Riversong (2011) (edit title/settings)

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• Lee Tucker: Main character. Aka Lee Johnson. Moved back home after her husband died, desperate and trying to escape a loan shark, needing a new life.
• Tommy Gonzalas: Singer/song writer, EMT, youth advocate. Drawn to Lee. Light brown skin and eyes the color of black coffee. Divorced twice. Hispanic country singer. 42. Believes life held endless possibilities even after two marriages and a somewhat inconsistent musical career. Parents were migrant workers from Mexico. Second in the line of six children. Parents married for 50 years. Four siblings were all girls.
• Annie: Trained as a chef, wanting to live her dream, but stuck in an abusive relationship. In mid 20s.
• Linus: Lee's best friend of 15 years; gay
• Zac Huller: Mike Huller's son, local bad boy; was VP in highschool and an athlete
• Mike Huller: Wealthy business owner; owns the town sawmill; honorary mayor; in his sixties; rustic kind of handsome, wears cowboy hat
• Miss Cindi: Waitress at resturant; tall, big-boned woman with enormous bleached blond hair. 50+.
• Dan Johnson: Lee's husband; born in 1974, raised by Ralph and Betty Johnson in Seattle, Washington. Graduated in 1996 from Stanford University with a degree in computer science and went on to get his MBA. Co-founded Existense Games with Lee.
• Ellen White: Lee's grandmother's best friend and Lee's friend; spare sinewy woman; bony hands; teacher; long braid; Lee's only neighbor for miles
• Billy: Bus-boy turned cook; 'tire' around his middle; young man
• Sylvia Nox: Writer from the Seattle Times; petite face and short, spiky bleached blond hair arranged in angry peaks on the top of her head; girlfriend of Alex Wright
• Von Marshal: Loan shark enforcer
• Deana: Waitress, sometimes girlfriend of Zac; barrel chest, wide shoulders, tummy fat that hangs over tight pants and skinny legs
• Clive: A bear with an attitude
• Eleanor Johnson: Lee's mother, alcoholic, hoarder and agoraphobe
• Ellie‐rose: Lee's daughter
• Joshua: Carpenter; does yoga
• Mr. DeAngelo: Loanshark going after Lee
• Verle: Widower, Tommy's friend; Stout, red-skinned; Looks like a Scottish sheep herder
• Alder Bell: Annie's son. Big brown eyes; dark skin; straight black hair. In first grade; long brown eyelashes.
• Heather Huffman: Tommy's second wife; he was 29; she was a daughter of a Dallas doctor, a debutante, with an art history degree and a job in the modern art gallery. Spoiled but intelligent, feisty, funny, life of every party
• Ralph White: Ellen's ex-husband; drunk; abusive
• Christina Brown: in Lee's sixth period health class; big hair, black lined eyes
• Ronnie Myer: Didn't shower; smelled bad; in Lee's class
• Sally Wagner: Had a nervous tick, one eye that crossed, and a strange habit of talking to herself in the lunchroom
• Lindsey: Zac's girlfriend and ex-wife
• Paula: Lee's assistant
• Gaspare DeAngelo: Von's boss
• Rose: Lee's grandmother; redhead
• Christopher White: Ellen's son
• Mark Caldwell: Bad boy at Lee's highschool
• Doug Flanders: bad boy at Lee's highschool
• Bridget: Worked at the grocery store; blond beehive
• Sue: Worked at the grocery store; long brown hair, looked like Jacqueline Smith on the show Charlie's Angels
• Ray Zander: accountant; helps Lee find a job; between 50 and 60; brown hair
• Steve Turner: ran a grocery and gave free groceries to needy customers
• Oliver: Teenager in backwards baseball cap
• Marlo: head of youth center
• Mark: Laura's husband; having a baby
• Laura: Mark's wife; having a baby
• Minnie Stewart: Love of Tommy's life in the 5th grade; redhead, sassy, freckles
• Ms. Cooper: English teacher
• Maria: round, gray haired Mexican woman; friend of Tommy's parents
• Ed: In Tommy's band
• Sherri: Piano player in Tommy's band when he was just out of college; his first wife; tall, pale, blond
• Ralph: Dan's dad
• Betty Johnson: Dan's mom
• Alex Wright: Business reporter; Sylvia's boyfriend
• John: Interviewer at Riversong; glass blower in his mid-thirties; blue eyes, bleached blond hair
• Will: Linus's ex; died 10 years ago of AIDS
• Jake: Linus's rich friend who owns a private plane
• Karen: Interviewer at Riversong; mid-fifties; local watercolorist and recent empty nester
• Frank: Interviewer at Riversong; former technical writer turned fiction writer working on his first novel. Outgoing, articulate, and cultured.
• Franco: Ellie's ex-boyfriend; Italian chef
• Arlie: drugdealer
• Grace: Will's mother; remarried; two grown step-daughters

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Riversong: The name of the newly renovated restaurant. Lee decided on the name after visiting a favored childhood spot and listening to the water gurgle through rocks along the river bank as she sketched. As she drew, she begin to think of the sound as the river's song and chose to name the restaurant Riversong.
• Seattle
• Oregon
• Redmond, Washington: A place Lee worked

First Sentence edit see section history

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Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Desperation, love and second chances: Describe this theme.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Tess Hardwick (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Romance
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• Books › Literature & Fiction