Jacob Finch Bonner
Jake, as he is usually referred to, published a novel titled The Invention of Wonder to critical acclaim and became a promising young author. But that was a few years back. Since then, his writing career has stalled to the point where he has been forced to accept a position as professor at little-known Ripley College. Although he does not know it at the time, everything about his life is soon to undergo a radical change as the result of a new student enrolled in his MFA Program.
Evan Parker
That new student who unwittingly holds the key to Jake’s writing career catching fire unlike ever before is Evan Parker. Almost immediately, he installs himself on the bad side of Jake’s good graces by insisting that no amount of fine literary craftsmanship is more important to a story than a good plot. For Evan, plot is everything. And it just so happens that he has come up with a story that has an amazing plot. It is the kind of plot capable of turning an unknown writer into a bestselling author overnight. Much to his chagrin, Jake is in total agreement upon hearing Evan orally outline his story in full. All of which makes it an even greater shame that Evan dies before he ever even gets the chance to write the story down.
Anna Williams
Anna is the programming director for a Seattle radio station. Three years have passed since Evan shared the details of his can’t-miss plot with Jake before his unexpected death and Anna has arranged to meet with the author of the hottest novel of the year, Crib, by resurgent author of The Invention of Wonder, Jacob Bonner. The two instantly hit it off and before long wind up at City Hall for a civil wedding ceremony uniting them as husband and wife.
Dianna Parker
Jake only learns of Evan’s death by accident when he is checking up on him to see if anything ever became of his fantastic story idea. He will also learn that Evan had a sister named Dianna, noting that in his original conception of the story, Evan had named his protagonist Diandra. Dianna had died in 2012, but the obituary printed in the local newspaper was remarkably uninformative. Digging a little deeper, Jake discovers the ugly little secret behind Evan’s amazingly marketable plot which Jake followed religiously in expanding into story form. It was all true. It all happened in real life--just as Evan had described in his fictional reinterpretation.
Talented Tom
Unfortunately for Jake, he is not alone in figuring out that the story he tells in Crib is not just a true story, but one that he has stolen. A series of emails begins arriving with the return address of [email protected]., and Jake has plenty of reason to fear the content of the messages which reveal a comprehensive knowledge of how he came to write a best-selling novel based on an idea by a former student. Despite the sender clearly using a fake name and a bogus email, Jake also has good reason to suspect one person in particular is the actual face behind the anonymous threats. And it just so happens that in her real-life existence, she is also not the person she claims to be.
