A Proper Family Adventure – Characters

SPOILERS!!!

These are the characters of the novel for future reference

Regular Characters

• Jacqui Benson (62) is the mother in the family. Jacqui has kept a secret from her daughters for many years. When she was seventeen, she fell pregnant and she gave up her baby for adoption. She had no other option because Dave was in Scotland, studying, and her parents gave her no choice. Jacqui has regretted giving her daughter up, and over the years she hoped that her daughter would try to find her, but it hasn’t happened. Yet, on returning from holiday Jacqui found a letter explaining that the daughter she had given birth to over 40 years ago wanted to contact her. Jacqui finally gets reunited with her lost daughter, and now she and Annabel have a good relationship.
• Dave Benson is Jacqui’s husband.
• Ronnie Benson-Edwards (34) is Jacqui’s daughter. Ronnie fell pregnant when she was seventeen, so she couldn’t go to university. Ronnie married her life partner in a previous book. They have two children, Sophie and Jack. Ronnie works part time for an undertaker’s, but she intends to go to university now that Jack is not so young.
• Chelsea Benson (30) is Jacqui’s youngest daughter. She lives in London and works for a fashion magazine. Chelsea got reconciled to her sister Ronnie after they fell out years ago. She also started a relationship with Adam, who she met during the holiday she took with her family. Chelsea also had a feeding disorder but she has recovered. In this book she feels insecure in her relationship with Adam because of the shadow of his late wife. In the end Adam proposes to her and she accepts.
• Annabel Buchanan is the daughter that Jacqui gave up in adoption. She is rich and in the last book she contacted the Bensons because her daughter needed a kidney. At first, she looked down on the Bensons, but she gradually learned to accept them. Because she was pregnant she couldn’t be the donor for her daughter. Now Annabel has a baby boy, called Hunfrey.
• Bill Benson (87) is Dave’s father and Ronnie and Chelsea’s grandfather. He is showing signs of dementia, and his recurrent phrase is ‘I’ve won the lottery’. In this book Bill stays with Annabel because he has a chest infection and can’t travel. Bill was in the war and lost his brother in the Blitz. While staying with Annabel, he has an episode in which he feels he is back in time, and he cries saying that he was a coward because he didn’t want to fight.
• Mark Benson-Edwards is Ronnie’s husband. He is a kitchen fitter, and since the recession he has had to work part time, so money is scarce. Mark can be brutal in his comments and Ronnie keeps telling him off.
• Sophie Benson-Edwards (17) is Ronnie and Mark’s daughter. She is the typical teenager, complaining about her mother and thinking that she is being treated unfairly. She is now very good friends with her new cousin, Izzy. In this book she starts an internship at a magazine and writes an article about the Coventry Blitz. She also gets top marks in her GCSE exams
• Jack Benson-Edwards (7) is Ronnie and Mark’s son. He is a sweet, lively boy.
• Izzy Buchanan (18) is Annabel’s daughter. She went to a music festival and took ecstasy, which made her sick. Her friends found her unconscious, so she was rushed to hospital. Izzy was in ICU for a couple of days, and even though she survived, her kidneys stopped working. Her doctor then told her that she needed a kidney. Izzy finally got a new kidney when a donation came through. The donor was a man who died on Christmas Eve. That man was Greg, and now Izzy wants to meet the relatives of the man thanks to whome she is now alive.
• Adam Baxter is the attractive man who Chelsea met on the plane and fell for. Adam is a widower and has a child, Lily. Adam and Chelsea are in love, and in this book he goes on the cruise, intending to propose. Yet, things don’t go to plan because the shadow of his late wife still haunts him. He meets Jane on the ship, who has gone through something similar, and talking to her helps. It is when they are back in London that Adam proposes to Chelsea.
• Lily Rose Baxter (7) is Adam’s daughter. She has a difficult personality, demanding and throwing tantrums. She and Jack had a few run-ins during the holidays, but now they are friends.
• Jane Thynne (30) was the fiancée of the man whose kidney has gone to Izzy. Jane is still mourning Greg, and her best friend Kirsty persuades her to go on the cruise, which was going to be her and Greg’s honeymoon. Jane can’t bring herself to enjoy the trip, but in the end she realises that she can’t wallow in self-pity and forget about the people who she still loves like Kirsty.
• Kirsty (30) is Jane’s best friend. When she was a child, her mother took her to an audition because she sang very well, and she was chosen, but her father forbid her to accept the job. During the trip she takes part in a karaoke competition and won, and the head of entertainment offers him a job.
• Richard Buchanan (44) is Annabel’s husband.
• Humfrey Buchanan is Annabel’s baby boy. He is named after his late grandfather.
• Sarah Cartwright is Annabel’s adoptive mother.
• Cathy is Ronnie and Mark’s next-door neighbour.
• Skyler was Sophie’s best friend. Sophie felt betrayed when Skyler made out with Harrison, Sophie’s boyfriend. When they meet in school to pick up their GCSE results, Skyler says that she has done terrible. What she wants is to be hired by a model agency and leave school.
• Harrison Coleridge used to be Sophie’s boyfriend, but they broke up when Sophie discovered that he and Skyler had made out during a school trip.
• Greg is the man who died and whose organs he donated. One of his kidneys went to Izzy.

Characters in this book:

• Lorraine Miles is the head of entertainment on the ship.