Sherlock Holmes. Nancy Drew. Miss Marple. A mystery novel is nothing without a good sleuth.
Sydney Farina, the protagonist of Dead Messages, is nothing like the detectives above. In fact, she compares herself to the bumbling inspector from The Pink Panther because she has no clue what she’s doing.
Since Dead Messages comes out next week, let’s meet the main character. Here are five facts about Sydney Farina.
She’s a pessimist
Sydney isn’t just a “glass half empty” type of person. She’s more “the glass is half empty and the remainder is probably poisoned.” Of course her on-again-off-again boyfriend is an insensitive flake. Of course her job sucks. What else would you expect?
That being said, there’s expecting the worse, and then there’s coming into work to find a dead body. Sydney’s pessimistic outlook doesn’t quite prepare her for murder.
Her favorite flavor is double chocolate
And since she works at a bakery, it’s hard not to snack on it all the time. Double chocolate cake, cupcakes, cookies, brownies–the list goes on. She loves baking and would love her job if her overbearing boss didn’t make it miserable.
She doesn’t know her natural hair color
Dirty blond? Light brown? Something like that. She’s been dying it ever since she graduated high school and didn’t have to worry about dress code policies banning unnatural hair colors. She could be going gray for all she knows, but her hair is currently vibrant blue.
She’s a middle child
Her younger sister, Alex, lives nearby in the small town of Beaverfield, Michigan, while her older sister, Savannah, moved away. I’m sure neither of them will be involved in murder cases in future books in the series. 😉
She texts dead people
When Sydney gets the first text message from her murdered boss, she thinks it’s a bad joke. Only later does she accept the truth and agree to help find her boss’s killer. You’d think having a direct signal to the murder victim would help you solve the crime…
But you’d be wrong.
Dead Messages comes out on January 14th. Pre-order it now for just 99¢!
Kristen Brand 