Character Spotlight ~ Sue Duffy's Liesl Bower & Cade O'Brien

Sue Duffy brings back a hint of the Cold War in her latest suspense, The Sound of Red Returning, available now from Kregel.

Synopsis

After losing everyone she loves, concert pianist Liesl Bower has nowhere to go but to escape into her music. Searching for the peace she usually finds in her concertos and sonatas, Liesl can't shake the feeling that she is being haunted by her past...and by someone following her. 

As she's giving a concert for the president in Washington D.C., she looks out into the audience to see a man that she'd seen before--that eerie face--she'd seen that face the night her Harvard professor was attacked, and now he's back!

Enjoy meeting Liesl & Cade

Brief physical description

Liesl Bower is an internationally acclaimed concert pianist. She’s 37, tall, slender, long amber hair and eyes to match, striking.

Cade O’Brien is a laid-off news reporter. He’s 39, taller than Liesl, lanky/athletic build, tousled brown hair, rugged good looks.

Actor/famous person

Liesl: (See book cover.) I would think Julia Roberts (on the run in a Pelican Brief mode) or Nicole Kidman would look the part and display the required intensity and spunk.

Cade: Perhaps Jake Gyllenhaal or a young Liam Neeson

Strengths and weaknesses

Liesl: fiercely independent, strong-willed, resilient, willing to admit her failures/emotionally isolated from others, self-absorbed, unforgiving

Cade: loyal, kind, gentle, protective/ used to run away from his hurts and coddle them

Quirk (if any)

The whole bunch is quirky in some way.

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Your inspiration for the character 

Liesl: As a magazine editor/writer, I once interviewed an internationally acclaimed concert pianist from Ukraine. From insights to her family’s plight, a story began to percolate.

Cade: After conceiving Liesl, I needed a counter personality to balance her head-strong ways.

Background to the story

It’s been fifteen years since famed pianist Liesl Bower saw her beloved Harvard mentor gunned down, since the CIA disclosed his double life as a Russian spy. She was interrogated and released, with no incriminating evidence against her. But now, something has happened to set Russian and CIA agents on her heels. New intelligence suggests that Liesl possesses a coded message critical to a resurgence of Soviet power.

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As global tensions mount, the Russians are in a frenzy to find the code before the Americans. Standing in their way, though, is the young pianist from the tidal creeks and secret-shrouded lanes of old Charleston. As Liesl outruns the tip of the Russian spear, she must reckon with the wounds of her past, the love of a man she never thought could be hers, and the prevailing power of God.

In the final hour, on a world stage, Liesl must deliver a message of her own. 

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