Character Spotlight: Holly Christian & Brooke Langdon from Written in the Stars (Christina Coryell)

Dirt roads. Dust in the air so thick you can taste it. Hope Canyon might not look like much to those passing through, but if you stop long enough for the dust to settle you’ll find there’s a lot going on in the lives of these people. And I’m introducing you to two of them today. Meet Holly Christian and Brooke Langdon:

Holly Christian

Age: 27

Brief Physical Description: Holly is diminutive with a skinny build, mossy hazel eyes, and shoulder-length blond hair that’s usually pulled into a stubby ponytail.

Five words that describe Holly’s personality: Feisty, loyal, longsuffering, tomboy, adventurous.

Resembles: Miranda Lambert

Inspiration for Holly: All of the characters in the series are based on the general types of people who stay in small towns. Holly is the quintessential young woman who has never been across the state line and can’t imagine living anywhere else. She loves the scenery, gets fighting mad if you cross her or anyone she loves, and isn’t afraid of hard work.

Raised by a single mother for the formative years of her life, Holly is fiercely independent except when it comes to the people closest to her. She needs them like the ground needs rain. Her choice of occupation is hairdresser, which might seem odd given her tomboy appearance, but she enjoys making people feel good about themselves. As for goals in life, she mainly wants to be happy in the place where God planted her, and if that includes a family of her own, she wouldn’t mind.

Quirks: An unhealthy obsession with diet cola and constantly wearing snapbacks on her head.

Spends her free time: Watching reality TV and obsessively mowing her lawn.

The thing she regrets most: Not telling Chad’s parents the truth when they had the chance.

If Holly could talk to the author, she would say: “I don’t sound like that.” But she does. She absolutely does. See, it’s pretty common where she comes from to have two people live side by side and sound nothing like each other. If the neighbor’s people originated from the northeast and her mama’s people originated from down south, the accent has a tendency to stick. Of all the people in the novel, Holly is the one who has the most tendency to pull out that accent like it’s nothin’ out of the ordinary.

Brooke Langdon

Age: 29

Brief Physical Description: Brooke is 5’9” with a curvy build, high cheekbones, light brown eyes, and dark chocolate hair that falls halfway down her back.

Five words that describe Brooke’s personality: Poised, perfectionist, tenderhearted, inquisitive, self-conscious.

Resembles: Cobie Smulders

Inspiration for Brooke: Brooke is the woman who left the small town but finds herself returning. The kind of woman whose life looks perfect from the outside, but inside it’s anything but. Her reluctance to embrace her surroundings leaks over into the rest of her life, leaving her unsettled.

Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Brooke spent her summers in Hope Canyon with her grandmother as a child. The two upbringings were as different as night and day, and she is still struggling to figure out what ideals fit her as an adult. She’s also trying to overcome the voice in the back of her head that says she’s not good enough, having recently gained a few pounds and experienced the crumbling of her marriage.

Greatest accomplishment: Being Miss Texas

Goal in life: To change the world for the better, and she would willingly admit that it sounds like a total beauty pageant response. Also, to remember what it was like to be Brooke Langdon, and not Preston Walker’s trophy wife.

The thing she regrets most: The night that led to her embarrassing exit from town over a decade ago.

You can read my review for Written in the Stars here.

Stay tuned! I’ll be introducing you to Hunter Pearce and Gatlin Moore on Thursday!

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~ About the Book ~

Roundabout these parts, dirt roads don’t just get you from point A to point B. They intersect to create a maze of life often missed when outsiders drive through a sleepy town. The number on the population sign might seem insignificant, but a few short steps from the beaten path, there’s more than meets the eye.

Look a little closer… That sleek out-of-town convertible is bringing former pageant queen Brooke Langdon back into town for the first time in a decade. She’s dragging nothing with her but the hyphen in her last name. Gatlin Moore is running his tractor along the fence line, spending his days keeping up his parents’ farm instead of living out his dreams in Nashville. The sheriff is pulling into Holly Christian’s driveway, preparing to tell her that her life’s about to crumble. And Hunter Pearce, the guy everyone calls when they need something fixed? He’s racing to Holly’s place too, wondering if things are too broken to put back together.

Welcome to Hope Canyon. This is our backroads story.

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