Take Two Characters. Kate Field Chooses Two Of Her Favourite Fictional People.

This week, my Take Two Characters series continues with a guest post by Kate Field.  Kate's contemporary novels delve into the complexities of relationships and family life.

Her debut novel, The Magic of Ramblings, won the Romantic Novelists' Association' s Joan Hessayon Award. This was followed by The Truth About You, Me and Us and The Winter That Made Us. She also contributed one of the stories to the short story collection, Miss Moonshine's Emporium of Happy Endings. Kate's latest book is The Man I Fell In Love With.

I was delighted when Susanna asked me to take part in her new blog feature, because it sounded such an interesting idea. The timing was perfect too: my post was scheduled for February, the month that my latest book was due to be published, which spared me a tricky decision over which of my characters to choose!

The lead character in The Man I Fell in Love With is Mary Black. Mary has been contentedly married to her best friend, Leo, for almost twenty years, and she’s at the centre of a close-knit family – so close, that her mother lives in the converted garage, and Leo’s mother lives next door! Her family, and especially her two teenage children, are everything to her and so her world is shattered when, in the opening chapter of the book, she discovers that Leo has fallen in love with another man.

What would you do?

The idea of the story came to me when I heard about a similar situation, and I wondered if there were any circumstances in which a wife would support her husband in his new relationship.

Mary wandered into my mind during the course of that day, and I abandoned the book I’d been planning to write so I could tell her story instead.

Not everyone will agree with the way Mary reacts; some readers will think that she should have been angry or taken revenge. I’m not saying that Mary’s choice is the right one, or the best one, and I’m certainly not sure that I could behave in the same way. But it is her choice, because of what has happened to her in the past, and because she wants to protect her children. I think it would take real strength to hide your own pain and put your family first.

I loved writing about Mary; she’s loyal and determined, funny and kind, and I hope that readers will root for her as she reshapes her life, and agree that her story has the ending she deserves!

I pondered for a long time about which other character to choose. My ‘go to’ answer for every question about a favourite book or character always involves Persuasion by Jane Austen, so I tried to think of something else. But the more I thought about Mary Black, and how much I admired her quiet strength, the more I realised that I liked the same thing about Anne Elliot, the lead character in Persuasion.

I was lucky enough to study Persuasion for my English Literature A level, but I was the only student in my class who liked the book – my teacher even wrote a tongue-in-cheek message in my autograph book when I left school, to say that I was the only one who really understood it!

Like Mary Black, Anne puts her own happiness last: she gives up the man she loves because she’s persuaded by the maternal figure in her life that it’s the best thing to do. Years later, they meet again, and the book is full of agony and joy as she sees him attracted to someone else, but eventually return to her.

Anne is a quiet, bookish character, past her bloom as Jane Austen puts it, but she’s kind and understanding, and her true strength is shown in a crisis. I first encountered her when I was a shy, insecure teenager, and she’s stayed with me because her story gave me reassurance that it’s okay not to be the loudest person in the room, and that even quiet characters can have an important role to play.

Kate's Links:

Twitter: @katehaswords

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KateFieldAuthor

The Man I Fell in Love With: Kindle edition

Kate's author page on Amazon