Captivating Character of the Month: January

This meme is hosted by Carol at the Reading Ladies blog. On the last Friday of the month, she writes a post about her most captivating character of the month and creates a Link Party on that post. 

The priestess Joia in Ken Follett's Circle of Days is my most captivating character for January. Joia was appropriately named. She is a joyful person who believes that anything is possible. If it wasn't for this trait Stonehenge would never have been built.

Some background on the story is necessary. Circle of Days takes place in 2500 BCE in England. It is a fictional account of how Stonehenge could have been constructed. The book opens with the character Seft experiencing abuse from his flint making father and brothers. He decides to escape his family and runs toward the herding community. Seft settles there and marries the love of his life Neen. Neen’s sister is Joia. Joia becomes prominent in the book when she decides to join the priestesses who dance around a wooden monument.

After the wooden monument is destroyed, Joia dreams of building a new one, one that is permanent. However, the lead priestess opposes the idea. When the leader of the priestesses dies, Joia campaigns to take her place. She gets her wish when the priestesses elect her to be their leader. One of the reasons why Joia is overwhelmingly elected is her friendliness toward her fellow priestesses. They all love her. 

Joia is a woman with vision and an ability to lead. Her vision of a stone monument inspires Seft to come up with ideas on how it could be built. Her fellow priestesses follow her wholeheartedly in this challenge. All of us know someone like Joia so it stands to reason that she is my favorite character of the month.

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