History Characters / ABrothersPrice

* HeroesWantRedHeads: The "flame haired" princesses seem to affect our protagonist like an aphrodisiac--every one of them. [[spoiler:Even when he can't see that red hair.]]

* UnexpectedSuccessor: The royal family traditionally rules as a unit (especially after the last time they tried to "split" the royal family as some large families do, two generations back, led to civil war). Nevertheless, the Eldest of their family, like any other family in this setting, holds particular authority. When ''nine'' of their older sisters are killed in a theater explosion, all of them are given a step up in importance especially Ren being thrust into the role of Eldest without having been raised to prepare for it. There's the expected drama about her being an InadequateInheritor, made worse that the vanished Halley is seen as ​a better fit.

* EverythingsSparklyWithJewelry: He owns one piece of jewelry passed down from his grandfather. Ren sees it and believes it's the ''Emerald Hart'', which was worn by the Prince Alannon when he was abducted.

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Odelia and Ren. Odelia is happy-go-lucky and would rather kiss pretty boys than take up any royal duties, while Ren--not so above kissing pretty boys herself--is a TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask.

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Odelia and Ren. Odelia is happy-go-lucky and would rather kiss pretty boys than take up any royal duties, while Ren--not so above kissing pretty boys herself--is a TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: {{Justified}} Ren isn't really keen on all the responsibility that comes with being Eldest as she hadn't been born nor raised to that role, so she's having a hard time adjusting. Her sister Halley, who was more respected, vanished and left her to do the job, but they both were born as younger sisters and didn't expect to ever have to shoulder that much responsibility. [[spoiler: Halley later reveals that she vanished on purpose, at least partly in order to make people look up to Ren more.]]

* DeterminedWidow: Technically, all the older princesses as culturally expected of them. Odelia does end up in distress and needing Jerin to rescue her at the start of the book.

* DoesNotLikeMen: For good reason.

* KindnessButton: She's rude to Jerrin at first, but turns out to be very altruistic when she thinks he is in danger.

* LoveIsAWeakness: Thinks this is true, and given her bad experiences with her sisters being in love it's understandable she doesn't trust their judgment on men. She expresses quite clearly that she thinks Love is mearly an expression of physical desires.

* {{{Woobie}}: Her father was poisoned, she was raped and beaten by her husband, got no sympathy from her eldest sister who [[LoveMakesYouEvil loved]] the husband, lost half of her sisters in the same incident that mercifully killed off her husband, and ''then'' her remaining sisters are angry with her for not agreeing to marry again.

* {{Violently Protective Girlfriend}}s[=/=]BattleHarem: Kidnapping Jerin turns out to be a BerserkButton for all the adult princesses, who nearly get into a brawl in public over who's going to do what to rescue him.

* DistinguishingMark[=/=]SharedUnusualTrait: Many of the Porters have 11 toes. Having a different father from her siblings, Kij doesn’t [[spoiler: but her daughter does, the latter being a significant plot point]].

* CutenessEqualsForgiveness: PlayedForHorror He got away with beating and raping Trini, who is only thirteen years old at the time, so badly that she's confined to her bed for weeks. Worse Eldest caught him red-handed smiled sweetly and claimed poor Trini had "provoked" him. Fortunately, he died before Trini had recovered from her injuries.

* WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou: He '''raped''' and tortured Trini but he was still able to get away with it thanks to his hold over her elder sisters.

* LysistrataGambit: Keifer often withheld sex in conjunction with throwing raging fits in order to get his wives to go along with whatever he wanted. His older wives were madly in love with him, so it tended to work. [[spoiler:And he cheated on them anyway.]]

* LiterallyLovingThyNeighbor: Corelle has a crush on Balin Brindle, the neighbor boy, even growing er hair our for him. Many of her sisters don;t get what she sees in him.

* TheHeart: Does the most to keep the four whistlers together during their adventures in Mafair.

* NoodleIncident: The treasonous activity that their great grandmother Elder did is never elaborated on.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Jerin is the last one to be told that [[spoiler:Princess Ren]] intends to make an offer for his hand in marriage. Justified in that it is a very good match, more than he could hope for, and no one wants to get his hopes up in case it doesn't work out in the end.

* IAmNotPretty: [[spoiler:Cira has a prominent scar on her face, and under her clothing she is CoveredWithScars. She doesn't find herself attractive, and mentions a lover who had lost interest in her after she acquired those scars. Jerin thinks she would be plain and unremarkable unscarred, but the scars [[FreakinessShame add character and boldness]] to her appearance.]]

* TheGunslinger: The Whistler family. All of them. It is mentioned at one point, that their children are given toy guns as toddlers, and real guns at eight years. Jerin's twelve-year-old sister shoots some bandits, which doesn't surprise him much when he hears about it. The fact that they're so skilled in a western-style world should show how skilled they are.
* HoldYourHippogriffs: The Whistlers have a family-specific saying, variations on "Catch a shining coin."

* PromotionToParent: When his father Tullen Whistler née Beawater dies, Jerin steps into the child-nurturing and house-tending role, and does well at it, since he'd been helping and learning from his father all along. The down side is that when they hear he's leaving to be married, his youngest sisters react as if losing another father.

!The Princesses

* {{Significant Green Eyed Redhead}}s: From the very beginning, you can tell the girl they found in the creek is important because of her coloring.

* ButIWouldReallyEnjoyIt: Cira and Jerin, up until the very end.
* ChekhovMIA: Princess Halley is conspicously absent for most of the book, [[spoiler:until it's revealed she was Cira all along.]]

* GoodScarsEvilScars: Cira has an enormous silvery scar on her face that healed well, so it's not raised. She also has similar scars all over her body. In-story she's seen as ambiguous for quite some time, and it turns out that she's the missing princess.
* GladToBeAliveSex: Cira tries to invoke this with Jerin after a narrow escape from death but he refuses given he's engaged to the princesses, [[spoiler:and is ignorant of her real identity.]]

* BigSisterInstinct: Particularly protective of [[NonActionGuy Jerin]] and her younger sisters, even if they're technically half-siblings their society makes no distinction. When Jerin gets married this attitude extends to her new sisters-in-law -- as she declares, "We Whistlers have an unbreakable rule -- you mess with one of us, [[BigDamnHeroes you mess with us all!]]" This is quite a turn around as before when she believes he was raped by the crown princess Ren, she planed to kill the woman but is enough of a ReasonableAuthorityFigure to listen to him.

* EffortlessAmazonianLift: With Cullen--it's the first time Jerin's seen his sister blush.

* DumbBlonde: Had dyed golden hair like the rest of his family, but unlike them was pretty stupid.

* EveryOneLovesBlondes: It's actually muddy blond but he usually kept it dyed, was definitely appealing.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: The Queens don't do much, being largely retired, but all the princesses are highly active in the running of the kingdom. Much of what they do is political, even the younges princess is expected to attend when they sit in judgement at the royal courthouse, but two of them start off the book trying to help part of the armed forces track down some stolen experimental cannons. Further the adult sisters have dedicated offices where they seem to spend a good deal of time.

* BigBadFriend

* DistressedDude: Jerin, several times. He's not entirely helpless in these situations, but he'd have been in very bad shape without assistance. On the other hand his resourcefulness and unusual skills seriously impress Cira.

* PromotionToParent: When his father dies, Jerin steps into the child-nurturing and house-tending role, and does well at it, since he'd been helping and learning from his father all along. The down side is that when they hear he's leaving to be married, his youngest sisters react as if losing another father.

* DumbBlonde: Had golden hair like the rest of his family, but unlike them was pretty stupid.

* DyeOrDie: To keep the SignificantGreenEyedRedhead thing from letting anyone know she's royal.
* ExactWords: Cira tells a group of women intending to group together to start a new family of "sisters", which she's been invited to join, that she's "done second in line" and that "some" felt she "was usurping my sister's authority", so she left. Details she's leaving out include that she's Halley, currently the second eldest living princess, behind Ren, that she was the natural leader of her age group among her sisters, and that ''she'' was the one who felt she was getting in the way of her current Eldest's authority, since most found it more natural to look to the more dominant Halley for leadership over the less confident Ren.

** They sow this in arguments between themsleves and their mothers too, such as when discussing the possibility of Jerin

* By standards of the world, Jerin is also this given he has a ChastityDagger and a little concealable gun. Just in case.

* RichBitch: The Porter sisters get a lot of status from being the princesses' in-laws. Kij's sister seems to be in the habit of telling everyone their whole family history, lest anyone forget that they are important. Hilarity Ensues when Kij asks Corelle: "Do you know who I am?" to which Corelle replays by repeating everything Kij's sister just told her about the family.

* EveryOneLovesBlondes: It's actually muddy blond but he usually kept it dyed, was definitely appelling.

* WouldHurtAChild: He was mean to little Cullen.

* CheerfulChild
* DyeOrDie: At the end, to help her fit in among the Whistler children, they dye her hair so she looks more like her new adoptive sisters.

* QuestionableConsent: her first face to face encounter with Jerin, 15, as he's trying to get a midnight snack, has her kissing and groping him despite his initial reluctance. Although she stops just shy of intercourse (because it would be rude to do so in his mothers' home) and Jerin later tearfully tells his eldest sister he enjoyed it, the later rightfully reminds him the woman should have stopped at his first no.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Ren has a hard time adjusting to being the eldest, and thus the head of her sisters, which is justified because she hadn't been born nor raised to that role.