Character Profile Sheet for Bella Darling from Kathleen Shoop's ‘Cinder Bella’

 

Years ago (and still applies today), the experts were telling fiction writers that in order to really know their main character, they must come up with a character profile sheet for them and definitely applies to all your characters as well.  This is a good practice because once you know all the ins and outs of all your characters, the book flows better and allows the author to get inside the head of each of their characters.

We decided to ask authors if they would like to come up with a character sketch of their main character, throwing in a few unique questions to make it really fun!

Today we have Kathleen Shoop stopping by on her blog tour with a character sketch of her main character, Bella Darling.  Enjoy!

———————————————————–

Learn more about Bella!

———————————————————–

Name of Character: Bella Darling

Age: 22

Eye Color: Blue

Hair Color: Dark blonde/light brown with natural blonde highlights (It's 1893 so no artificial dyes for hair!!!)

Birthplace: Pittsburgh, PA

Marital Status: Single

Children: 0

Place of Residence: She lives in the loft of a barn on the estate of the wealthy Mr. Westminster (she saved his life and he rewarded her with a place to live)

Description of Home: An older, unused barn on the estate with a cozy loft and a stone floor downstairs. Bella creates a lovely home with the hens she tends and her cat Simon. The estate home houses a maid and butler who become Bella's friends and part of her found family that develops as the story goes on. The Westminster family has fled to Europe as a means of dealing with the financial crises in America (bank collapse, panic, and Depression)

Dominant Character Trait:  Optimism

Best Friend: She doesn't have a best friend but is a friend to everyone she meets. She's capable and willing to help others anytime they need it.  

Enemies and Why: She doesn't have enemies, but it is Bella against the world, the harsh world in an 1890s  steeltown where women have little agency in terms of society's hierarchy. Bartholomew Baines who she meets early in the story becomes an adversary, but she believes in his core goodness.

Temperament: Joyful, indefatigable, but has an emptiness that keeps her from "having" everything she wants in life. She is satisfied with herself but wants someone to love and love her.  

Ambition: She wants to live in a home with a library, to have a husband to adore and adore her, and she wants the world to reflect the goodness she believes it embodies. 

Educational Background: No formal education. But she is a reader and she makes up stories. She's street smart from living alone since she was a little girl, but she has that part of her that yearns for a husband. 

Philosophy of Life: Bella believes a person can't be fully rich or content if he/she doesn't have a favorite book or a favorite story. She tells Bartholomew "Sounds like each of us is half rich. Me with my books and you with your money." Of course he's lost everything in the bank collapse so this hits hard.  

Bad Habits: Overly independent and impulsive in ways that can be good or bad. She sees herself as powerful even in the face of a world structured in every way against her. 

Talents: She coaxes eggs out of spent hens and has a knack for giving the eggs to the person who needs them. They make more food than they should, they change the way people who eat them see the world and each other--some even fall back into love. She's magnetic and uses that to lift others up, bring them together and create something from nothing. 

Hobby or Hobbies: Reading and writing stories, emptying and adding little messages into eggs to surprise people who buy them.

Why is Character Likeable? Although there are elements that seem too good to be true and that can make a person unlikable sometimes, her warmth and view of the world gives people the chance to become the best version of themselves. People might get frustrated with her but they can't help but like her even if they don't admit it. She's sort of a female, 1890s Ted Lasso.

Favorite Pig Out Food: Egg pie and sweets

Character Mini-Interview:

Every New Year’s I resolve to: find the love of my life 

Nobody knows I am: deep down, lonely and aching for someone to love me the way I love everything around me. 

I wish: For the world to reward goodness and not just greed. I am content but want so badly to have a small home with a room just for books in it. 

The worse part of my life is: I can't take away everyone's pain and loneliness. 

I want to teach my children that:  Life is magical, books are a portal to other worlds, and kindness is the greatest gift a person can own. 

A good time for me is:  A late night reading in my loft with my cat, moonlight streaming through the window, knowing my hens are safe from foxes and coyotes and now... there's Bart. He's the best time I never knew existed.

The worse advice my father gave me is: I never knew my father, but I suppose part of him is in me and whatever bad advice he may have given me had I known him, his goodness is in me too. 

When I feel sorry for myself: I write a little story and give it to someone. 

My friends like me because: No matter what happens I find a way to work out problems. 

My major accomplishment is: Bringing my hodge-podge found family together for Christmas 1893. We made magic and will forever be connected in ways that changed our very lives. 

My most humbling experience was: Realizing that life ends at some point but the love you shared can live on. I never had anything to call my own until the hens and the cat came into my life, and I thought I was truly magic and could save people. That's part true, but not totally. Sometimes people can't be saved by me or anyone else.

 Meet the Author

Bestselling author Kathleen Shoop, PhD writes historical fiction, women’s fiction, and romance. Shoop’s novels have garnered awards in the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and more. You can find Kathleen in person at various venues. She’s on the board of the Kerr Memorial Museum, teaches at writing/reader conferences, co-coordinates Mindful Writers Retreats and writing conferences, and gives talks at various book clubs, libraries, and historical societies.

Sign up for her newsletter at www.kshoop.com. 

Visit her website at www.kshoop.com or connect with her on X, Facebook, Instagram, BookBub, TikTok and Goodreads.

Cinder Bella is available at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble & Kobo. 

Inside the Book

She never had anything.

He lost everything.

Together they create a Christmas to remember.

December, 1893–Shadyside, Pennsylvania

Bella Darling lives in a cozy barn at Maple Grove, an estate owned by industrialist Archibald Westminster. The Westminster family is stranded overseas and have sent word to relieve all employees of their duties except Margaret, the pregnant maid, James the butler, and Bella. Content with borrowed books and a toasty home festooned with pine boughs and cinnamon sticks, she coaxes the old hens to lay eggs–extraordinary eggs. Bella yearns for just one thing—someone to share her life with. Always inventive, she has a plan for that. She just needs the right egg into the hands of the right man.

Bartholomew Baines, a Harvard-educated banker, is reeling in the aftermath of his bank’s collapse. With his friends and fiancé ostracizing him for what he thought was an act of generosity, he is penniless and alone. A kind woman welcomes him into her boarding house under conditions that he reluctantly accepts. Completely undone by his current, lowly position, and by the motley crew of fellow boarders who view him as one of them, Bartholomew wrestles with how to rebuild.

With the special eggs as the impetus, the first meeting between Bella and Bartholomew gives each the wrong idea about the other. And when the boarding house burns down a week before Christmas it’s Bella who is there to lend a hand. She, Margaret, and James invite the homeless group to stay at the estate through the holidays. But as Christmas draws closer, eviction papers arrive. Maple Grove is being foreclosed upon. Can Bella work her magic and save their Christmas? Is the growing attraction between Bella and Bartholomew enough for them to see past their differences? 

Read a sample.

Cinder Bella is available at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble & Kobo. 

📙 A Bookish Word or Two with Emily Astillberry, Author of The Essence of Bliss #abookishword

 

 

On A Bookish Word or Two, we have a guest post by Emily Astillberry, author of The Essence of Bliss. Emily is an author and RSPCA Inspector from Norfolk, England. She has a degree in English Literature and Linguistics from York University and has been investigating animal cruelty and neglect and rescuing sick and injured animals for 20 years. In her day job, Emily deals with very difficult and often emotional situations and meets all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. Her career provides some of the inspiration for themes and characters that can be found in her fictional work.

At home, in a very old cottage in the country, Emily has a husband, 5 children, a dog, a cat, an axolotl, 2 giant African land snails and a varying number of rescue hens, so finding time to write can be a challenge. She is happiest outdoors, growing fruit and vegetables in the garden, walking the dog and family holidays usually involve walking up mountains in summer, skiing down them in winter and sleeping in a tent whenever possible.

Emily loves spending time with her large, noisy, chaotic family, cooking meals for friends and playing board games. She always has at least one book on the go and has always dreamed of writing her own novel. She now dreams of writing more. 

Visit her website at https://emilyastillberry.com. 

You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

In the book, Isabel Bliss is a reception class teacher. She experiences other people’s emotions and can influence how they feel but she doesn’t truly understand her gift and has been encouraged, by her mum, to hide it from others. She often feels lost and alone. When a child in her class experiences chronic distress that only she can perceive, Isabel uses her ability to relieve his suffering, but his situation continues to worsen. Eventually she is forced to take matters into her own hands, escorting him home where she finds horrific signs of abuse. She saves his mum’s life and his father is arrested for the brutal torture he has inflicted upon his family.  A wealthy family moves to town and Isabel meets the two sons. She recoils from Daniel, who is hateful, rude and emotionally deficient but is inexorably drawn to Scott, who awakens something magical, deep inside her. They are like her. They are fluencers and have the ability to sense, read and willfully manipulate emotional energies. Isabel confronts her mum and uncovers hurtful lies and deceit within her own family. 

She falls deeply in love and ultimately discovers the untold potential of her gift and the passion and power that dwells within.

Read a sample here.

The Essence of Bliss is available at Amazon UK and Amazon US.

The Inspiration Behind The Essence of Bliss

By Emily Astillberry

The Essence of Bliss is an emotional rollercoaster, an exploration of human emotion wrapped up in a story that will make you examine those big questions, such as chance, choice and destiny. It began with a concept, a something that would give me magic to work with, whilst allowing me to establish the rest of the narrative in the real world. That’s what I wanted, a story set in a town of real people living ordinary lives, characters, themes and development that would be relatable to my readers, with a twist, a frisson of otherworldliness that is enchanting enough to transport them towards a hint of fantasy.

I always knew that I wanted to write something emotional. I believe that our potential to feel - to love, to hate, to fear, to desire, is one of the things that sets us apart and gives us humanity. Whenever I fall in love with a book, and when I think back to all of the books that have moved me the most, it is the characters and the relationships between those characters that makes a good story, great. I read and love books from all sorts of genres but it is human emotion that I find most compelling.

My leading lady, Isabel Bliss, became the focus of my concept. She is, for the most part, a normal person, leading a normal life. She has a family, a boyfriend, a best friend and a job that she loves and is great at. However, Isabel also has something that sets her apart from anyone she has ever met, she has an extraordinary relationship with human emotions. She can feel emotional energy, be impacted by it, experience and influence the emotions of the people around her. Due to her gift, and her inability to control it satisfactorily, Isabel has learned that being around children can be easier for her. She has found that children’s emotions tend to be more simple, purer and easier to understand and manage than those of many adults, hence her career as a primary school teacher. 

Once I had my concept and my protagonist, I needed a story. I wanted my readers to explore the potential of Isabel’s gift alongside her, which is why The Essence of Bliss became a first person narrative, a journey of discovery for Isabel, peppered with twists and turns that I hope will surprise, upset and delight. I started to craft the story around her, following her as she deals with a pretty horrific situation involving a little boy in her class, and then discovers a huge betrayal in her life and a whole world of possibility that will change her forever.

As this is my debut novel, I had no idea what my writing process would be like. I didn’t know if I should make a plan or just start writing and see what happened, whether I should draft out the plot or just wing it, and how much research I would need to do. What I did know was that I had a story in me and I needed to get on and get it out. I had been waiting for the right time to start writing and in the meantime I had grown up, settled into a wonderful career, fallen in love, got married, had 5 children, a menagerie of rescued animals and a dilapidated 250 year old cottage that needs regular propping up. I realised that the right time would never come. The RIght Time, is a concept that doesn’t exist, not in my world anyway, and I needed to stop making excuses and start writing.

I did, and I loved every moment of the writing process. Due to my hectic life, finding the time to produce a six hundred and something page long novel took over three years, snatching moments, committing to periods of time and neglecting my poor family but I got there in the end. I have a double camping chair and I did most of my writing, sitting on it in the garden, me at one end and my dog, Bobby, on the other. I had an idea of where I wanted the story to go and I made copious notes, timelines, pages of character statistics and information, chapter lists etc but I was amazed at how organic the actual writing ended up being. Characters started to write themselves and things started happening that I had never planned. I would picture a scene in my head, when I was out on a dog walk or driving between jobs at work, and I would let it play out, watch and listen to what my characters did and said and then quickly jot it down on one of my many notes pages.

One of my favourite discoveries was Isabel’s mum, Bethany Bliss. She started out as a supporting character, but as I wrote, she became much more. Her eccentricities and complexities had to come from somewhere and so she ended up, not only with a much bigger role in the novel than I had anticipated, but also with a full back story that I hope to be able to tell in a prequel novel one day. I have so many ideas for more stories set in Isabel’s world, I hope I have the opportunity to make them a reality. I am currently well on the way to producing the sequel, The Essence of Insanity and am excited to be able to share it with the world next year.

Soul Matters | Book Trailer

 

Title: Soul Matters

Author: Yolonda Tonette Sanders

Pages: 360

Genre: Contemporary Christian Fiction

With a successful husband, a fulfilling teaching career, and a baby on the way, Wendy Phillips seems to have it all. She’s certain God is on her side. After all, the woman she’s become wouldn’t exist without the strength of her close-knit family or her own determination to be a model daughter, sister, and wife.

But one phone call shatters Wendy’s illusion of perfection, turning her carefully crafted life upside down. Suddenly, everything she believed about herself, her family, and her faith is called into question.

As her marriage crumbles and her faith wavers, Wendy finds herself needing more support than she ever imagined. Her journey to healing will require a sister’s unexpected strength, a mother’s surprising honesty, and a truth Wendy never saw coming.

Now only God’s grace can help her confront the pain she didn’t expect and discover the soul-deep freedom she never dreamed possible.

Soul Matters is available at Amazon and Walmart.

About the Author

Yolonda Tonette Sanders, Ph.D., is a storyteller at heart with a passion for both words and people. She is the co-founder of the Faith and Fellowship Book Festival and the author of numerous works, including novels, poetry, short stories, and academic publications. Her writing blends authenticity, emotional depth, and spiritual insight, often drawing from her own journey of faith and resilience.

Yolonda earned her doctorate in organizational leadership from Indiana Wesleyan University and is certified in emotional intelligence. She enjoys teaching, mentoring, consulting, and helping others discover their own voices through writing. When she’s not creating or consulting, you’ll likely find her spending time with her husband or enjoying heartfelt moments with loved ones.

Her latest book is the contemporary Christian fiction, Soul Matters.

You can visit her website at www.yoproductions.net .

Watch her YouTube channel!

Connect with her at  X, Facebook, Instagram and Goodreads.