Meet the Characters: Cosmin and Jelani!

This is a very exciting month for me, booknerds: it’s the month where the cover of “Resistor” will be officially debuted, and the pre-orders of my latest book baby will start! To celebrate, I have two more characters to introduce you to from my New Adult/Adult cyberpunk fantasy: Cosmin von Brandt, and Jelani Tyrik Sharma! We’ll start with the villain of the new book, and end with my beta reader’s newest favorite character, that way we end on a high note, as it were.

Cosmin von Brandt is a seersha. A seersha is my new, colorful race that is a mix between elves, drow, and the quanari (the horned race from Dragon Age). This race of people can have skin ranging from the traditional colors we know, to indigo blue, soft greens, lilac… you name it! Their eyes are similar in that vein as well, they range from the natural to the unnatural—like Cosmin’s pumpkin orange eyes. Basically anything with color—skin, eyes, hair—can be any color of the rainbow for seersha. Some of them also have long ears like elves, or even horns. They are a beautiful and eccentric race by nature, and Cosmin, while not the most outlandish looking of seersha, makes up for it with his eccentricities. A connoisseur of high, fine and daring fashion, Cosmin loves all the flash that comes with being a seersha—including the power. Seersha casters are naturally more powerful than their humani brethren, and Cosmin is the most powerful of them throughout Euria.

Gifted with both fire and earth magics, Cosmin has made a name for himself smuggling illegal magitech—magically imbued technology. Not all magitech is outlawed, just the most devastating kinds, which happen to be Cosmin’s specialty. He is, essentially, a gangster with a crime “family” that spreads throughout the entirety of Euria. Cosmin is the extreme embodiment of “absolute power corrupts absolutely”; he’s arrogant, narcissistic, but also very generous to those who are unequivocally loyal to him. Which is why he gets so perturbed when anyone challenges him, tries to leave him, or take something he deems as his. Cosmin is always vaguely paranoid that someone will come along that will challenge his power, a worry born in him early due to the death of… well, I’ll save that little tidbit. You see, Cosmin will be getting his own standalone novella very soon that details exactly how Cosmin von Brandt became the elite and untouchable dealer of illegal magitech that you meet in “Resistor”. But needless to say, I had a lot of fun writing this character! He’s smooth and charming and an absolute dick. He’s a proper gentleman, and a perfect devil. And given he is over 300 years old, it’s very hard for someone like Ellinor to outmaneuver him. And now, allow me to introduce you to the character that single handedly became my early readers’ favorite: Jelani Tyrik Sharma. Jelani is also a seersha, though he looks it more than Cosmin does. And, like Cosmin, he’s also a caster—of sorts. Jelani is an earth caster, but he’s nowhere near as strong as Cosmin—but more on that, and what it means for Jelani, when you read the book. I will say that Jelani is what you would consider to be a libertarian. He wants people to live their truth, he doesn’t believe in imposing someone else’s will over a person—be that in sanctioning mechanical advances, or the rights of the sentient robots, the Ashlings. Jelani is a freedom fighter, beholden to no one but his little sister, who he feels responsible for due to a tragic event from his past.

Jelani is a refined soul, someone who has lost much, but rebuilt himself and found new purpose in life. He is more than willing to drag Ellinor and very blatantly show her when she’s wrong, when her prejudice is making her into someone she doesn’t have to be anymore. Jelani is a sensitive soul, but he’s not a pacifist by any means. He can go toe-to-toe with any number of extreme beastie, so he’s definitely not someone to cross. Good thing it takes a lot to get on his bad side! But Jelani has his own motivations for wanting to remain on Ellinor’s mission, to stay within her circle, one that you just know is going to rub Ellinor the wrong way…

The contrast in personalities and speech patterns between my characters was thrilling to build and experiment with. It makes each one stand out from the other, and was honestly a lot of fun to write. I thoroughly enjoyed getting into the minds of these diverse characters, watching them butt heads, and discover things about themselves they didn’t know until these new faces came into their lives. Again, sorry for being a little vague on these characters, but I hope they sound enticing and interesting enough for you to want to meet them very soon!