Mya Renae Cotton


The only daughter of Harlan and Isabel Cotton, Mya Renae Cotton is twenty-seven, petite and blonde, with blue eyes.  She's lived in the Midwest and in all kinds of quaint little towns in the South and now resides in a modest apartment  in St. Augustine, Florida.  Being an artist, she also has a small studio on the beach, but she's not extravagant.  She simply loves the beach.  She studied art at the prestigious Flagler College and now works at an art gallery in the historic district.  Mya's niche is drawing and painting handsome, nude men.  She like grunge rock music and reads torrid romance novels.  The only T.V. she watches is the news.  She has a thing for architecture, history, and antiques.  She prefers a casual style and likes jean shorts and tee shirts instead of dresses.  Her best friend is Mercedes Ripple.  She's known her since she was a teenager. 



                                                                  

                                        Pershabael/ Percival Shelby


Pershabael is Mya's guardian angel.  He goes by the alias Percival Shelby when posing as a mortal man and also answers to both his nicknames: Shab and Percy.  He's well over six feet tall, with strawberry-blonde hair, amber-colored wings, and blue eyes.  He has  very laid-back mannerisms and style, as well as a noticeable Southern drawl.  His presence tends to comfort people and make them feel safe and secure.  He's very compassionate, forgiving, and understanding.  He loves to play the guitar and sing, knows how to run a lawn mower, a chain saw, ride a Harley, and adeptly shoot the .50 caliber gun he never goes anywhere without.  He has the uncanny ability  to learn how to do just about anything by simply observing people.  Being Mya's guardian, he has always felt a deep, loving connection to her, but after meeting her face to face, he falls passionately in love with her.    


 
                                         Mazriel/Marco De La Zahn


Mazriel is a fallen angel and an angel of death.  Mya and Percy often call him Maz for short.  He has taken up residence in Atlanta, Georgia working for the law firm Remy, Paul, Jackson, and Jackson as an estate attorney.  As a mortal man, he goes by the name Marco De La Zahn.  He's close to seven feet tall, has dark brown hair, gold-colored eyes, and iridescent black wings.  The power leeching through his mortal guise tends to make people uneasy.  He has no morals, no conscience, and loves to promote self-indulgence by living an opulent and promiscuous lifestyle.  He has a peculiar Middle Eastern-kind of angelic accent but his voice is very melodic and he can be very persuasive.



                                               Harlan Cotton


Mya's doting father  was a postal worker and lived in Bankeville, GA during the latter part of his life.  Harlan kept his promise to his dying wife to take care of their young daughter and make sure she didn't want for anything by making sound financial investments all his life.  He loved to garden, kept a small, charming house, and lived frugally for the most part.  He was very involved in the community in which he lived, faithfully attended church, and made numerous generous donations to various charities.  Harlan was a very spiritual man, although he never subscribed to one particular religion during his life, but rather embraced aspects of all religions and every denomination he came to know.      


                                         Isabel Maxwell Cotton


Mya's mother died of cancer when Mya was only a young child.  Mya remembers her as being a very beautiful woman, gentle, and kind.  She was born and raised in South Carolina, not far from Idlewild, where Mya is now residing.


                                           Mercedes Ripple


Mercedes has known Mya since they were teenagers and have long been the best of  friends.  Mercedes is Mya's voice of reason and Mya often eagerly seeks her sage advice.  She's ten years older than Mya, and feels maternal towards her at times.  Mya looks up to her like a big sister.  Mercedes is a pretty, stylish, level-headed African-American woman who works as a medical office coordinator.  She and Mya talk on the phone almost everyday--except when things happen that Mya can't figure out how to explain to her.  Mercedes resides in the Midwest and is engaged to Brandon Carlton, her long time boyfriend.  


                                            Justin Werner


Mya calls Justin her knight on a white horse because it seems he's always riding to her rescue.  He's young, handsome, clean cut, athletic, and All-American-looking.  Justin is a pharmacist who works at a drug store not far from the Purple Passions Gallery.  When Mya crashes her car, Justin takes care of her and also assists her sandbagging the bridge when flood waters threaten.  He becomes very attracted to Mya, but is a little on the insecure side and constantly needs validation of their relationship from Mya.  He readily confesses how normal and boring he is, and that all he wants out of life is to get married, raise a family, and put down roots.


                                        Monica McCutcheon


Monica is a college student who is the recipient of one of Mya's art scholarships.  She also works at Mya's art gallery, Purple Passions, handling all online listings and sales, managing the gallery, and shipping out sold artwork.  She's a fun-loving, free-spirit of sorts who isn't afraid to speak her mind to the point of being tactless.  She has lots of friends, including Mya, and loves to taunt Mya just as much as Mya teases her. 


                              Mrs. Campbell


The manager at Rick's Cafe.  Sarah Campbell agrees to hire Percy to work for tips waiting tables.  She's a kindly, middle-aged business woman, no-nonsense and down-to-earth. 


                                           Jennifer Davidson


Mya meets Jennifer through Marco, so it goes without saying, she's an atheist with a shady, unhappy past.  Jennifer is younger than Mya, a willowy, natural redhead, pretty, with a hidden romantic side.  She craves true love and a happy, storybook love of her own, but is also bitter, cynical, and very jaded about most people and life in general.  She used to be Marco's personal assistant and live-in lover until Mya persuades her to disobey him one night, which gets her fired and thrown out of his penthouse in Atlanta.  At first Jennifer misses her life of indulgent luxury in the city.  She lives in South Carolina now with her lover, Rory Garcias, and works with Monica McCutcheon at the Purple Passions gallery when she isn't assisting Rory with his landscaping business.   


                                                Rory Garcias


Rory is Mya's third groundskeeper at Idlewild.  He has an artistic eye when it comes to tending the grounds, but also holds numerous degrees in horticulture and is a certified landscaper who specializes in trees.  He hopes to start his own landscaping business someday.  He's very intelligent, sweet, kind, and romantic.  He has typical Latino dark good looks except for his vivid green eyes he claims he got from his mother's distant Irish ancestry.   


                                                Aksariel


With piercing gray eyes, long burgundy-colored hair, burgundy-colored wings, and an imposing stature, Aksariel looks a little intimidating for an angel of God, especially decked out in tight black leather and chain belts the way he is.  He initially comes across as being a little gruff and impatient, but warms up to Mya as quickly as she warms up to him, despite the fact he's an angel of death.  It doesn't help that Aksariel has a dry sense of humor.  He's has little experience with the living and finds some of Mya's mannerisms as amusing as confusing.  He's a close friend of Pershabael's and would do anything for him--including 'babysitting' his charge for a night.  Aksariel's power to soothe people in times of distress is considerable, and Mya experiences the extent of it whenever he touches her.  She tends to fall asleep in his arms.  


                                                   Daniel

Being Jennifer Davidson's guardian doesn't afford Daniel much power or authority and throughout most of his existence, he's been ignored.  He loves Jennifer, but isn't really quite sure what to do about her at this point.  He longs to feel reverent and experience human adoration, but isn't sure how to obtain that either.  He's not experienced at all with people, and remains innocent of their present jaded, hardened state of minds.  In a lot of ways, he's very child-like. Daniel is also a very pretty angel, a little over six feet tall, with fair skin, long curly black hair, hazel eyes, and dove gray wings.  Contrary to his boyish appeal, he possesses a wholly masculine body which prompts Mya to consider asking him to pose for her.   


                               Edward Curry


Mr. Curry is Mya's second groundskeeper.  He's an older gentleman, married, with five children.  He's not into landscaping as much as simple maintenance of the cemetery grounds, but he keeps the place up nice enough and comes across as a bit fatherly to Mya.  He's typically Southern, very polite and formal, and even a little old-fashioned.  His nephew, Owen helps him out there from time to time.


                              Aaron Singletary


Harlan Cotton's original groundskeeper at Idlewild.  Due to advancing age and a recent hip injury, Mr. Singletary isn't able to work the grounds when Mya takes over as owner and hasn't been able for over a year.  Mr. Singletary is a kind old man and makes Mya feel right at home and welcome, taking care of her the best he can her first day there.  He retires and heads off to his cousin's in Alabama after Mya gets settled in.  


                               Mackenzie


A good friend of Justin Werner's, Mackenzie would do anything to help out his friend and Justin often confides in him.  Mackenzie even lends a hand sandbagging Idlewild with Justin and agrees to go out with Mercedes as a favor to him.  He and Justin hang out together and go out for beers now and then.


                                           Brandon Carlton


Mercedes' good-natured, easy-going fiance.  Brandon reminds Mya of a young Sean Connery without the Scottish accent.  He is very devoted to Mercedes and has been with her for over three years.  


                                          Pastor William Espy


Pastor Bill is the leader of the Wonder and Light Open Bible Church.  He's sixty-something, temperamental, bitter, and mean-spirited.  He's also  an old-school, fire and brimstone kind of preacher, who targets Mya's art gallery for protests.  In his opinion, the art there is sacrilegious and pornographic.  His wife's affinity for it only spurs him on.  He sues Mya after she physically attacks him in the parking lot and is determined to see her art burned to ashes.  


                                         Judge Candace Caldwell


Mya labels Judge Caldwell as Old Southern Money when she hears her last name, but the presiding judge at Mya's hearing, Candace Caldwell is young, attractive, and openly intrigued by Mya's counselor: Mazriel.  She a no-nonsense professional however and sentences Mya accordingly, but that doesn't stop her from hooking up with the dark angel.


                                       Deputy Harrison Thornton


Normally easygoing Deputy Thornton knows Mya in the community, but he doesn't hesitate to arrest her when he witnesses her popping Pastor Bill in the mouth.  Clearly overwhelmed and frustrated, he has little patience for civil unrest when he's the only law enforcement in town at the moment.


                                         Sonja Reynolds


News Team Five's top reporter, Miss Reynolds is on hand to cover all the action at the Purple Passions Art Gallery where protesters are picketing the obscene art displayed within its walls.  While half-way sympathizing with Mya's plight, her questions and T.V. coverage of the protests are the reasons tempers flare in the parking lot.  Her video of the "incident" winds up on YouTube and becomes viral across the nation. 

 


                        Garamond/Gail Armond


This angel was a former lover of Pershabael's way before Mya was even born.  She's stunningly beautiful, with perfect skin, a perfect 'comic-book heroine' figure, a stuffy, French-sounding accent, and a bubbly personality.  She is a member of Seraphim angels, one of the highest angelic orders in the celestial hierarchy.  With fiery red and hair and six red wings to match, she initially comes across as rather intimidating to Mya and Mya takes an almost instant dislike to her, even before she discovers the Seraph's past with Pershabael, but the more she learns about Garamond, the less she likes her, until Garamond confides in Mya and admits her flaws and weaknesses to Mya--who can all too easily relate to such insecurities.



                                   Ramodiel


This guardian is a powerful angel with skin like onyx, long black braids, an imposing, muscular build, and a thick angelic accent that is hard to decipher.



                               Dawn Nicole


A college-aged, close friend of Monica's who isn't afraid to stand up for her friend when she needs it and mixes a mean cranberry juice cocktail.  Dawn Nicole has long black hair, bright green eyes, and a take-charge personality.  She works at a local grocery story and supervises the staff. 



                               Chasten


Chasten looks almost as young as his charge, but he's a serious, experienced guardian who is very protective of the soul in his care and will go into battle without hesitation to defend the ones he loves.  He is fair and well-built, with long blond hair and soft blue eyes.