Who wants to see the character dossier of Ellie Sethdottier: Protagonist of The Light Side of the Moon?
Ellie at age 11, Digital painting by me, Elizabeth Guizzetti. All Rights Reserved.
Ella (Ellie) Settdottier was four-years-old when the Kiposians came. While she and her brothers were too young to immigrate to Kipos and witnessed a violent argument between her parents, which ended with her mother battered. She never saw her father again. She does not know if he abandoned them for opportunities on Kipos or was possibly killed at the gates. She doesn’t want to know.
Parents: Jia Rao and Seth Keithson
Two Brothers: Daniel (+4 years) and James (+3 years)
Virtues: Though her life has been hard, she was protected from the worst of their poverty by her older brothers, thus she is strong-willed and hopeful things will get better. (Her brothers have long given up on life.) She loves to read and collect knowledge.
Vices: She has grown up so fast, she does not listen to reason. She is slow to trust.
Helpful Vice: She is a risktaker, but terrified of “getting in trouble” in an unforgivable way. She doesn’t really understand what is unforgivable, but has an idea that she needs to not get pregnant or catch an uncurable STI, so during her teen years she stays away from boys and drugs.
Age in novel: 4 – 18
Description excerpts
Age 4
More harshly than was wise, Alexander snapped, “She’s four and lost her father. Who said, ‘Suffer the little children…’ ”
With the hope Ella would settle down and Sister Diego might witness the vision of an innocent in pain, he pulled her onto his lap. After all, a four-year-old has no designs except to be loved, fed, safe, and warm. When she wasn’t screaming, Ella was as sweet looking as Jia had been at four: large round brown eyes, soft lengths of black hair escaping from two messy braids. Sister Diego could see her in her brothers’ hand-me-down green sweater and old patched trousers. No sign of sinful disease.
Both for his own comfort and hers, Alexander rocked her. Ella calmed as she snuggled into his shoulder, but Sister Diego’s face remained without compassion.
*
Age 11
[Alexander] considered as the afternoon sun bounced off Ella’s black hair how much she resembled Jia at that age, but her normally bronzed skin, looked grayish. Daniel and Jamie looked worse, covered in flour. The girl was on some invisible tether, bouncing with childish energy, but matching her brothers’ sluggish pace. Neither boy should be broken in adolescence.
The Light Side of the Moon will be available on paperback and ebook for Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and IBooks.
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