For me, I struggle with writing characters. World building? Love it. Plot? Check. I have a feeling it is because of my neurodivergence that I have difficulties connecting with my characters. I find it a challenge to understand real people, let alone creating them from the ground up. Janis and the Reaper required a large cast to bring the narrative to life. It's how the story progressed, as I wrote it for so many years. More and more characters kept popping up, saying hello, and settling down firmly into the text. Each character plays a crucial role in the story, adding depth and richness to the narrative. Today, I’d like to introduce you to some of the key characters you’ll meet in the book.
Tensith
Tensith is a fox fae in charge of changeling deals between human parents and faeries. His job is to take faerie bairns and give them to humans to raise for sixteen years. Once the contract comes due, he returns, collects the child, and brings them back into the lands of Faerie for them to bless the land. Sadly, this means those children turn into dust and are returned to the earth, blessing the surrounding vegetation, never to be seen again. It is a sacrifice used to keep the magic of Faerie strong. What can I say? I like my fae scary, mean, and with non-human morals.
Tensith was raised by his mother, a faerie, and has a half-sister, Maeren, who is a dryad, a tree nymph. Maeren currently lives in a dogwood tree in a park in Virginia. I won't tell you which one, as she prefers to remain undisturbed. Proud and cunning, Tensith dreams of one day returning to the idealistic childhood he enjoyed when his mother was still alive and serving on the fae council. His family was rich, and treated with respect and deference, and before the Autumn Detente, life was good. Tensith longs to return to such days and will work as hard as he can in his current position until he is lauded once again.
Janis Lyn Pereda
Janis is our protagonist, and she's pissed. She has a feeling she was murdered two days before her sixteenth birthday for some strange reason that is very unfair. She just doesn't know what that reason is yet. Janis is saddled with the WORST allies, a grumpy forensic pathologist who is something more than just a doctor. And he's being no help.
Janis's life (death?) takes an unexpected turn when she discovers that, as a ghost, she's never felt more alive. The current theory she and her companions have is that some sort of spell was placed upon her in life that kept her separate from her true self. Now, in death, she can feel all the emotions she didn't have access to as a person. The painful irony of this does not escape her. Janis struggles with her identity and place in the world, and her journey is filled with emotional highs and lows. Her determination and resilience make her a character who, I hope, readers will root for as she navigates her new reality.
Janis actually wasn't the main character of my story for a long time. It was all about the reaper. Janis was just an episodic stop along the way for Jay's greater character arc. Now, I can't imagine the book without her. I also kept her race as a Black girl with mixed heritage, as that was who she always was, even as a side character. It felt hugely disingenuous to me to change who she was just for the sake of making my life "easier." I worked hard, consulting many friends and sensitivity readers, all to accurately portray Janis as a teenage girl of color. As a white author, my actions are inherently flawed, no matter how earnest my approach is. I welcome any feedback and dialogue and am continuing to learn.
The Reaper
Jayan "Jay" Mati is a reaper experiencing human emotions deeply for the first time, which he hates! Reapers weren't meant to feel as deeply as humans do, and it's messing with his mojo. He would love to remain cool, removed, and impassionate. Instead, he feels for this ghost that turned up literally at his feet and wants to help. He thinks something is a little off with her death and reluctantly agrees to help her solve this mystery, one that he quickly gets caught up in.
I loved focusing on his whole emotional transformation and struggle with his new identity throughout the book and I think it adds an intriguing layer to the narrative. Jay’s protective nature and evolving relationship with Janis, Sylvie, Anat, and Friend bring depth to his character arc. Jay is also a non-binary and gender-fluid character! It made sense to me to have my reapers be genderless as death, to me, has no gender. Jay goes by he/him in his current body but uses they/them in his reaper form. In his two previous bodies, which were women, he used she/her.
Friend
I loved creating Friend. She came to me late in my process of writing the book and, like the cat she is, sat firmly down on my keyboard and demanded attention. Originally, she wasn't the love interest for Jay, but Sylvie was. Weird, right? But as soon as Friend and Jay were in a scene together, their chemistry was off the charts. I realized they had dated when Jay was still a reaper, decades and decades ago. Friend was frustrated with the relationship because the reaper couldn't go deep into passion, something Friend has in spades. As a demon, Friend is very much of the earth, think id vs. ego or superego. Demons are pleasure-first creatures, doing everything in their power to make their lives comfortable and easy. They're like lighting, seeking the easiest, least energy-spending way to the ground. They weren't a good match when Jay was a reaper, but something has definitely changed now...
These are just a few of the characters you’ll encounter in Janis and the Reaper. Each one brings their own unique qualities and story arcs to keep you turning the pages. I hope you enjoy getting to know them as much as I enjoyed writing them!
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