Heathcliff

Heathcliff, a character in the Sunkissed book, is Turtle Bay's mysterious artist and is a potential love interest for Your Character's mom, Gayle. Although he is mentioned in previous chapters as the "artist", he is first seen in Chapter 14.

Appearance
Heathcliff has brown eyes, graying black hair with full beard, and dark skin. He wears a red and black plaid shirt under a cream-colored sweater vest and green jacket.

Personality
Heathcliff is a solitary man. Due to the loss of his daughter, he closed himself off from the world to avoid the pain of living in a world without her. He began to paint her image to try to feel close to her, but he felt he couldn't get her face right. So instead, he painted what she loved.

Sunkissed

 * Chapter 2: Retail Therapy (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 5: Say It with Art (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 6: The Spirit of Competition (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 9: Treat Yourself (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 11: Tracks in the Sand (Mentioned)
 * Chapter 14: Summer Secrets
 * Chapter 15: The Sound of Summer
 * Chapter 16: Ashes to Ashes
 * Chapter 17: All Good Things

Samson
Heathcliff was Samson's teacher and mentor. When Heathcliff stopped teaching, Samson took up woodwork instead and developed his own style. Prior to the events of your summer in Turtle Bay and through most of the chapters, Heathcliff gives his art to Samson to sell with the expressed desire to remain anonymous and unreachable by most means. Healthcliff believes that Samson was the best art student he ever had and trusts him.

In Chapter 14, Samson texts Heathcliff and asks him to come by your house to speak to your mom. In Chapter 16, he suggests getting a booth together at the next farmers market where Samson could use Heathcliff's name and reputation to boost sales and promote Samson's work.

Your Character
In Chapter 15, Heathcliff tells you that he usually doesn't deal with buyers of his paintings. You explain that your family has been having a rough year and that when your mom saw his painting, it sparked something inside of her that you haven't seen in a while. You tell him that Gayle has spent her life studying art and something in his paintings moved her. He doesn't discount what you say but insists that art is different than the artist. Still, after you and Eliana take Sylvia to the vet, Heathcliff agrees to come to your home to meet your mom and sister, Alexis.

He reveals to your family that he lost his daughter and originally wanted to paint her but didn't get her right, so he painted the things she liked instead. She loved the ocean and had asked him to paint a coral reef in her room when she was little. Later, you inspire him to take a more active part in selling his art because he sees firsthand the way it can move people.

Gayle
As the "mysterious artist", Gayle felt she had a connection with him from the moment she first saw his paintings. In Chapter 11, you can take Gayle to a meadow that Samson told you about, so she can write the artist a message about what his art means to her. She can tell that he loved as deeply and lost as painfully as she had, and feels a kind of kinship with him. She also thinks he has an interesting perspective on loss and eventually realizes from it, that her holding onto a past with her late husband was keeping her from a future with her daughters. She tells Heathcliff that his art helped her begin to heal. She felt his art was born out of something like she experienced.

Later, you can encourage Heathcliff and Gayle to dance together at the music festival. In Chapter 16, you can encourage them to talk if you leave them alone and go off with your friends.

Eliana
In Chapter 14, Eliana discovers that Heathcliff has her missing turtle, Sylvia. Eliana immediately thinks he's a poacher, but he tells her that he had found Sylvia injured and was caring for her. When Eliana sees that Heathcliff is telling the truth, you and Eliana take Sylvia to the aquarium to be seen by the veterinarian there. If you do not take the jet ski with Eliana, Heathcliff offers to drive you instead. There, the vet says Heathcliff's quick thinking likely saved Sylvia's life.

Trivia

 * His character model resembles Lucanus Flavius from A Courtesan of Rome.
 * Eliana says that Heathcliff is strong, as he can carry Sylvia - who weighs at least a hundred pounds - with ease.