This week, I’m going to talk a little bit more about another main character in my new book and series, Heart of God. I briefly mentioned Dylan Kinkaide last week, but wanted to spend a little more time delving into his story this week. Dylan is a very special character to me. I grew up watching shows like Scarecrow and Mrs. King, or Remington Steele, and have always loved the dashing, debonair, spy/investigator characters in Lee Stetson and Remington Steele, not because they were the heart-throbby, overly charming leading men in these series, and they definitely were :), but I loved the change you saw in them throughout the course of the series. Lee Stetson, aka Scarecrow, was an agent and was very used to using his charms to do his job and get needed information and lived the life of a man who didn’t usually say no to a pretty woman. Then, enter Mrs. King. A normal, everyday housewife and mother who gets mixed up in the spy business with Lee. Mrs. King is probably the furthest thing she could be from Lee’s type, but, as they work together, Lee changes and eventually falls in love with this woman who is completely everything he never knew he wanted. Similarly in Remington Steele, the main character played by Pierce Brosnan (I mean, come on!) was a thief turned “fake” detective. Fake because the woman who runs the private investigator business had created a fake boss in Remington Steele because no one trusted a female investigator, and she never really finds out the true identity of this man that startlingly came across her path, so they reinvent this thief of many identities into a real person to play the famous investigator, Remington Steele. But, just like Scarecrow, Remington’s heart is transformed from the hearts of many, to the heart of one for his investigative partner, Laura Holt.
When I was coming up with the character of Dylan Kinkaide, he was definitely influenced by the wild and charming playboy types of Scarecrow and Remington Steele, and he is just that. Charming. Debonair. Ultra Handsome and catches the eyes of women everywhere and isn’t above using his good looks and charm to do his jobs. I love the stories of Scarecrow and Remington because of the transformation and redemption in their stories, but when I was writing Dylan’s, his became one of an even greater redemption as it takes it to the deeper story of finding that personal relationship with Christ and not just being captured by the heart of that one woman who ends up being everything he never knew he wanted.
When we meet Dylan, you can tell he’s this charming, suave kind of guy that Selah is immediately attracted to, but his mutual interest in her sets her off guard because she’s not used to having a handsome stranger flirt with her or even interested in her. He’s strangely interested in the artifact, the Heart of God, and her parents’ work, which adds bonus points for him. We find out later that he was actually sent to protect her and through their unexpected journey together, we discover that his past was very different from Selah’s. He grew up knowing about the Bible, but horrible circumstances in his life turned him away from God and everything that went with that faith and religion that Selah holds so dear. He views God as an absent being who was never really there for him and just as Selah’s faith influences her decisions as she gets older, that influences his decisions as well. His past is riddled with jobs and choices that aren’t exactly righteous or moral and as he and Selah get to know each other, their differences really start to come out. He sees her faith as something that is so genuine and so real and so unwavering despite the horrible circumstances she’s been put against, and he can’t figure out why her faith is so much different than every other religious person or setting he’s ever known in his life and that draws him to her in an unexplainable way. For the first time in his life, he is brought to a place where he is questioning his own unbelief in God and you see this beautiful transformation throughout the story where he goes from his confident, charming self to this place of vulnerability and actual desire to not just get to know Selah and hope for a relationship with her that’s more than any other relationship he’s ever had with women, but to actually get to know the God behind Selah’s faith.
Dylan’s story is a beautiful, beautiful story and I love watching the journey he himself goes on while they navigate the difficulties of Selah’s situation and I’m so excited to share him and his story with you.
Ashley Beach-Author and Storyteller 