Josefa McCord

Josefa McCord  Character Post 39

Josefa McCord is a quarter Chinese and a Roman Catholic. She owns a yellow ute which suffers from mechanical trouble... or maybe from Josefa trouble, and goes sometimes by the unfortunate nickname of Jojo. It should, she allows, by Yoyo, but she thinks that sounds like a breakfast dish.
Josefa knows full well that she's chaotic and impulsive, but now she's twenty-two, she's making a concerted effort to escape this side of her personality. She has no intention of denying it or of blotting it out; she has just decided she won't be that person anymore. One catalyst that brought Josefa to this point is her best friend Chloe Fraser. She always used to depend on Chloe to rescue her from tricky situations, and to offer a sympathetic ear and shoulder, but now Chloe is engaged to a complex young man and has less time for her old friend. Not only that, but Peck Grene's unvoiced disapproval of Josefa is a shock of cold water. She suddenly sees herself through his eyes: not as a lovable ditsy mess-up, but as someone who is old enough to behave better and who really should.
Loving Chloe as she does, Josefa promises herself to find some self respect so Chloe need never be put in the situation of having to choose between her friendship and her man. In typical impulsive fashion, she goes cold turkey, making the break with all the people and situations that bring her to disasters. 
On the verge of backsliding into one last date with an ex, she encounters a young man who lives in the same housing complex as Chloe. Tab Merriweather is in the middle of a personal crisis, but he stops to talk to Josefa and in the course of the conversation she realises she has mistaken the day and so has accidentally missed the date with her ex. It's clearly a Sign, so Josefa declares herself cured and decides to collect her self-promised reward... which is to kiss the next unattached man she meets... and to ask permission first. 
After this encounter, Josefa goes on to prove to herself, Tab, Chloe and even, eventually, Chloe's man, that she has indeed turned her life around. With Tab's help, she rediscovers her delight in singing and music, and continues to act as responsibly as she can. This backfires on her as she almost ends up losing something infinitely precious to her. Luckily, common sense prevails and Josefa emerges into a happy future.
In her journey to change, Josefa returns her once-daffodil-yellow hair to its natural black, but she retains her preference for eclectic clothing which is only appropriate as she works at a bo-ho boutique called Recycle Sally's. Josefa appears in Green Balls, Sam and the Sylvan and in the upcoming (April publication) Sunshower.   


ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. She runs  Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 2017 is now behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of February 18th 2018 I STILL haven't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books to come, and I'll certainly showcase those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, just for a change. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!