Authors Dish: Hywela Lyn’s Favorite Heroine

September 2018: Favorite Heroine
~ Hywela Lyn ~

CTR asked:
QUESTION: Of your published titles to date, which heroine is your favorite and why?

Hywela Lyn said:
My favourite female character is Jestine Darnell, heroine of Starquest and featured in Children of the Mist.

She started out as the heroine of a short story and I killed her off at the end. She died saving the man she loved. *Sigh* I used to love sad endings. Jess, however, had other ideas, and told me in no uncertain terms that there was a lot more to the story and it certainly didn’t end there. So I started writing my first full length science fiction romance.

Jess has long wavy red hair and green eyes. (My lovely cover artist at the time didn’t quite get it right.) She’s pretty and feisty, but in some ways quite naive. She endures a lot in Starquest and has to toughen up a bit, learning that it is sometimes necessary to abandon long held principles, such as a great respect for the sanctity of life, and an abhorence of killing, in order to survive. She also has to be a bit devious at times, which goes against her usually very open and honest nature.

Throughout the book she has one thing on her mind, to find the man she loves and from whom she has been inexplicably separated. She has lost some of her memories and has no notion how she came to be left behind on the planet they had come to save, but he is forever in her heart and her mind.

I became so fond of Jess, and so involved with her that I decided to write the middle section of the book as a journal, in the first person. I felt I could better convey her thoughts and emotions this way, and really ‘get under her skin’.

Does Jess find her man in the end? That would be telling. What I will say though is that Jess again argued forcibly with me, and when I told her that I was the one who was the author – and that was the way it was. She told me ‘no’, it wasn’t, and to ‘just try it my way’. So I did, and it worked! Of course it was a happy ever after ending, both ways, it’s just that her version was not quite what I’d originally intended, but it was better. Jess was right, as she usually is.

She made several friends in Starquest and one of them asked for her own story, so I gave it her in Children of the Mist in which Jess also plays a major role.
The third book in what has become The Destiny Trilogy, is Beloved Enemy (with another red-haired heroine but one who is totally different to Jess.) Although Jess is not actually in this one, she certainly gets more than a mention, and who knows, she might yet invite me to share another of her adventures.

– Website – http://www.hywelalyn.co.uk
– Twitter – @Hywela_Lyn

Beloved Enemy: The Destiny Trilogy, Book 3

[SciFi Adventure Romance]

Cat Kincaid is obsessed with killing the man she believes is responsible for the torture and death of her sister, but when she eventually catches up with him, survival becomes a greater priority than revenge.

Kerry Marchant, haunted by memories, regret, and self-blame, shields himself from the pain of the past by committing himself totally to the starship, Destiny, of which he is part owner. However, the beautiful, red-haired woman who reminds him of his lost love, and who he suspects is working for a corrupt regime, represents a possible threat not only to the ship, but to his heart.

Marooned on an inhospitable planet, they need to work together to stay alive, fighting not only unknown assailants, but their growing attraction. But how can they learn to trust each other when he has vowed never to get close to a woman again, and she made a solemn pledge to destroy him?

Available in Ebook:

– Kindle – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BBCBYCS
– Nook – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/reviews/beloved-enemy-hywela-lyn/1123368339
– Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/ebook/beloved-enemy-28
– Wild Rose – https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/3770-beloved-enemy.html

More Authors Dish about their favorite heroines.

– Read the authors: https://coffeethoughts.coffeetimeromance.com/ad2018-sep-heroine/