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We all have characters we love. Let’s spotlight these fantastic creations! Whether you want to be friends with them or you have a full-blown crush on them, you know you love them and want everyone else to love them too!
Most of you will probably post about how much you love each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write a love letter to Captain Wentworth. Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Draw a picture of yourself in Jamie’s arms. The possibilities are endless.
Be sure to post the book’s title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters.
Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday.
Today’s character is Agatha Raisin, from the cozy mystery series of the same name by M.C. Beaton. The first in the series is Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death.
Agatha is one of those characters who would drive me crazy in real life, but who I just can’t help but like on the page. I think she proves that old adage, “Never judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.”
At the beginning of the first book, she owns a fabulous Public Relations firm in London that she built from the ground up. She’s survived a horrible marriage and come out of it a stronger woman. Now that she’s a little older, she realizes that she’s not entirely happy. She’s busybusybusy with work all the time and doesn’t really have any friends, much less any men in her life. She makes the momentous decision to sell the firm and retire to a little village in the Cotswolds.
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| Photo of Cotswold Cottages near Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire taken by filibuster and posted on Wikimedia Commons |
Life in the country isn’t really what Agatha expected. She finds herself bored. She tries to enter into village life, but she’s inwardly insecure and ends up trying to hide it by being rude, arrogant, and pushy. Few of the villagers can stand her. Even the vicar hides when he sees her coming! Luckily for Agatha, the vicar’s wife is able to see through to the unhappy woman underneath and befriends her. That friendship helps Agatha to improve a little, but more often than not, she says exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time in exactly the wrong way.
You can imagine what her love life is like. She scares men away all the time. She’s scared to let herself get too close to a man, so she pushes away anyone who makes the effort to get close to her.
Her personality is exactly right for an amateur detective, so she sort of finds her place when there’s a murder in the village. She starts investigating and her tenacity leads her into places the police can’t or won’t go. She generally manages to irritate the people that she’s questioning so much that they sometimes say more than they intend to. Of course the police resent her efforts to help, but that doesn’t deter our Agatha.
Who did you connect with this week? Write a post and link up! (I upgraded my Mr. Linky account, so we’re back to the old way. I like it much better and now the links will be permanent!)
9 Comments
Oh, I love Agatha Raisin! She's just so sassy!
Enbrethiliel, I think you're right. That quirkiness is definitely part of the appeal of the cozy mystery.
Daria, some people are definitely easier to deal with on the page!
Jess, Mrs. Bennett is annoying, even understanding where she's coming from. Agatha is a lot easier once you realize her rudeness is just her way of hiding her insecurity.
Thanks Irena! I fixed your link. It's a very easy mistake to make. I've probably done it before and not realized it myself.
Whitney, I didn't think about mentioning it, but you're right; part of the conflict between Agatha and the villagers does arise from the fact that she's a city girl and the villagers tend to view outsiders with suspicion.
Sully, these are fun books.
I noticed that I entered Mr Linky twice. No.5 is from last week. Sorry.
I haven't read this book, but sounds like fun.
It sounds like Agatha is a big city girl. Despite her seemingly surly behavior, she sounds like an interesting person
I don't know Agatha, but you described her so well! I found it great how you said that she would annoy you in real life, hehe. But even characters that annoy us can also fascinate us at the same time. I really enjoyed reading your post about Agatha.
I've never heard of this book, but I love that you connected with a character who would annoy you in real life. That's how I feel about Mrs. Bennet, who I wrote about this week!
i really like what you said about Agatha, that she'd annoy you in real life! I often find this true with detective characters (not only!), especially if they'd question me! 🙂 but it's so fun to watch them, and in this case read about!
+JMJ+
It seems to me that a Detective Fiction lover could do a whole year's worth of Character Connection posts just by featuring amateur sleuths! Personality certainly seems to be a huge element, at least in the English Detective Story. (The American counterparts don't seem so quirky, but that is an impression from my limited knowledge of both streams in the genre.)
What I like about Agatha is that she can annoy people enough to get them to say more than they intend to. I can't think of any other detective with such a strange–and strangely successful approach! =)