Ben Freitas is the son of Eva, the Pajaro Beach Amusement Park secretary, and Bernie Freitas, who worked as an armored truck guard until he was murdered in a robbery ten years ago.

The insurance money from his dad’s death allowed Ben to go to college, where he earned an engineering degree.

After college, Ben got a job at Cordova Computing, where he now works as Felix Cordova’s personal assistant. He lives on the grounds of the Cordova Estate down the coast a little from Pajaro Bay. He (like many others) has a crush on Felix’s daughter, Carmen, but she doesn’t feel the same way about him–in fact, she doesn’t even notice his flirting with her.

Ben has a really good job that takes up most of his attention, but he still spends a lot of his free time in Pajaro Bay, where his mother still lives, and where he grew up.

So he’s not thrilled when the woman convicted of conspiring to murder his father is paroled, and arrives back in town. Can he forgive someone who caused his family so much suffering?

Appears in: Dashing Through the Surf, Beach Blanket Bijou, and more.

Christopher Madrigal is the elder (by two minutes) of the twin Madrigal boys. He was named after his father’s godson, Christopher Takahashi Falcon, but he hasn’t seen his namesake in many years.

His eldest brother Kyle had been a high school football player, but Chris’s sport is basketball. Not the tallest one on the squad, he makes up for his lack of height in grit and teamwork.

A lighthearted kid, he takes after his older sister Windy more than anyone else in the family. The two keep an endless game of practical jokes going between them. One day he’ll tie all her socks into one long string; the next she’ll hide his shoes, leaving him a note in Latin to decipher in order to find them. He misses her a lot when she goes off to college, but with two brothers at home, he’s not exactly lonely.

But when his twin Zac disappears, he realizes how alone he is. He’ll do anything to find his twin, but what can he do?

Appears in: Under the Boardwalk, and more.

Marisol Serrano is the daughter of deputy Joe Serrano and Maria Ortega Serrano. She is friends with Ria O’Keeffe, Oliver Knight and Jenny O’Keeffe, all of whom are in her class at Pajaro Bay Elementary School. She is eight years old at the time of The Honeymoon Cottage.

She wants a dog (like Ria has) but Daddy and Mommy are not quite sure she’s ready. So she keeps bringing home strays (or not-so strays borrowed from friends). She is convinced that she will eventually wear her parents down and get her way. And given how her dad has trouble saying no to her, she just might be right!

Her latest obsession is magic tricks, and she and Daddy are working on learning new ones from a book he bought her. She has a bit more bravado than coordination, but she’s working on it. Her favorite part of doing magic is probably the pink satin cape she wears while performing.

A happy kid with a cheerful personality, her world is very safe and secure. For now. Unfortunately, things don’t always stay the same, and there’s a lot of trouble headed her way….

Appears in: The Honeymoon Cottage, Dashing Through the Surf, Blast From the Past, Vanishing Act (PB DARK), and more.

Hallie Reed spent her childhood bouncing from one foster home to another. She learned early on not to feel secure about anything or anyone. No one in her life ever stayed around for long.

But she always kept a memory close to her heart of the year she spent with an older couple on a farm. They took in foster kids and gave them the kind of love and attention they missed. From her “grampa” she learned how to carve wooden animals, and from “gramma” she learned how to bake–both skills that she held on to through all the turmoil of her childhood.

When she was seventeen, she ran away from her last foster home and began working as a waitress in a diner. There she met a customer who was a seemingly kind, handsome, successful older man. They married quickly, and she thought she’d found her fairy tale ending.

But she quickly learned that what had attracted her husband to her was her vulnerability. He kept her isolated, ordered her around, and when he learned how much she loved her woodcarving, she ordered her to stop. Unable to give up her art, she  secretly made some carvings and sold them to an art gallery….

Now, several years later, she arrives in Pajaro Bay. The reserved woman with the scarred hands and the insistence that she doesn’t believe in fairy tales is just planning to spend the summer working. But she finds more than she expected in Pajaro Bay….

Heroine of: Under the Boardwalk

Also appears in: Dashing Through the Surf, Shadow’s Lady, and more.

Jonas Collinwood is the young owner of the Lark & Raven pub on the wharf in Pajaro Bay. He also is the heir of the Collinwood House in the woods above the village. One of the few true Victorian houses in town, Collinwood House is a gray-on-gray mansion that almost seems to disappear into the fog that creeps through the mountain redwoods. Jonas does a good disappearing act, too. Few know much about him, or about what happens in the big house in the woods.

When he brings his new bride to the village, his secrets will begin to come out, and not everyone will be pleased….

Hero of: The Bride of Jonas Collinwood

Also appears in: Dashing Through the Surf, and more.