Character Spotlight ~ Deeanne Gist's Georgie Gail & Luke Palmer

Character Spotlight ~

Georgie & Luke

Deeanne Gist returns with another historical romance novel with Love in the Line!  Enjoy meeting Georgie and Luke!

Over to you, Deeanne:~

Brief physical description

If I could cast a celebrity into the role of Georgie Gail, I would choose Rachel McAdams. Her green eyes, blonde hair, ready smile, and the teeny mole just below her lower lip would fit the bill perfectly.

Paul Walker’s square jaw, blue eyes and great smile would make him the perfect candidate for taking on the role of my Texas Ranger, Luke Palmer.

Strengths and weaknesses

Georgie Gail is a telephone operator who wants to protect those who can’t protect themselves. This protective instinct compels her to lead a campaign to boycott merchants in town who sell hats decorated with innocent songbirds. But taking on a lucrative, popular industry could cost her job and her independence.

Luke Palmer is a Texas Ranger who sees everything in black and white. His frustration mounts when the townspeople thwart his efforts at locating a gang of train robbers because they idolize the villain.

Quirk (if any)

In Georgie’s youth, she tried to be the son her father always wanted. As a result, she learned to ride bareback, jump high hurdles with her horse, raft across a raging river, and various other unladylike endeavours.

Luke has spent a lifetime trying to be the best at everything he does. He works hard and excels at riding, shooting on sight, and acting quickly in the face of danger.

Your inspiration for the character

When compiling my characters, I always study biographies of people from the time period. In Georgie’s case, I based her character on a mixture of suffragettes. For Luke, I combined the histories of three different Texas Rangers.

Background to the story

Georgie was four when she was first told life was better for boys. She determined then to prove that statement wrong and learned to read by age five. At seven, she read an article in the paper: What Girls Are Good For. It stated girls should stay out of the workplace and instead focus on cleaning, sewing, and keeping a nice home. It said a woman’s mission in life was to be a helpmate to a man, not to compete with him.

A follow-up article written by Nellie Bly urged readers to consider the plight of widows and unmarried girls who were not blessed with great beauty, talent or wealth. Those women needed the opportunity to earn a living, but current attitudes restricted the types of jobs available to them.

Credit

That day Georgie vowed she would do all she could to be more like a man so she could earn her own living and never be dependent on anyone other than herself.

When Luke Palmer was ten, one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit the United States touched land at his Gulf Coast town of Indianola. The Category 4 hurricane started a fire which had been ignited by lamps burning in houses blown down by the wind. Luke’s house was one of them.

The fire destroyed all but two of the town’s buildings and killed a large number of citizens, including Luke’s father. The storm damaged telegraph wires and two-and-a-half miles of railroad track, making communication with Indianola very difficult, complicating rescue efforts and giving Luke a deep-seated mistrust of modern communication systems.

Fast forward sixteen years. Luke is assigned to sell and repair telephones as a cover. His horror over having to foist unreliable equipment onto a trusting public grates. But worst of all, is the tempestuous switchboard operator he’s assigned to work with.

Loved having you visit, Dee!

Relz Reviewz Extras
Reviews of Maid to Match, Beguiled, A Bride in the Bargain, Courting Trouble, Deep in the Heart of Trouble and A Bride Most Begrudging
Interview with Deeanne

Visit Deeanne's website and blog
Buy the books from Amazon and Koorong