November is quickly approaching, and I’m nowhere near ready for it! I’m supposed to be finishing up my most recent draft of Into the Flames as we speak and getting ready to launch into it’s companion book for NaNoWriMo (that National Novel Writing Month, for those of you not in the know).

This companion book current doesn’t have a name, but fortunatly I do kind of know where I’m going with it. The idea for it came to this summer after a very strange dream, the details of which are very hazy now. Anyway, I’m going to be focusing on that for November. So with that in mind, for the month of November, Flamin’ Fridays are going to focus more on Into the Flames within the series as a whole, rather than the book in specific. So far I have five books planned for this series, though how many of them will be actually finished and published is as yet unknown.

But that’s for November. This week we’re going to be focusing on Rahab’s brothers, Mark and Luke Carmichael.

Brothers! Yay!

First off, notice how I say Mark and Luke, even though Luke is older. That’s because that’s how Rahab thinks of them. Mark comes first in her mind becuase he is closer to her, both in age and in relationship. And yet neither of them are really that close to Rahab at all. Being seven and six years older, their primary job was to tease her, ignore her, and then go to college when she finally got “old enough to be interesting.” So basically your typical brothers. They don’t know anything about Rahab’s special abilites, and she’d rather keep it that way. They can’t, however, ignore her affinity for water, which has led to multiple nicknames. I’ve mentioned before how Mark and Luke were responsible for naming their sister. Well, you may notice in the book (when it comes out) that they never once refer to Rahab by her name. This is because when they were old enough to realize what a terrible name they had given her, they refused to admit their horrible mistake and instead chose to ignore it.

Mark

Mark likes to help people, much like Hawkins, although he doesn’t have the superpowers to help him out. He attends Eastern Virginia Medical School and is specializing in endocrinology. If he didn’t want to be a doctor, he would have majored in history. As a Virginian he has a particular fascination with Southern history. He likes studying the sociological effects of the Southern Reconstruction. His nickname of choice for Rahab is Rayfish.

Luke

Though studying to become a lawyer, Luke is much less empathetic toward people. His joy of law comes from his love of rules and proving that he is right. He is a second year student at Stanford, and when not hitting the books he is generally on the beach. His compassion is focused on marine life, participating in causes for dolphins, whales, and sea turtles. Probably the only thing that keeps Luke’s interest in his sister is their mutual love for the ocean. They surf together in the summer, and his nickname for her is Manta Ray.