On Monday, I announced the winner of the Got Character? contest. Julia Johnson submitted an intriguing character by the name of Toby Jo Cartwright. I figured I’d take a little time tonight to tell you a little bit about the character and why I thought this was the best of the bunch.

The character of Toby Jo Cartwright owns a car dealership and car repair service station called Trustie’s Cars and Repairs. As submitted by Ms. Johnson, TobyJo is a great mechanic and graduated at the top of her class in the vocational school. Despite being steered into high society activities by her wealthy family, she managed to break free and start doing her own thing. Much like Rona Shively, she doesn’t take any crap from anyone.

To watch TobyJo at work, no one would know that she had been in and won several beauty pageants by the age of sixteen. She is six feet tall and model thin with stawberry blonde hair which she had symbolically chopped off so that it was easier to keep tucked into her work hat. She has crystal green eyes, a soft, smooth voice and and a girlish giggle that gives her femininity away. She has a sense of confidence that helps her succeed in a business that is generally dominated by men. Although she can hold her own as a mechanic, she still knows how to turn on the charm when she’s walking customers through her showroom and trying to sell them cars. She’s earned the respect of her employees by being fair, honest and forthwright.

I think this character will be a good fit for the Rona Shively books and I look forward to adding her into the mix. I plan on having Rona shop for a new vehicle as she travels back to Nevada in the fourth book. I’m not sure yet whether or not this will be the first time she has met Toby, but I’m sure that they will get along great.

Thanks to Julia for this wonderful character idea. It was clear that she enjoyed writing this description as much as I enjoyed reading it.

Until next time…