Characters | Research | Free Bookmark   

I often receive requests for more information about the people and places in my novels, so I've decided to post some brief character introductions here. As the series grows, I'll add more characters and some location descriptions, too. I hope you'll enjoy getting to know more about my Nightcreature Novels!

Who's Who . . .

Jessie McQuade || William Cadotte || Edward Mandenauer || Leigh Tyler
Damien Fitzgerald || Dr. Elise Hanover || Dominic Franklin
Maya Alexander || Clayton Phillips || Diana Malone || Adam Ruelle
Priestess Cassandra || Devon Murphy ||Anne Lockheart || John Rodolfo
Claire Kennedy | Malachi Cartwright | Grace McDaniel || Ian Walker

Research | Free Bookmark | Printable Booklist

Jessie McQuade

Jessie has always been a tomboy, much to her mother’s dismay. Tall and strong, Jessie can also fight and shoot. She is a loner, despite having lived in her hometown of Miniwa, Wisconsin all of her life. Jessie has always wanted to be a police officer and she’s very good at it. When the wolves begin to act strangely in and around Miniwa, it’s Jessie’s job to find out why.

Jessie appears in:

• Blue Moon—10/04
• Hunter’s Moon—2/05
• Dark Moon—7/05
• “Charmed by the Moon”
  in My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding—10/06

character list | menu   

William Cadotte

Will is a visiting professor of Native American Studies at the local college. He’s also a member of the Ojibwe tribe and a specialist in Native American Totems, which comes in handy when Jessie finds one at a crime scene.

Professor Cadotte is a bit of a mystery. Strong and quick, he is also skilled in tai chi. Jessie cannot get the better of him in a physical fight, and in the verbal arena—where she usually excels in sarcasm—he is her equal, too. Strangely enough, the handsome, built, intelligent professor seems to have a thing for plain, big-girl cop Jessie McQuade.

As the mystery unfolds, no one is certain who is killing people in Miniwa. Is it a person or is it a beast? Is someone trying to raise a wolf god with an ancient Ojibwe ceremony? Either way, could it be Will?

 Will appears in:

• Blue Moon—10/04
• Hunter’s Moon—2/05
• Dark Moon—7/05
• “Charmed by the Moon”
  in My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding—10/06

character list | menu   

 Edward Mandenauer

Edward is the leader of a Special Forces monster-hunting unit known as the Jager-Suchers (Hunter-Searchers.) A spy in World War II, he discovered Hitler had ordered a werewolf army, among other things. The evil Dr. Joseph Mengele obliged him. Before Edward could destroy Mengele’s secret lab in the Black Forest, the doctor released all of his creations into the world. Edward has been working to eliminate the atrocities ever since.

Whenever there is a report of oddities—wolves run amok, strange deaths by animal attack—Edward gets word and he investigates. His Jager-Suchers are numerous and powerful; they may turn up just about anywhere.

Edward appears in:

• Blue Moon—10/04
• "Red Moon Rising" in Stroke of Midnight—11/04
• Hunter’s Moon—2/05
• Dark Moon—7/05
• Crescent Moon—2/06
• Midnight Moon—8/06
• "Charmed by the Moon" in My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding—10/06
• Rising Moon—1/07
• Hidden Moon—8/07
• "Voodoo Moon" in No Rest for the Witches —10/07

character list | menu   

Leigh Tyler

Leigh became a Jager-Sucher after Edward saved her from a wolf attack, which killed her entire family and her fiancé. Leigh is the most feared of all Edward’s hunters because she never quits, and she doesn’t care if she dies. She just wants to kill as many of the monsters as she can before one of them kills her.

Edward calls Leigh to Crow Valley, Wisconsin where wolves are being killed. The evidence points to a werewolf. Except werewolves don’t kill their own.

Leigh is assigned to train new Jager-Sucher Jessie McQuade. The two women strike sparks off each other, jostling for dominance, both physically and verbally. However Jessie comes in handy when Leigh begins to see the white wolf that killed her family slipping through the trees. Has she lost her mind again? Or is there a new, more dangerous plot being hatched? Is someone trying to raise a Weendigo, the Ojibwe version of a werewolf?

Leigh appears in:

• Hunter’s Moon—2/05
• Dark Moon—7/05
• “ Charmed by the Moon”
  in My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding—Fall/06

character list | menu   

Damien Fitzgerald

Damien is the bartender at a tavern deep in the woods of Crow Valley where the locals hang out. He’s a drifter, with no home, no family, he doesn’t seem to have any friends. But something haunts him, just as it haunts Leigh.

Though Leigh insists she will never love again, and this particular case will probably kill her, she isn’t above having an affair with a hot, Irish-American drifter.

The strange thing is, whenever there’s a wolf kill, Damien seems to be around. And when the moon is up, she can’t find him anywhere.

Damien appears in:

• Hunter’s Moon—2/05
• Dark Moon—7/05

character list | menu   

Dr. Elise Hanover

Elise is virologist and Edward’s right hand woman in the Jager-Sucher society. She spends most of her time inside a compound in Montana attempting to discover a cure for lycanthropy. She has a personal interest, since she’s a werewolf, too.

However Elise isn’t the usual werewolf, possessed by a demon, set on killing as many people as she can. Elise is a special case—a werewolf that isn’t evil, that doesn’t want to kill; yet when the moon is up, she can’t stop herself.

She’s managed to discover ways to keep herself from killing, she’s even been able to help a few of the bitten, but she’s never been able to cure lycanthropy completely. However she’ll never stop trying.

Her entire world changes when the only man she’s ever loved walks back into her life, then the compound blows up, releasing her most blood thirsty test subject.

Elise appears in:

• Blue Moon—10/04
• Hunter’s Moon—2/05
• Dark Moon—7/05
• Crescent Moon—2/06
• Midnight Moon—8/06
• Rising Moon—1/07
• Hidden Moon—8/07
• Thunder Moon-1/08

character list | menu   

Dominic Franklin

Nic has been searching for Elise since she disappeared in college. An anonymous tip on one of his cases has led the FBI agent to the Montana. When the compound blows up, he accompanies Elise to Fairhaven, Wisconsin where people have begun to disappear.

While the Jager-Suchers would like to blame werewolves, they can’t find any evidence of one beyond a vague “feeling.” However werewolf outbreaks all over the U.S. send the members of the J-S society, including Edward, into the field. Elise and Nic are left behind to deal with a mystery involving invisible Ojibwe witchy-wolves, gypsies and magic.

Nic appears in:

• Dark Moon—7/05
• Rising Moon—1/07

character list | menu   

Maya Alexander

Maya is a writer of action adventure novels. She has moved from Chicago to an area near the Navajo Reservation in Arizona in an attempt to get away from her overprotective family. She wants to live far away from the world and just write.

However, since she came to Arizona she hasn’t been able to write at all. Every night she feels watched, even hunted. Then one night she discovers she’s right.

Maya appears in:

• “ Red Moon Rising” in Stroke of Midnight—11/04

character list | menu   

Clayton Phillips

Clay is a Jager-Sucher sent to kill a Navajo skinwalker that has escaped from the reservation. A skinwalker is a Navajo witch who can transform into an animal just by donning that animal’s skin. When a wolf with human eyes attacks Maya, Clay kidnaps her, and the two are on the run through the Arizona dessert.

Clay appears in:

• “ Red Moon Rising” in Stroke of Midnight—11/04

character list | menu   

Diana Malone

Diana is a cryptozoologist obsessed since her husband’s untimely death with finding a paranormal entity and revealing it to the world. She is hired by a mysterious millionaire to investigate suspicious deaths by animal attack in the Honey Island Swamp near New Orleans. Once she arrives in the Crescent City, land of voodoo and ghosts, she hears the legend of the loup-garou—a French werewolf—and she begins to wonder just what she’s hunting, or perhaps what’s hunting her.

Diana appears in:

• Crescent Moon—2/06
• Midnight Moon—8/06

character list | menu   

Adam Ruelle

Adam is a reclusive former Special Forces Officer. The last surviving member of a Cajun family, supposedly cursed, he owns a broken down mansion on the outskirts of the swamp. Coincidentally all of the murders have occurred on his property. He is also the only man familiar enough with the area to guide Diana into the wilderness.

Taciturn and secretive, Adam is hiding something, or is it someone?

Adam appears in:

• Crescent Moon—2/06
• Midnight Moon—8/06

character list | menu   

Priestess Cassandra

Owner of a voodoo shop in New Orleans, Cassandra has a mysterious past. But when Diana needs help solving the mystery of the loup-garou and the crescent moon curse, when she is uncertain if ghosts, werewolves or zombies are stalking her, she turns to Cassandra who is the only one with any answers.

Cassandra later travels to Haiti to discover the secret of the crescent moon curse, as well as how to raise a zombie. Once there she learns many things about herself, voodoo and the nature of evil.

Cassandra appears in:

• Crescent Moon—2/06
• Midnight Moon—8/06
• Rising Moon—1/07

character list | menu   

Devon Murphy

Devon Murphy is an adventurer in Haiti. He has a reputation for doing anything for money and, for a price, he is happy to guide Cassandra into the jungle. But he gets a lot more than he bargained for when supernatural occurrences begin. To his credit, he doesn’t cut and run when things get tough. But is after Cassandra’s body, her heart, or something else entirely?

Devon appears in:

• Midnight Moon—8/06
• Rising Moon—1/07

character list | menu   

Anne Lockheart

Anne is a private investigator obsessed with finding her missing sister, Katie. When a clue leads her to Rising Moon, a jazz club in the French Quarter, she leaves her family and her business behind in Philadelphia and enters the mysterious world of nighttime in New Orleans. Undercover at Rising Moon, Anne is willing to do anything to discover the truth — lie, cheat, even die.

Anne appears in:

• Rising Moon—1/07

character list | menu   

John Rodolfo

The proprietor of the jazz club Rising Moon, John is also its main attraction. A gifted musician, the mere whisper of his presence will fill the club to capacity. Dark and broody, with secrets of his own, he fights his attraction to Anne. But where does he go whenever the moon rises?

John appears in:

• Rising Moon—1/07

character list | menu   

Claire Kennedy

Claire returns to her hometown of Lake Bluff, Georgia for her father's funeral and ends up staying to fulfill his term as mayor of the sleepy little town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Claire left four years ago to become a journalist in Atlanta, but after a cruel betrayal, home seems the safest place to be. However, with a rare total lunar eclipse bearing down on them, vicious wolf attacks haunt Lake Bluff, and Claire must decide whom she can trust or if she can trust anyone at all.

Claire appears in:

• Hidden Moon-8/07
• Thunder Moon-1/08

character list | menu   

Malachi Cartwright

Mal arrives in Lake Bluff with his traveling band of Gypsies to provide entertainment for the local Full Moon Festival. The Gypsies perform like their ancestors—fortune telling, animal acts as well as selling trinkets and love charms. The tourists and people of Lake Bluff find them fascinating. Mal finds the new mayor just as fascinating. Too bad he's got a secret—one that will tear both their lives apart.

Malachi appears in:

• Hidden Moon-8/07
• Thunder Moon-1/08

character list | menu   

Grace McDaniel

Grace is the sheriff in Lake Bluff, just like her father before her. The descendent of a powerful Cherokee medicine woman, she has always been interested in the old ways, yet pulled toward the new ways by her family and her occupation. Best friends with Claire Kennedy since childhood, she was crushed when Claire left and didn't come back. Now Claire is back and the two of them renew their friendship as they try to save their town and people from destruction.

In Thunder Moon, Grace is again confronted by powerful supernatural forces. Uncertain if the new doctor, Ian Walker, has come to Lake Bluff to help or hurt them, she is wary. But she finds herself drawn to his gentleness, his interest in the old ways and his seeming concern for others. Paired once again with Claire, as well as her husband, Malachi, Grace races against time to save the town she's always loved from an invisible evil.

Grace appears in:

• Hidden Moon-8/07
• Thunder Moon-1/08

character list | menu   

Ian Walker

Ian, a physician, comes to Lake Bluff to open a clinic. He combines traditional Cherokee cures with modern medicine. He is interested in the old ways, particularly the medicinal magic practiced by Grace's great-grandmother. Intrigued by Lake Bluff's sheriff, he pursues her. But is he interested in Grace for herself, or has he come to steal her great-grandmother's secrets? And how much does Ian know about the supernatural creature killing off Lake Bluff's inhabitants?

Ian appears in:

• Thunder Moon-1/08

character list | menu   

Related Reading...Nightcreature Research

• The Werewolf Book by Brad Steiger
• A Lycanthropy Reader—Werewolves in Western Culture
  by Charlotte F. Orten
• Of Wolves and Men by Barry Holston Lopez
• History of the Ojibwe People by William W. Warren
• The Manitous by Basil Johnston
• The Ojibwe by Raymond Bial
• The Navajo by Raymond Bial
• The Book of the Navajo by Raymond Friday Locke
• Beautiful Crescent—A History of New Orleans by Garvey & Widmer
• Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza
• The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis
• The Idiot's Guide to Voodoo by Shannon R. Turlington
• Cryptozoology A to Z by Coleman & Clark
• The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton
• The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft
  by Rosemary Ellen Guiley
• Gypsy Magic by Patrinella Cooper
• The Idiot's Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft
  byDenise Zimmerman & Katherine A. Gleason
• Gypsies—The Hidden Americans by Anne Sutherland
• Familiar Strangers byMarlene Sway
• We are the Romani People byIan Hancock
• Trail of Tears by John Ehle
• Seven Clans of the Cherokee byMarcelina Reed
• The Cherokee byRaymond Biel
• The Cherokee Nation byRobert J. Conley
• History, Myths and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee
  by James Mooney

       Download the RT Handout

character list | menu