Amanda Bouchet | My Favorite Things About My Characters

What is your favorite characteristic in Tess? What about Shade? It’s always so hard to pick just one of anything, but I’ll do my best! Hopefully, having trouble deciding is evidence of well-rounded characters with several admirable traits ;-) Tess Bailey is our captain, rebel heroine…and a thief. She steals from those who have too much in order to provide for those who don’t have enough, but her primary goal is to accumulate vaccinations for populations, especially children, that don’t have access to the galaxy’s undersupplied “cure-all” inoculations, which are hoarded by the oppressive ruling regime and distributed only to soldiers and the wealthy elite. Tess is loyal, capable, compassionate, and determined, but I think the trait I like most about her is her selflessness. Here’s a little snippet from Nightchaser to illustrate that. “There are more people searching for our Tess than for a ghost,” Shiori said, looking across the table at Fiona but not quite hitting her mark. Her milky eyes landed somewhere between Fiona and me. “Exactly,” Jaxon agreed, turning a pointed look my way. His expression regained only enough life to look satisfied that Shiori had helped prove his point. “People everywhere—looking for Tess.” Well, I doubted that Shade Ganavan, Space Rogue, was one of them. And I hardly thought Tess was that important. The great rebel wheel was full of cogs, and I hardly signified. At most, I was worth a lethal injection, and the Overseer had plenty of those. That said, I didn’t want to get caught. But I also wouldn’t stop doing what I needed to do just because I feared the possible consequences. Fear was something I could accept. Abandoning the galaxy to a group of despots was not.

I don’t see Tess as a character who runs recklessly into
danger. She’s not careless or rash. She knows exactly what she’s doing and how serious the
consequences are if she gets caught. Yet she persists in battling to improve the lives of others
while also fighting to bring down a heartless empire, despite the danger to herself. She’s a
rebel to the core, and all rebellions are built on a group of people for whom the end result
outweighs the individual. That’s Tess. Of course, she doesn’t want to get caught, but she also
won’t stop. The bigger picture is what counts.

As for Shade… I must admit that this hero stole a piece of my
heart. I love how conflicted he is, with his heart catching fire and freezing all at once because
of Tess coming into his life and putting him in the position of having to make a very tough
choice. Shade has so many qualities I like in a romance hero. He’s mature but also a funny flirt.
He’s strong, skilled, and smart. He’s protective and responsible. But what I like most about him
is that he’s an understated alpha. To demonstrate that, I’ve selected a snippet about Shade
through Tess’s eyes.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I did some limbering up. He was fast and smooth, undeniably strong and fit. Shade seemed pretty easygoing overall, but there was obviously a born warrior underneath. Or one of those alpha animals. There was an innate dominance about him that he didn’t really show off, but that he didn’t downplay, either. It was just there, a part of him. And he threw a wicked right hook. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the wrong side of him in a fight that wasn’t just for some training fun. There was no doubt about it; he would kick my ass. I was no pushover, as I’d had to prove a time or ten on the Mile when Jax hadn’t been around, and I could get the jump on someone when I tried, but my strong suits were blending in, getting in and out of places undetected, and giving the galactic goons the slippery runaround. Shade moved into kicks, and even just for warm-up, the strong pivot of his bottom foot and the hard snap of his kicking leg made his roundhouse look lethal to me. Cage fighting had been outlawed, but it still happened on some of the seedier spacedocks, and Shade Ganavan could probably have made a fortune at it—as long as he didn’t mind having a few of his features rearranged. Shade could obviously be as big a bruiser as his punching bag, but I wasn’t worried about him using his strength against me. My thoughts just kept veering off in other directions—like how much safer every day might feel with him watching my back. Tess and Shade complement each other in many ways, but they’re also very different people with different and sometimes conflicting goals. I hope you’ll enjoy seeing how their two strong personalities come together in Nightchaser.

Thank you for inviting me to Fresh Fiction. And thanks for
reading!

Amanda