As part of Unicorn Day, I’m delighted to welcome to Being Mrs C Catherine Coe, author of the Unicorns of Blossom Wood series so that she can tell us about the amazing characters that she created for the series.
When I first started writing the Unicorns of Blossom Wood, I knew I wanted a new cast of girl characters who had different personalities and backgrounds. In the Owls of Blossom Wood, the three main characters were best friends who were also next-door neighbours – Alex, Katie and Eva. In the Unicorns of Blossom Wood, I thought it would be nice to give the three girls a different connection, and so I made Isabelle, Cora and Lei cousins.
I wanted the girls to have had very different experiences, so I decided to have them living in different corners of the world – the UK, Australia and the USA. I’m so glad I did this, because as well as their different backgrounds and home settings, it meant I had a lot of fun using words that the other cousins wouldn’t necessarily know. For example, did you know that chook means chicken in Australia?
Because they live so far away, Cora, Lei and Isabelle don’t see each other very often, but when they get together on holiday with their families it’s as if they’d never been apart. This was an important aspect for me, as we’ve all got friends and/or family in faraway places, but I think that if you love someone it doesn’t matter how often you see them – you always have that close connection. But this doesn’t mean they have similar personalities – each girl is very different – which is useful when they transform into unicorns and the animals in Blossom Wood need their help.
The posters I keep above my desk to remind me of the girls’ appearances, characters and unicorn alter egos!
Lei is passionate and strong-willed – which means she can take charge of a situation and gets things done quickly. Cora is sensible, practical and loyal, so she’s often the best at working out a solution to a problem. And Isabelle is easy-going and a daydreamer, which means she can stay calm whenever everyone else is panicking and she always sees the positive side of things.
One of the toughest things about writing the books was deciding what type of unicorn magic each character would discover they had during the course of the series. There are so many magical powers to choose from! But after a lot of brainstorming I realised that their personalities actually helped to decide what their powers should be. Can you guess? I don’t want to give any spoilers so I won’t reveal them here – you’ll just have to read the books to find out what I mean!
If you want to hear more about the Unicorns of Blossom Wood then make sure you read Little Miss C and my review of the series. This post contains affiliate links.
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