Character Spotlight ~ Cheryl Wyatt's Ben Dillinger with giveaway

Today the spotlight shines on.............................................................Ben Dillinger


I don't read many Love Inspired books but I love Cheryl Wyatt's :) Action, romance and great characters all add up to engaging reading. I am looking forward to getting into Ready-Made Family when it arrives, especially after reading the insight Cheryl has provided into Ben!

Over to you, Cheryl:~

Brief physical description:

Extraordinarily tall for an Asian man. Military haircut, black and shaved above his ears. Tallest Asian man the heroine has ever seen. Due to Ben's career as a US Air Force Pararescue Jumper, he is in top physical form and uses all those magnificant muscles to rescue people from dangerous places. Mostly he rescues downed allied pilots, but his team also takes part in rescues during natural disasters.

Resembles actor Ben Affleck...only an Asian version. His mother is Asian, his father Caucasian. Ben resembles an Asian Ben Affleck.

Rel: I morphed Ben Affleck and Lost actor, Daniel Dae Kim for this photo of Ben ~ so what do you think, Cheryl ?!

Strengths:

Generous. Giving. Compassionate. Strong. Man of his word.

Ben is generous and giving of his time and his friendship which is how he met the single-mom heroine and her daughter. Ben has a brother with Mosaic Down Syndrome who he takes in for a period in order to enable his parents to do a stint of world-travel they'd always dreamed of.

Weaknesses:

Sometimes his generosity and compassion causes him to overcommit and he struggles with balancing responsibilities. But he does so with a good heart.

Quirk:

He is Asian who cannot stand to eat Asian cuisine and he's addicted to NASCAR racing.

My inspiration for this character:

With all the NASCAR races I go to, I brought my author friend Camy Tang to one, who pointed out how few Asians there were in the crowds. So, because I love flipping stereotypes on their heads, I thought it would be fun to create an Asian character who loves NASCAR.

Background to the story:

I met a woman at Disney World in Florida who inspired the story. As we sat by the pool, she talked about how she once passed out from an electrolyte imbalance while alone with her children and how terrifying that was. She determined after that to start taking better care of herself health-wise. So that sparked an idea, which I shared with her over the next hours as we chatted, about a single mom who happened to get the flu while traveling from one state to the other (different scenario completely from my poolside pal). Basically the heroine is at a pharmacy and, while pulling away with her young daughter in the car, she passes out at the wheel and crashes her car into a light pole. The woman's daughter rushes out and finds the hero (Ben) who runs over to help. He realizes the young mother and her daughter have fallen on hard times and determines to help them through out the book. In the process, he receives the blessing of romance and a ready-made family.

I also attend a multi-ethnic church that values people of all colors, shapes, sizes and socio-economic status. So that inspired me to write an interracial romance. Heroine is Caucasian and Ben is half-Asian. The book handles delicately the subject of prejudice as well, but it's mostly an action-and-emotion-driven romance.

Fantastic, Cheryl! Loved this insight :) Can't wait to read how the story pans out.

On Monday, I will be spotlighting Sally Stevens from Patti Lacy's What the Bayou Saw, a contemporary tale about a woman struggling with her past secrets.

Relz Reviewz Extras

Reviews of A Soldier's Promise and A Soldier's Family

Interview with Cheryl

Visit Cheryl's website and blog

Buy Cheryl's books at Amazon or Koorong

Open Giveaway

Cheryl will be signing a copy of Ready-Made Family for one of my readers!

To enter, post a comment by Sunday 26th April, 2009 leaving contact details and telling me how many people their are in your immediate family! We stand at five ~ hubby, three girls and me!