After emerging victorious from Round One of College Finals, I decided to climb out of my posting slump...just in time for a new Beautiful People post!!!

If you would like to join the linkup, click this link. 

This one had a parents theme....which was kinda difficult, because normally the parents are in the background with my stories. 

So I decided to pull up one of my *other* WIPs, a historical fiction that I'm starting to revisit again and do the parents of my protagonist and her sister. Enjoy!

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Leo and Jacinta Arlen - Parents of Ciara and Grace Arlen 

Leo Arlen 

Jacinta Garcia Arlen

1. Overall, how good is their relationship with their parents? 

Both girls have a very good relationship with their parents, and are extremely fond of them. 

2. Do they know both their biological parents? If not, how do they cope with this loss/absence and how has it affected their life?

Both knew their parents, but Grace's memories are a little fuzzier than her sister's. They lose their parents in the beginning of the story, and it definitely affects Ciara more than Grace.  

3. How did their parents meet? 

Leo is a fisherman. One day as a young man, he ends up going out way too far on his little fishing vessel and somehow winds up on the northern Spanish coast - half starving and cold no less. A Spanish lass and her father were walking the beach when he landed, and they took him in. He was there in Spain for several months, courting Jacinta and eventually they married and they went back to Dover, England. 

4. How would they feel if they were told "you're turning out like your parent(s)"? 

Ciara is heavily criticized for being like her mother, so that statement will probably be met with a stony look if not an outburst of temper. Grace is hard to tell....she's too young.  

5. What were your character's parents doing when they were your character's age? 

At Grace's age, both would have been at school in their respective countries. At Ciara's, Jacinta would have just met Leo, and Leo would be just getting his first boat. 

6. Is there something they adamantly disagree on? 

Yes, the question between work and education for Ciara. Her mother wants her to be more educated, but her father is having struggles keeping his place up, and the men in the town refuse to help them (for reasons), so he wants Ciara to take on a heavier workload.

7. What did the parent(s) find hardest about raising your character? 

Grace was a model child, though she would steal food out of the pantry. Ciara would get into much more trouble though, and getting her out of it was often a trial.

8. What's their most vivid memory with their parental figure(s)? 

For Ciara, it was one time her father came home unexpectantly from the sea with a large catch in a beautiful sunset. For Grace, it was her mother singing a Spanish lullaby.

9. What was your character like as a baby/toddler? 

Ciara was very curious baby. Grace, a rather sleepy one most of the time, unless she was around people because then she was the giggliest thing on the planet.

10. Why and how did the parents choose your character's name?  

Grace was named for Leo's mother. Ciara's name is more interesting. Jacinta had a very difficult labor with Ciara, and was very close to dying. But by sheer Providence, an Irish midwife had just landed, and it was through her skill that the baby lived. Thus the grateful parents named the baby after her.

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