Charlotte Mannon has two roles in the Sunset Destiny Saga. In the prequel (Heart of Alaska), we meet the young woman who will go on to give birth to the five children she sets up with their perfect matches. She and Ethan met when they were children and kept in touch for years. A tragedy forces them to lose touch until one fateful day they meet up again at the Heart of Alaska Hotel.

In the cruise ship novels, she plays a woman whose grown kids are having trouble with their love lives. She doesn't see any end to it because they are a messed-up bunch. She has a plan, with the help of her best friend, Eleanor Blake, to set up all five of her children with their perfect matches. She decides the best place to do it is on the Sunset Destiny cruise ship during their annual family vacation.

Husband: Ethan Mannon

Children: Mari, Olivia, Abigail, Vanessa, and Jackson

Ethan Mannon has two roles in the Sunset Destiny Saga. In the prequel (Heart of Alaska), we meet the young man who will become the father of the five children that his wife. Charlotte, will set up to find their perfect matches.  

Ethan let a tragedy get in the way of his first love, a girl he met when he was only a child. He thinks he's finally ready to get on with life without her until they meet again one fateful day at the Heart of Alaska Hotel.

In the cruise ship novels, he plays the husband of the matchmaker who doesn't always agree with his wife's views or methods for making their children happy again. 

Best Friend: Jackson Ellis

Wife: Charlotte Mannon

Children: Mari, Olivia, Abigail, Vanessa, and Jackson

Mari is a 28-year-old virgin who has always been in love with her childhood best friend Graham.  When they marry to save his daughter, she wants him to make things real, but he has vowed never to love again. and casts her aside. She decides it's time to put him in the past and seduce a stranger to get rid of her pesky V card.

Their mothers hatch a plan to get the two together once and for all. They are hoping that the magic of a romantic cruise can help their kids stop being so stubborn.

Parents: Charlotte and Ethan Mannon

Siblings: Olivia, Abigail, Vanessa, and Jackson

Prospective Partner: Graham Blake

Graham Blake always loved his childhood best friend, Mari. But when life continues to get in the way, he gives up and vows never to love again. The problem is, they are in a marriage of convenience. When it becomes too much, and he asks her to leave, he knows that this time there will be no going back.

Their mothers hatch a plan to get the two together once and for all. They are hoping that the magic of a romantic cruise can help their kids stop being so stubborn.

Parent: Eleanor Blake

Prospective Partner: Mari Mannon

Olivia met the man of her dreams in college. She had a plan to follow to get everything she wanted. Unfortunately, Alex Paige wasn't ambitious enough to keep up with the kind of life she wanted, so she cast him aside.

 Olivia's mother, Charlotte, knows her daughter is just misguided so she hatches a plan to get the two back together while the family is on an Alaskan cruise. Will two people who still love each other find a way to merge her five-star resort lifestyle with his camping outdoors way of life?

Parents: Charlotte and Ethan Mannon

Siblings: Mari, Abigail, Vanessa, and Jackson (her twin)

Prospective Partner: Alex Paige

Alex Paige met the woman of his dreams in college. They were so perfect together until Olivia decided he was not going to fit in with her life. Just because he couldn't settle on a job, she deems him unambitious -- the exact opposite of her. 

Olivia's mother, Charlotte, sees a brochure from his floatplane tour business and decides her daughter needs to be booked on one of his flights. His aunt, who takes the call, couldn't agree more. They work together to get the two 'stubborn fools' to realize that if they work at it, their different lifestyles can merge into one perfect life for both of them. 

Aunt: Pearl 

Prospective Partner: Olivia Mannon

Abigail Mannon survived a deeply traumatic event but forgot how to really live. She shut herself away from the world instead of healing herself. Her life consists of work and home, with nothing in between. It's years before she feels any kind of emotion other than fear. Her assistant at the publishing company becomes her window to the world, and she begins to develop feelings that terrify her.

Charlotte wants her daughter back. The trauma she endured has stolen Abby from the ones who love her. She knows it will take a miracle to get Abby on a cruise ship bound for Alaska, but she manages to pull it off. When she insists Sam be able to accompany her, her mother agrees because he's a part of her plan to get her daughter to not only live again, but to love again. 

Parents: Charlotte and Ethan Mannon

Siblings: Mari, Olivia, Vanessa, and Jackson

Prospective Partner: Samuel West (Sam)

Vanessa Mannon had known Thomas Paulson since elementary school. She was the beautiful, popular girl, and he was the skinny school geek. She initiated intimacy with Tommy the day before he left for the military while they were both in her parents' pool house. After their tryst, all she wanted was to be his girlfriend, but because of peer pressure, she humiliated him in the worst way.

Charlotte Mannon was no dummy. She knew everything that happened in her home, and that included the pool house. She also knew that her youngest daughter had always loved Thomas. When she heard he was headed home from a lengthy hospital stay after being injured in combat, she called his older brother.  She knew he would make sure Thomas was on the cruise ship, her treat. Once the two met again, they would do all the work; all Charlotte had to do was sit back and watch the fireworks.

Parents: Charlotte Mannon

Siblings: Mari, Olivia, Abigail, and Jackson

Prospective Partner: Thomas Paulson

Thomas Paulson had always loved Vanessa, even if she'd hurt him in the worst way possible. He'd always known that a girl like her could never love a skinny geek like him. It didn't matter that he had changed his whole physique while in the military. What she had done to him was unforgivable. But if that was the case, why did he still love her so much?

Charlotte Mannon had always known that her son's best friend carried a torch for her youngest daughter.  She also knew that Vanessa had made some stupid choices that caused him pain. In her opinion, they needed to put the past behind them and take things to another level now that they were both adults. Somewhere deep inside, she knew that if she got the two together, everything else would fall into place. She could sit back and watch the best fireworks display of the summer.

Best Friend: Jackson Mannon

Prospective Partner: Vanessa Mannon

Deborah Sharpe thought she was lucky to have found Jackson so early in life. She couldn't wait for the future. Then, a couple of weeks after she turned sixteen, the unthinkable happened, and she had to leave. To keep them safe, she had to cut all contact with everyone she'd ever known. What hurt her most was that she was pregnant with Jackson's baby, and he would never be able to see the child because if he ever found out where she was, they would all be killed. 

Charlotte Mannon had always loved her son's girlfriend, and she'd always known that if any kids could make it last a lifetime, they could. Her problem was that she didn't know where the girl had disappeared to or if she was even still alive. One call to an old acquaintance puts her in touch with Deborah's mom. The girl her son loved was still alive, and she was going to stop at nothing to make sure he brought her home from Alaska. It was a good thing she'd already planned their family vacation to end at the exact spot where he needed to start his search. 

Best Friend: Vanessa Mannon

Prospective Partner: Jackson Mannon

Eleanor Blake has two roles in the Sunset Destiny Saga. In Heart of Alaska, she plays young Eleanor, Charlotte's best friend and neighbor, who gets left behind for the summer of 1969.

In the cruise ship novels, Eleanor and Charlotte are still neighbors and best friends. When her son and Charlotte's daughter keep letting life get in their way, they have to come together to make them see the light. It was no accident that they all showed up on the same cruise.

Best Friend: Charlotte Mannon

Son: Graham Blake

Dirk Peterson appears only in The Heart of Alaska - A Sunset Destiny Prequel.

Dirk is the son of the owner of The Heart of Alaska Hotel, located just outside of Denali (McKinley). 

When the human resources manager has a health crisis, Dirk is sent to help out. He becomes the direct supervisor of Charlotte, Ethan, Francesca, and Jackson, who are working there for the summer. 

The thing about Dirk is that he doesn't want to be there; he's young and seemingly entrenched in the hippie lifestyle.  

He is also the owner of one very large spitting snake.

Francesca Templeton only appears in The Heart of Alaska - A Sunset Destiny Prequel 

Francesca also appears in Fate's Encore (Standalone Companion novel)

She grew up on her daddy's fishing boat. It is there that she meets Charlotte, Ethan, Eleanor, and Evelyn. They all start a pen pal relationship that will keep them connected for decades. When she's a teenager, she meets young Jackson Ellis, who is soon taken in by her family. 

In the summer of '69, she meets up with Charlotte and Ethan again. This time, Jackson is with her, and the four form a powerful bond that will take them through the summer and beyond. For Fran, it means leaning on her friends while letting the love of her life go into war.

Pen Pals: Charlotte Mannon, Ethan Mannon, Evelyn Mannon Harper, Eleanor Blake

Partner: Jackson Ellis

Jackson Ellis only appears in The Heart of Alaska -A Sunset Destiny Prequel

Jackson also appears in Russell's Return (Harper's Rock Romances) and Fate's Encore (Standalone Companion Novel)

Jackson found his true love as a teenager. She lived in the small town of Ketchikan, Alaska, and when he moved there, they bonded almost  instantly. After the death of his mother, the Templetons take him in.  In the summer of '69, he decides to volunteer to go to Vietnam for the second time. He's got one last summer with Francesca before he ships out. With their two friends, Charlotte and Ethan, there is no doubt that it will be the best summer ever. But when he is finally called up to leave, it might also be the worst.

Best Friend: Ethan Mannon

Partner: Francesca Templeton

Namesake: Jackson Mannon

Evelyn Mannon only appears in The Heart of Alaska - A Sunset Destiny Prequel in this series.

Evelyn also appears in Fate's Encore (Standalone & Companion Novels), Russell's Return/Logan's Leap/Dylan's Desire/ (Harper's Rock Romances) Anguish/A Promise to Sadie/Adella's Heart/Defining Riley (Harper's Rock Legacy) Letting Go (Standalone/Companion Novel)

Evelyn is the twin sister of Ethan Mannon. She marries Cole Harper at 18 before he ships off to war in the summer of 1969. This happens when her Twin is away working at the Heart of Alaska Resort 

Brother: Ethan Mannon

Neices and Nephews: Mari, Olivia, Abigail, Vanessa, and Jackson

Husband: Cole Harper

Cole Haprer only appears in The Heart of Alaska - A sunset Destiny Prequel in this series.

Cole also appears in Fate's Encore (Standalone & Companion Novel), Anguish (Harper's Rock Legacy Novel), And is mentioned in Russell's Return/Logan's Leap/Dylans Desire (Harper's Rock Romances),  A Promise to Sadie/Adella's Heart (Harper's Rock Legacy Novels)

Cole Harper is one of Ethan Mannon's best childhood friends. He marries Evelyn Mannon at 18 right before he ships off to war. He does this while Ethan is in Alaska for the summer.

High School Best Friend: Ethan Mannon

Neices and Nephews: Mari, Olivia, Abigail, Vanessa, and Jackson

Wife: Evelyn Mannon