Let's meet a facinating character from C. O. Bonham's brand new book baby, Runaway Lyrics.
Character
Spotlight:
Prince
Wickham
By C.O.
Bonham
Wickham is the younger half-brother
of Prince Bayare. They share a father but not a mother. He is okay with not
being king, preferring science and magic to politics and diplomacy. As a
result, he is very knowledgeable and doesn’t care who knows it.
He is very close to his older
brother, who insists on calling him Wicky. Wickham pretends to hate this, but
is secretly glad. His brother is one of the few people who treats Wickham like
he’s normal.
Wickham’s mother treats him like he’s
breakable. She’s always asking if he’s okay, trying to get him to rest. Never
wanting him to go anywhere or do anything. She would keep him beside her at all
times, if he would let her.
When Wickham was younger, he suffered
from a mysterious draining illness that sapped his energy for days at a time,
leaving him bedridden off and on, until his late teens.
Fun fact: history actually inspired
the idea of having an ill prince. The royal families of England and most of
Europe suffer from hemophilia (google it, it’s fascinating). This was going to
be my reason for the younger brother to not be in the story much, but that
didn’t feel right, so I made him a shape-shifting character named Wicky.
Despite his love of studying and his
vast store of magical knowledge, Wickham does not appear to possess any magical
abilities. Though he has a hazy memory of showing his mother a crackling purple
spark that arced across his fingertips.
He started attending the university
in the fall of his eighteenth year and was taking many of the same political
and diplomacy classes that his brother had before him. Wickham made a deal with
his mother that if he did well in these boring classes, then she would let him
take alchemy during the summer months. Alchemy class does not go as he expects.
Wickham’s search for answers directly leads into the events of Runaway Lyrics.
During Runaway Lyrics, Wickham finds
himself drugged, kidnapped, lost in the woods, and transformed into a great
forest owl.
Wickham never had much interest in
girls, worried that they either just wanted to marry a prince or that they
would smother him the way his mother did. But then he meets an outgoing girl
named Rose that shares his love of magic.
Has he finally found someone who can
see past his outward weakness and help bring out his inner strength?
Thank you for sharing about Wickham today. He was a fun character to write.
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