Character Spotlight ~ Ronie Kendig's Shiloh Blake & Reece Jaxon

Shiloh Blake & Reece Jaxon

So by now you know how much I loved Ronie's debut novel, Dead Reckoning, and I can assure she has more brilliant military suspense stories to come! Set in Mumbai, India, the exotic and sometimes dangerous locale adds even more spice to the story ~ LOL!

For now, enjoy this peek at Shiloh and the man she calls, Brutus!

Over to you, Ronie:~

Brief physical description

Shiloh Blake is about 5'7” tall, has an athletic build, long auburn hair, and blue-gray eyes that she inherited from her father.

Reece Jaxon (aka: Brutus, as Shiloh calls him) is a rather large man for a spy--6'1”, he's thick-chested and muscular, with short sandy-blond hair, and blue eyes.

Actor/famous person

I found these photos online somewhere (I think the guy's picture is from a modelling agency); the girl's photo came from a catalogue.

This is what I used while writing Dead Reckoning. Ironically, I thought these characters greatly resembled my cousin and her hubby (they married AFTER I wrote the book).

Strengths and weaknesses

Shiloh's strengths are her determination and her fearlessness. But those are also part of her weaknesses, blinding her to the truth of her actions (running from her father/past) and propelling her to get the mission done…on her own.

Reece can read people really well. It's what keeps him alive. But he tends to trust his own instincts too often, instead of trusting in God. He's not used to having to let go of situations and allow things to play out. He's used to controlling them.

Quirk (if any)

To calm herself down, Shiloh recites the Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species of the sea-star, a habit she picked up from her mom.

Reece has a bad “quirk” of not answering questions, or answering them with other questions.

Your inspiration for the character

Shiloh was borne out of my very first spy novel (which was never published), Midnight Zone. She is the daughter of the two spies in that story. In book 2 (also never published) her parents rescue her from a man doing experiments on children, thus her “seizures” in Dead Reckoning, which are a result of damage she incurred as a young child.

Background to the story

In a roundabout way, Dead Reckoning come to fruition because of the story about Shiloh's parents, which had a terrorist who'd developed a way to hyper-accelerate the effectiveness of chemical weapons by using the pressure of the deep ocean, the “midnight zone.”

That story idea came from watching some movie (I honestly can't recall which one) where there was an entire hidden station in the depths of our ocean.

I think that deep-ocean setting was off-putting to publishers, so when it came to Shiloh's story, I had a two-fold mission: keep the story plausible (no stretching the imagination as I did with Midnight Zone) and keep Shiloh connected to the water since both of her parents loved it. I also knew she hated her father enough to not want to follow in his footsteps (as a spy or as a deep-sea diver), thus the underwater archaeology. A “safe” occupation that turns out to be deadly.

Woo hoo, Ronie ~ thanks for the special insight into two of my favourite characters in 2010! Looking forward to introducing Max, Colton and Canyon via spotlights in the future :)

On Monday, the spotlight turns to Leanna Ellis' Bryn Seymour and Sam Walters ~ I can't wait for Leanna's take on these, too. Maybe I should get her to add Howard as well ;-)

Relz Reviewz Extras

Review of Dead Reckoning

Enter the Relz Reviewz giveaway of Dead Reckoning

Visit Ronie's website and blog

Enter Ronie's launch contest @ Novel Journey

Buy Ronie's books at Amazon or Christianbook

Check back later this week for an exclusive interview with Ronie