Graciela Juarez (“Grace”) in The Man From Empire

When we meet her at the beginning of The Man From Empire, Grace is 28 years old. She is five foot four, roughly 145 pounds, with medium brown skin, brown eyes and dark brown, almost black shoulder length hair. She’s on the chubby side, not fit. She calls herself a couch potato, from studying for her biochemistry degree and working full time. She is youngest of five children, four girls and one boy. Even though she has a wild history, she is a bit of an introvert, driven by the realization she’s wasted several years of her life and wants to focus on finishing college and starting her career. She’s trying to prove to herself she’s grown up now, by the standards of her Mexican family’s upbringing. She’s above average smart but no genius and she knows it. Sometimes she gets by in her studies by sheer dogged determination. Right now, she has very little social life, mostly visits with family, most importantly her parents and her oldest sister. She is specifically NOT a fan of science fiction.

Grace Quote Number One:
If you know Mexican families, there really isn’t any response to the husband and children thing unless you’ve got the ring and at least a child on the way. That didn’t keep me from trying, “Mama, you’ve got fifteen grandchildren already. Peter is almost my age and sure looks serious about that new girlfriend of his.” Peter had finished his MBA the previous summer and Mama couldn’t be more proud. He wasn’t making much yet, but he did have a good job putting his degree to work. She crowed over him for a couple minutes, and let me get off the phone.

Grace Quote Number 2
As he had responded to my last, I realized I had made a real mistake that caused him to drastically lower his opinion of me. And I was more certain all the time that I wanted his good opinion. “I’m sorry. Yes, I think we do, but evidently I’m not one of them.” I saw his point perfectly, intellectually. It’s just that it’s damned hard to imagine someone who’d jump into a hole like that, with risk like that on a moment’s notice, simply because it was necessary or expected under the circumstances. It would be necessary to change some of my most basic thinking. “Yet,” I added, chastened.