Asking a writer to choose a favorite character from their own work is a little like asking a parent to choose their favorite child. Most of my writer friends tell me their characters become very ‘real' to them. My characters in The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail are no exception. Each of them has a unique voice and style, and while I'm personally very fond of Tristan, the hero, I find that all of the characters of the book have carved out a special place in my heart.

At a library event recently, I was asked a question about character development and did I ever use real people as the archetypes for the personalities of my characters? The answer was yes, of course. And in The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail, there is no better example of this than Robard Hode.

Robard enters the story after Tristan has escaped an about-to-be-overrun Acre with the Holy Grail. On his way to Tyre, the nearest coastal city, he is set upon by bandits. About to lose everything, he's rescued by a young King's Archer, a boy just a bit older than he. A young man, named Robard Hode, who was born in Sherwood Forest near the shire of Nottingham.