Feature & Follow Friday (9)

Welcome, book lovers! We had to skip a Friday or two, but not because we don't enjoy spending them with you. Life sometimes just gets in your way. Once more, it was a fabulous week for The Nocturnal Library - this week, we published an interview with the amazing YA author Swati Avasthi. To enter the giveaway of her touching book, Split, just click on the sidebar button. But let's get down to why we're really here.

This is our ninth Follow My Book Blog Friday, hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. Click on the image to learn more.

Q: BeefcakeandBabes Asks: I like unique names for characters and am looking forward to coming up with some when I start writing. What’s the most unique character name you’ve come across?

I have a confession to make: I am horrible with names. I've been known to forget the name of a character as soon as I finish the book, or even sooner. I simply read too much to remember them all. To answer this question, I had to go back to our Faves of TwentyEleven post to see what I wrote there. Fortunately, I agree with myself this time. :) My favorite character names are usually simple and spelled the regular way. I liked Deirdre Monaghan from Maggie Stiefvater's Lament a lot. On the other, more original side, I really love the name Sirantha Jax from Ann Aguirre's Grimspace. I absolutely hated the name Rebekkah from Melissa Marr's Graveminder, obviously because of the spelling. I wasn't crazy about Daemon from Obsidian either, but let's keep that one a secret or someone might kill me in a slow and excruciatingly painful way.

And that's it for today, my lovelies. Lisa will probably have her own answer to write when she can. If you follow us on Twitter and Facebook, we will follow you back right away. Just please, please, please, leave us a note on Facebook saying so, especially if you're using your personal account to follow. We sometimes simply don't know who to follow back.

Happy Friday, darlings. Until next time!

Lisa *comes huffing and puffing*

....ok, I had to check Faves of 2011, too. I have to agree with Maja and say that Sirantha Jax is probably the coolest name I've encountered so far in fiction.

But if you're looking for names, whatever name you will choose for you characters, please keep these simple guidelines in mind:

- do not, ever, call your character with the name of a cigarette brand (Merit, Camel and so on)

- do not, ever, call you character with the name of an animal, especially tiny and obnoxious ones (Cricket).

You can call your dogs like that, not your characters.

Ciao!