about The Secret Cure.
So, while Rosie is immobile, she learns her perfect husband is cheating. As she heals and gains mobility, she keeps her progress a secret from her husband in order to observe her dire situation and weigh her options. Turns out, his cheating is just a small aspect of his betrayal. So when he has the audacity to invite “the other woman” on their long-awaited anniversary trip overseas, Rosie weaves a plan for revenge.
Was a real person your inspiration for this character?
Yes! When my husband and I were vacationing at a resort in Taormina, we witnessed a man toggle between his hot mistress at the beach and his lovely, disabled wife at the pool. The story idea came to mind instantly.
Is your character likable or not?
I’m not sure I should answer this question. Ha! Let’s just say, she is not a victim. (I like her very much, BTW).
Extract from the book in which the character appears.
All Vin’s attention is with my homecare nurse Cate now, his hand tucked in his pocket. My skin tingles from where he touched me. “I’ll try to be home at a reasonable time,” he says. “But I do have an appointment after work.”
All those tingly vibes fall away. The black hole wants to swallow me. Rage breaks out in my pores. Because I know all too well Vin’s ‘appointment’ is with his therapist, Anastasia, whom he’s been seeing since I got sick. Their therapy sessions have become more common the longer I’m immobile. Always at the end of the day, always a good, generous hour. Who is this Anastasia? And what is she up to with my husband, really?
So, Vin likes his secrets. Well, I have my secrets too. They live in my blood and run through my veins, filling me with a bulletproof drive to get through this thing. Because I will get through. My god, I was a dancer. My body knows how to move. And it holds a muscle memory stronger than any diagnosis. I will move again. And when I do, no secret is safe.
I can feel it now, the slow, satisfying burn of a buried secret emitting steam from my ears, fire from my nose, laser beams from my eyeballs.
Cate nods, still about the ice cream, still puffing her chest, a dopey half-grin on her chubby face. Vin clomps out of the room like a brontosaurus.
I hate them both.
Johannah Davis (JD) Spero
Author’s Bio
Johannah Davies (JD) Spero’s writing career took off when her first release, Catcher’s Keeper, was a finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in 2013. Her small-town mystery series, Boy on Hold, has won similar acclaim—IPPY Gold for Best Mystery/Thriller. Check out her bestselling romantic suspense, The Secret Cure, and her contemporary romance, The Muse Next Door. Stay tuned for Hack Ware, a cyber thriller coming August 2023. Having lived in various cities from St. Petersburg (Russia) to Boston, she now lives with her family in upstate New York where she was born and raised.
My next novel, Northern Comfort will be released July 19. It’s a dark drama in which the accidental death of a child changes the lives of those involved. No, it’s not part of my Isabel Long Mystery Series. (Another is not the way.) But, yes, it has a favorite setting, the fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. Why did I give it that title? As I so often say, I take what I know and have my way with it.
One of the great pleasures I had as a reporter living and working in Western Massachusetts was the start of maple sugaring season. That would happen in late winter when the weather was warm enough during the day to get the maple trees’ sap flowing and cold enough at night, that it would stop. There’s a lot of work that goes into getting those trees ready and for boiling the sap into delicious maple syrup. Every year, I tried to find a new angle for a story, and the maple sugarers were very accommodating. One of my go-to guys was Paul Sena, who still makes maple syrup in my former town of Worthington. Hank and I still drive there to buy syrup from him. It is one of my favorite foods. Here’s a link to an earlier post about that topic: https://www.joanlivingston.net/uncategorized/pauls-sap-truck/
Since this book is set in winter, I wanted to capture the process of stringing lines, tapping trees, and even boiling. Miles Potter, one of the main characters, helps his buddy, Dave, a relative newcomer to this hilltown, who is enamored by the old-time ways including sugaring. For Miles, the work is cathartic. He was the one driving the truck when little Cody Miller’s sled slid into its path. Miles knows Cody’s mother, Willi Miller. They grew up in the same town, but their places were separated by what their families had or didn’t have. Will and Cody were dirt poor. Miles grew up comfortably.
The excerpt below tells you a lot about the tradition of maple sugaring, including the history of why it was called ‘northern comfort’ before I used it as a title.
Given the drama of this case, the title Northern Comfort fits so well. We have a mother grieving for the young son she raised by herself. It hasn’t been easy considering he was brain-damaged at birth. Then, there is Miles who feels remorseful for his role in the accident, and finally, Junior Miller, who uncomfortably must face the fact he abandoned his former wife and son.
What kind of comfort can any of them find in the cold north?
As promised, here is an excerpted from Northern Comfort. The scene takes place at Dave’s sugarhouse. Miles is there as well as Dave’s family, including his pregnant wife.
Sap flowed into the metal holding tank at the sugarhouse, sweet music to Dave, who threw up his arms and did a jig next to the evaporator. “I knew it, I knew it,” he sang. “I just knew it.”
Dave’s little girls danced with him, although they didn’t understand what their father was shouting about.
His wife, Ruth, whose belly was too big to dance, laughed and shook her head. “You gotta love the man,” she said.
Miles laughed as he stoked the fire beneath the evaporator’s pan. He was doing as Dave taught him, putting the slabs of hard and soft wood, bark-side down, inside the firebox. His goal was to get its cast-iron doors hot enough to glow red. Now the firebox’s ears, or hinges, were another thing. Dave, who learned to sugar from an old-timer long dead, said he only did it once so far.
Miles stripped to his thermal shirt. He couldn’t work bare-shirted because sparks flaring from the firebox’s opening would burn his skin. The shirt and jeans would be useless by the end of sugaring season, bit through with so many holes they’d look like someone had fired birdshot at him. Miles reached inside his jeans pockets for the coins and keys. He took off his belt. He had learned from Dave their metal would heat up enough to leave red marks on his body.
“Hey, Dave, you might want to forget to tell the doctor about emptying his pockets when he comes for his ceremonial boil. We’d get a laugh watching him jump around like his pants were on fire.”
“Yeah, that’d go over big,” Dave said flatly.
Yesterday, when the temperature rose into the forties and everyone’s houses dripped melted snow, some sap collected in the vats at the bottom of each sugar bush. Today, the run was full-blown with two thousand gallons ready to be boiled into syrup.
Dave was full of local lore as he moved around the sugarhouse after Ruth and the girls went home. He talked about how farmers in New England used to make maple sugar, forming it into hard cakes. Maple syrup became popular in the late 1800s when someone invented the evaporator, which resembles a flat-bottom boat when it’s empty.
Miles glanced up from the firebox’s door. He raised a gloved hand.
“Dave, you’ve told me this story six years straight. Why don’t you tell me this on the third week when we’re so sick of this stuff and pulling all-nighters we vow never to do it again? Or better yet, save it for the doctor. I bet he’d love telling his buddies back in New York all about it.”
Dave studied Miles.
“Shit, you can be such a spoilsport sometimes.” He reached for his leather gloves. “Anyway, around the Civil War people up North began using maple sugar instead of cane sugar and molasses from the South. They used to call it northern comfort.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember that from last year.”
The sugarhouse, only yards from Dave’s house, was unheated, except for the evaporator’s fire box. Step a few feet outside at night, and the cold had a punch, but next to the evaporator, all was humid and hot like a woman’s mouth. The swirling sap in the pan gave off a bank of steam, which rose to the sugarhouse’s vented roof.
They fired up the evaporator about an hour ago. It’d be another two before Dave could pour the season’s first syrup. As Dave reminded Miles, the first boil sweetens the pan, so it takes longer than the next firings. They’d be here until ten or so and resume boiling the next day.
Miles helped Dave build his sugarhouse seven years ago. They took measurements from an abandoned shack in South Hayward that had collapsed from heavy snow the year before Dave’s was built. Rough-hewn boards nailed vertically covered the rectangular building. On the wall near the shelf for the radio, Dave penciled the starting and ending dates for each season, and how many gallons of syrup they had made. Today’s date was Thursday, March 5.
LINK FOR NORTHERN COMFORT: The book will be released July 19 for Kindle readers. Here is the link: https://mybook.to/northerncomfort. It only costs $2.99. I hope you will preorder as it helps with ratings. Thank you if you have already done that.
Paperback readers will have to be a little patient. I will let you know when it’s available.
PHOTO ABOVE: A half-gallon of the delicious maple syrup created by Paul Sena. Forgive the crusted drips of sap.
Only days ago, I announced my newest book, Northern Comfort will be released July 19 on Kindle. Until then, it is in the preorder phase. I’m chuffed, as my UK friends would say, that readers have enthusiastically preordered the book. Thank you because it helps the book get traction on Amazon. (The link is below.)
Northern Comfort is not part of my Isabel Long Mystery Series, but it has the same setting, the fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. But this book is what I would call a dark drama because of the story I tell — a woman struggling to raise her brain-damaged son, Cody after his father abandoned them. They are way below that so-called poverty line as she supports them working in a hair salon. They live in a cabin left by the grandfather who took them in. Willi tries to do her best for her son. But a tragic accident involving Cody severely tests her resilience.
Over the next few weeks I will write more about the characters and themes in Northern Comfort. For now, here is the first chapter to hopefully pique your interest.
The chapter is called Worst of Winter. That’s the time of year this book takes place. It’s the coldest and dreariest part of the season in the small town where Willi and Cody live. Here I will let the first chapter set the scene for you.
Willi Miller pinned her best blouse to the rope line, shaking her bare hands to keep the blood moving, as she reached into the broken plastic basket for something else. She should have done this miserable chore before she went to work this morning, but she didn’t have the time.
Short and thin-boned like her mother, but yellow-haired like her father, Willi spun around for her boy, who stood a half-foot away, staring at the dog whimpering and jerking its chain. “There you are, Cody. Stay near me,” she said.
Her boy, dressed in a one-piece red snowsuit, his mittens packed tightly on his hands, didn’t say a word. He only made noises that sounded like words, and he was seven. His ‘Ma,’ Willi had decided, was exactly as an animal would say it.
Earlier this afternoon, she got Cody at the babysitter’s house, where the van took him after school. Willi was a hairdresser at the Lucky Lady Beauty Shop in nearby Tyler although the running joke among the gals who worked there was it should be called the Unlucky Lady because of the stories the customers told about their men. Cheaters, drunks, and bums, the whole lot of them, it seemed, by their complaints.
The ‘Lucky Lady’ was busy today with high school girls who wanted their hair curled and piled high for the semi-formal tonight. They were fun customers, so excited about their dates and the big Friday night ahead, she didn’t mind their lousy tips. Willi remembered not that long ago she did the same.
She fed Cody cereal after they got home just to hold him until she made dinner. He ate a few spoonfuls before he began playing with it, making a mess as usual, so she dressed him in his snowsuit and took him outside after she lowered the damper on the wood stove.
Now, Cody walked beneath the hanging laundry toward the dog, named Foxy by her grandfather, who used to own the brown, short-haired, pointy-eared mutt. Willi called to her boy, who moved step by step across the snow, breaking through its icy crust until he sank to the top of his boots. He turned toward his mother. His green eyes peered from beneath the brim of his cap. Yellow snot bubbled from one nostril.
“Yeah, I’m watchin’ you,” Willi said, bending for a towel.
Snow seeped through a crack in her right boot. Cold numbed her toes. She should put duct tape over the brown rubber, but it was her only pair, and it’d look like hell.
“Hey, Cody. Where’re you goin’?”
Her boy marched with fast little feet past the junked truck to the back of their house, where his sled, a cheap thing she bought, was propped against the wall. “This is a red sled,” she told Cody in the hardware store.
Her boy uttered a sound that might have been “red” but only she would know. She understood his ways most of the time. He wanted things tick-tock regular when he ate, what he wore.
Her eyes followed her boy, dragging his sled, grunting, toward her. He dropped it at her feet and sat inside. The heels of his boots kicked up and down. “Maaaaa,” he called.
Willi sighed. Cody wouldn’t let up until she gave him a ride. Her boy liked it when she towed him in his sled along the driveway to get the mail. He made happy chirps and flapped his mittens. She wiped her hands on her black jacket, a man’s, too big and open in the front because the zipper was broken. Its bottom swayed against her legs as she walked.
“All right, Cody, but just a little ride.”
She reached for the towrope and pulled Cody in a large circle. His mouth formed a wide, sloppy smile, and he let out gleeful sounds as Willi went slowly, then gained speed. She had to work at it because her feet sank through the snow, although the sled glided easily on its surface. She was careful to stay on the flat part of her land, away from the edge of its tabletop, where it plunged onto her neighbor’s property then to one of the town’s main roads below. When she squinted, she could see the Mercy River flowing through its snowy valley like a blue vein on a woman’s wrist.
Round and round Willi towed her son. She slipped on the packed ring of snow, and her straight, yellow hair dropped to her jaw when her knit cap fell. Cody’s head rocked back as he yelped in pleasure. After a while, she stopped, out of breath.
“I gotta finish hanging the clothes before it gets dark. Alright?” she told Cody, although she did not expect his answer.
She picked her hat from the snow. The sun was low in the sky, and the dark smudge spreading from the west likely carried more snow. Willi frowned. It’d be too much trouble to take the clothes down again. She hated this part of winter, mid-January. It snowed every day, not much, but enough to keep the road crews going with their plows and sanders. Winter always has a week like this, unsettled weather, the worst of the season, of the year, as far as she was concerned. Often, it happened after the thaw, so that brief warm spell seemed like one cruel joke.
She bent for one of Cody’s shirts. She had to work faster because the clothes were stiffening inside the basket. After she hung them, they would freeze into thin slabs, like shale, and after a day or two, they’d be dry. If she had any money, she’d buy a dryer. She glanced toward her house and saw missing clapboards. She’d fix those, too.
When she was a girl, she used to keep a mental list of what she’d get if she were rich: stuff like pink high heels and a long white coat. None of them seemed practical for a town like Hayward, where half the roads were dirt and fancy things were in other people’s houses. Now, she’d buy a car that worked without worry and hire a lawyer to make her ex-husband, Junior, pay child support.
Her boy bucked his body while he lay on his belly inside the sled, wailing as if he were wounded. Willi shook her hands and grabbed a pair of jeans from the basket.
“Shit, I hate this life,” she said.
LINK: Kindle readers can buy Northern Comfort for $2.99 on Amazon. Of course, if you have Kindle Unlimited, it is free. Here is the link: https://mybook.to/northerncomfort
Next in the Character Traits Series is Alexia Harper, created by the author Niki Kamerzell for her intriguing novel, Last Time She Died. Fans of paranormal fiction will want to read this book. Here. I will let Niki take over and tell you about this character.
Alexia Harper is in her first year of college when she dies. Except she doesn’t realize she’s dead and just goes about her day to day activities. She’s the main character in my paranormal novel, Last Time She Died. Every day, she wakes up, takes a shower, goes to work at the diner she’s worked out since she was sixteen, and hangs out with her friends. Every night, she has the same dream. No, not a dream. It’s a nightmare about the car accident that ended her life.
The dream is the same every single night, that is, until Leland appears in her life. He’s a friend, you see, just not from Alexia’s current life. The dream is no longer the only thing haunting her. Now, she finds herself lost in ancient worlds, speaking different languages, and looking nothing like herself. But it is her. Her Essence is there. Her name just isn’t Alexia in those places. In those past lives.
While searching for answers in her past, she uncovers the man that killed her. The man that killed Alexia, and so many of the past versions of her. The man that killed all her friends. He’s still out there and he’s coming for her. If he finds her, it’s not just her human life he plans to end. He’s out to end her entire existence…forever.
How did you come up with the character and his/her name?
I’ve just always really liked the name Alexia. When I started writing, I couldn’t imagine a different name for her. She always was Alexia.
Tell us more about Last Time She Died.
Last Time She Died follows Alexia and her best friend, the still living Cali as they try to stop their murderer. Alexia’s goal is to keep Cali alive. Alexia travels through her past lives to discover that as long as Cali has existed, she has been Alexia’s best friend. They always live their lives together. To stop the murderer, the two team up, one alive and one dead, to stop the bad guy.
Was a real person your inspiration for this character?
No. For most of the other characters there was, but Alexia is just her own being that popped out of my brain.
Is your character likable or not?
I think so.
An extract from Last Time She Died.
A bright light blinded Alexia as lightning streaked in front of her, lighting up the interior of her car. Just before an exploding tree hit her car, a silhouette shifted against the darkness.
It was a dream. She had it every night, but tonight, something was different. There had never been a silhouette outside.
She waited for her dream-self to scramble across the seats reach for the door handle and crawl through.
She stayed slumped over the wheel. The strange shadow still lurked just outside the car.
It was all wrong.
The shadow took shape and morphed into Cali, her best friend.
Alexia clawed at the handle, knowing it shouldn’t open, but hoping, since everything else was different, she could escape. The door creaked open and she bolted out of the car toward her friend while her dream-self didn’t move.
The world shifted, knocking her painfully to the ground.
She couldn’t see the car, but Cali stood above her, teary-eyed, staring down.
It was warm, no longer the dark, cold evening of the accident, though it was still raining. The vehicles were still there. Farther away than she expected, and fading away. Literally dissolving from the road in front of her. The ground softened against her back.
Alexia’s attention snapped back to her friend who loomed above her, with tears running down her quivering cheeks. She tried to reach for her, but her arms wouldn’t move. Lying on her back, Alexia tried to call out to Cali, but she couldn’t speak.
Cali’s mouth moved, but Alexia couldn’t hear anything. An earthy, damp scent overwhelmed her. Cali held something silver in her hands that shimmered in the streetlights. A necklace or bracelet, maybe, but Alexia couldn’t be sure. An odd sensation ran through her, and Cali shuddered in unison. Alexia felt an ache in her chest as she watched her best friend weep, but she remained imprisoned in her own body.
Finally, Alexia heard Cali whisper, “I still miss you every day,” between sobs.
Kneeling over Alexia’s chest, but somehow not touching her, Cali laid the silver object down. Alexia was able to see it was the ‘best friends forever’ necklace Alexia had given Cali for Christmas in third grade, the summer after Cali had moved to Jaydee.
“Happy birthday, Lexi,” Cali whispered as she dropped her head in her hands and cried so hard, she shook. She stayed there, trembling, for another minute. After a deep breath, she put the necklace inside a small box and set it down again. It sat above Alexia’s face as if she were under a pane of glass.
Alexia woke up in a pool of sweat and weeping. She’d gotten so used to her dream that any change would have upset her, but this was too much. She’d felt pain radiating off Cali but was helpless to do anything.
Alexia tossed back her covers, grabbed her phone, and headed downstairs. Alexia typed, deleted, and retyped several texts before deciding to call Cali.
The door creaked just before she hit call and Cali’s trembling voice broke her concentration completely.
“I had to see you.” Cali’s voice froze Alexia in place. “I have been having these weird-ass dreams about you and I think—I don’t know. I wish things could go back to the way they were, I wish I could see you like I used to, and we could do things on a whim and be free again. I hate this.”
Lowering herself, she sat crossed-legged on the floor. Alexia dropped onto the arm of the couch. The puffy swollen circles under Cali’s eyes were still as red as they had been in Alexia’s dream.
“I wish I could know that everything was okay, but I don’t feel like I know anything for sure anymore. I don’t understand why everything has to change. I hate that things are like this now. I miss what we were, I miss who I was. I hate being sad all the time. I hate it.” Cali paused and sucked in a shaky breath. “Do you ever feel like this? No, of course not.”
Alexia didn’t understand why she wouldn’t make eye contact. Cali’s words and vulnerability kept Alexia silent.
“I have to go to work. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay longer, but I’ll come back. Someday you’ll just have to put up a sign saying, ‘Cali not welcome!’ It may be the only way to keep my rambling drama away from you.” She laughed halfheartedly. Standing slowly, Cali walked out the front door. As she stood outside, her tears mixed with raindrops. Cali made quiet sobbing sounds as she closed the door behind her.
Alexia felt the fog that had frozen her clearing. She hadn’t said goodbye. She hadn’t said anything. The whole encounter had left her shaken. Springing up to catch Cali before she drove away, Alexia swung the door open. She was greeted with an empty porch and heavy rain. Cali was gone. Looking again in disbelief, Alexia grabbed her phone and dialed Cali.
There was no answer. The next call went straight to voicemail.
Grabbing her keys to follow Cali, Alexia rushed outside. The door slammed shut behind her just as the wind started to howl. A thick, yellow cloud swirled around Alexia, gagging her with the putrid smell of rotten eggs.
The saffron dust churned around her, leaving her dizzy. For a moment, she swore she heard laughter. She clutched her temples between her palms and squeezed her eyes shut.
Whatever swirled around her looked like fog, but as it grazed her skin like tiny sand particles were grinding her into nothing. It smelled so strongly of sulfur; she was choking. Trying to see through it burned her eyes and her face was wet with snot and tears.
She turned to go back inside. The fog thickened.
Darker.
Colder.
Harder.
She couldn’t see anything but yellow. Floating within the cloud, the laughter was unmistakable.
“It’s you,” she heard from inside the cloud.
Authors Bio
Niki Kamerzell
Niki Kamerzell lives in Colorado and spends her free time reading and writing.
She will read just about anything recommended to her and has been known to sacrifice eating and sleeping to finish a good book. Niki writes fantasy and has been writing for the last ten years. When not writing or reading, Niki is probably distracted by her Corgi or out hiking in the Rocky Mountains with her husband.
Her other distractions include driving around and singing off key with the radio and scrapbooking. Always willing to make things awkward, sarcasm is like a second language to her and, next to her passion for writing, probably one of the things Niki’s most proud of.
The next character feature in this series is Brian Evans, created by author Joseph Lewis for his thriller crime novels. Joseph is semi-retired from a long career in education, which admittedly helps him create realistic young characters, including Brian, who he calls “a positive, tragic protagonist.” I have read all of his award-winning books, including the most recent, Fan Mail and enjoyed them. Here, I will let him tell you about his character and his books.
Brian Evans appears initially as a side-character in the last book of the Lives Trilogy, Splintered Lives. He appears as a recurring character in Caught in a Web through my newest book, Fan Mail. He has become a fan favorite and, like many of my characters, is weighed down with baggage, both good and bad. Typically, he is a moral, deep-thinking character, a leader and athlete, and is a great friend to his adopted brothers.
How did you come up with the character and his/her name?
He is a twin and many parents use the same first initial in naming twins. His twin brother, Brad, is deceased (Splintered Lives). I liked the way it sounded, Brian and Brad Kazmarick, but after Brad’s death and Brian’s adoption, he became Brian Evans. I need a positive, tragic protagonist, and Brian fit the bill. He has become a central figure in my last five books, and is central to the action in Fan Mail. I tell the story from his point of view and through his eyes.
Tell us more about [the book].
Fan Mail is not only a story about a patchwork family of adopted brothers and the stress and strain these letters have on the family. It not only is a story about how these letters cause so much stress on the family that the father has a heart attack and how the otherwise close-knit brothers are pulled apart from one another. It is a story of integrity, leadership, of standing up for and defending what is right and just, even in the face of extreme odds and conditions.
Fan Mail is a thriller-crime-mystery with a strong coming-of-age theme running throughout the book.
Was a real person your inspiration for this character?
Brian is a composite of many of the kids I worked with in my 47 years in education as a teacher, coach, counselor, and administrator. He is like many, and his “story” is drawn from my years as a counselor and coach, but he is no one former or current student of mine.
Is your character likable or not?
Brian is absolutely likeable. He has integrity and is a moral and ethical young man. Southerners use the term “Old Head” to describe someone wise, someone who acts and thinks beyond their years. Brian would certainly fit this description.
Extract from the book in which the character appears.
The passage below takes place in an English classroom discussing the book Lord of the Flies. I chose this book because of the implications it has on the action that takes place in Fan Mail. The two books are similar in that respect.
Brian crumpled up the call slip summoning him to the guidance office. He pushed it to the corner of his desk as far away as possible without tossing it on the floor. His English teacher, Penny Rios, looked at him questioningly, but didn’t question him about it.
Brian didn’t want to see his father, Jeremy. The ride to school was not only unexpected, but uncomfortable. Normally, Jeremy signed his own slips, not Farner, the assistant principal. That was a twist. Still, he ignored it.
Besides, Rios was one of his favorite teachers, and the discussion they were having on Lord of the Flies was a good one. Even though they were only supposed to read up to the fourth chapter, Brian had read the entire book in three days.
“Who would you consider a strong, independent character? Perhaps a leader among the boys?” Rios asked.
The answers ranged from Jack to Ralph to Piggy. Brian’s friend, Shannon Pritchert, mentioned Simon, which was an unusual answer.
Puzzled, Rios asked, “Why Simon?”
“I don’t consider him to be a leader, but he was independent. He wasn’t buying into either side. He spent most of the time by himself,” she said.
Brian nodded.
“Brian, you’re pretty silent today. What are your thoughts?”
He said, “It depends upon what you think strong means. Honestly, I don’t think any of them are strong. Being strong means having integrity. Ralph didn’t defend Piggy even when he was being picked on. If he had integrity, he would have defended Piggy no matter who was against him. Jack broke rules he felt weren’t necessary, even though there needed to be order. A person with integrity doesn’t break rules just because he might not like them. Piggy whined and complained, but he tried to establish order. I think because of his size and his whining, no one paid attention to him. A leader has to have followers.”
He looked over at Shannon, smiled, and said, “I have to think about Simon. I hadn’t thought of him being independent until Shannon mentioned him.”
“What is your definition of integrity?” Rios asked.
Brian didn’t wait to be called upon. He said, “Someone who speaks the truth and lives it even when others don’t. A person who is genuine.”
“That can make someone pretty unpopular, don’t you think?”
Brian nodded and said, “It’s what makes someone strong. Speaking the truth and following the rules, no matter who else does or doesn’t. Being willing to take a stand, even if it’s unpopular. Standing up for your beliefs. If you don’t do those things, you don’t have integrity and you aren’t strong.”
As I stated earlier, Fan Mail and the story of the Evans brothers and family is told through Brian’s eyes. It’s his perspective, his story of his place in the family. Those who have read my other books, knows the journey Brian has been on, the difficulties he has faced, almost to the point of death. He is the defender and the protector of his brothers in many ways, but the hard shell the reader sees on the outside hides the soft vulnerability in Brian’s heart and soul. Yet, this passage summarizes Brian’s core beliefs, and in the end, he almost pays the price for it.
Author’s Bio
Joseph Lewis
Having been in education for forty-seven years as a teacher, coach, counselor and administrator, Joseph Lewis has semi-retired and now works part-time as an online learning facilitator. He is an award-winning author and uses his psychology and counseling background to craft thriller/crime/detective mysteries. He has taken creative writing and screen writing courses at UCLA and USC.
Born and raised in Wisconsin, Lewis has been happily married to his wife, Kim. Together they have three wonderful children: Wil (deceased July 2014), Hannah, and Emily. He and his wife now live in Virginia.
