Meet My Character: Jasmine, from JASMINE'S STORY

I was tagged in this blog meme by the marvellous Robin Chambers, author of the Myrddinsheir books. I met Robin via Twitter via the #IARTG hashtag and we became firm friends: Robin is such a philosophical guy, I couldn't help but be drawn to him and his amazingly inclusive and interesting worldview! I read and reviewed the first in his series, A WIZARD OF DREAMS, a novel for children my two girls aged 8 and 3 particularly loved. You read my 5* star review of Robin's book HERE and you can see Robin's response to "Meet My Character" HERE.

1) What is the name of your character? 

My character's name is Jasmine Gillespie and she is from Book 2 in The Decision Series, JASMINE'S STORY. She's seventeen and the only child of a single Mum; they have no other family. Jasmine is into science and very studious, but also a keen runner; she plans to Sports Science at university next year and wants to join the local Harriers club.

2) When and where is the story set?

As with all the Decision books the story is set in present day and in the seaside town of Winby, a little rural backwater not unlike Ilfracombe in North Devon, which was where I grew up as a teen - though previous readers of The Decision books have told me they have seen their OWN seaside towns in its place, instead! You can see photographs of Winby and the rest of the storyworld, which is made up of a larger town called Exmorton and a small village called Linwood, HERE.

3) What should we know about her?

Like many girls and young women, Jasmine has one best friend - Olivia. They've known each other since kindergarten and have been through many things together, not just the usual school stuff: Olivia has supported Jasmine when dealing with her Mum Linda's depression; plus Jasmine was there for Olivia when her parents split up two years ago.

However, the two girls are VERY different. Olivia is the life and soul of the party, whereas Jasmine is much more the "hanger on" on in their social circle. This makes Jasmine a little jealous of the attention her best friend gets, not least from boys. This perhaps makes her blind to who Olivia really is, deep down. So when Ellie, a tourist girl from London comes to stay in Winby for the summer with her family, Jasmine is drawn to this seemingly sophisticated city girl and wants to be her friend, much to Olivia's chagrin - not least because Ellie makes it plain from the offset she doesn't like Olivia.

Here's a blog from Olivia about how she really feels, HERE and read how Jasmine feels about her best friend, HERE.

4) What is the main conflict?

The main conflict of Jasmine's Story - "The Decision", if you will! - is whether Jasmine should go to Ellie's party, which Ellie says Olivia is not invited to. On the surface, this is not necessarily a "big" deal and very different to the huge decision Lizzie has to make in HER story, which is about teenage pregnancy. But that's just it: Jasmine's dilemma is only seemingly not a big deal on the SURFACE.

5) What is the personal goal of the character? 

Jasmine just wants to be popular. She's not a bad person, just naive. She wants to feel important and she wants to be liked. Don't we all feel like that, growing up? Hell, we feel like that, as adults. And most of us, like Jasmine, have to learn the hard way that we can't always get what we want.

6) Where can we read more about it?

You can read more about The Decision Series at The Decision blog on Tumblr; via Jasmine herself on @DecisionSeries on Twitter; plus via the Decision Facebook page. You can also see more on the Amazon page.

For the next stage of the meme, I tag the lovely Stevie Turner! Looking forward to meeting one of your characters, Stevie!



BIO: Stevie is a medical secretary who writes suspense stories and also novels about the darker side of relationships, but with a sprinkling of humour added to sweeten the pill. Check out her Amazon author page for some unusual books, or Stevie's interview with Lucy V Hay on her WordPress blog.