It wasn’t my initial plan when I started writing The Diamond Collection series to have a character by the name of Guillermo “Gully” Perez. The idea for this character came about from me wanting Jay, the main male character, to have other blood ties in the series aside from his children. I easily could’ve resurrected his father or mother from the dead, but I settled on him having a cousin. With Gully, I figured, he could be Jay’s cousin by relation, but his “brother” in terms of the closeness of their relationship.

To start, Guillermo “Gully” Perez was actually born Guillermo Santiago. Gully’s father is Hector Santiago’s brother who I have not yet given a name (Hector Santiago is Jay’s father). He is full-blooded Puerto Rican, born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to parents who both have Puerto Rican ancestry. Perez is Gully’s mother maiden name, a name he uses purposely to separate himself from all things Santiago. Just like Jay, both of his parents are deceased, however, they weren’t murdered. I haven’t came up with reasons as to why Gully’s parents are dead, but it will probably be something like a heart attack, cancer, etc.

Jim Jones

Before I came up with the name Guillermo, I knew the character’s name was going to be Gully. I chose Gully because I wanted a name that represented a persona which was tough, mean, and hood. While it didn’t seem fitting to have a man in the book with a birth name of Gully, I knew it would have to be a nickname. I didn’t come up with Guillermo until I was watching an episode of Chrissy and Mr. Jones. Jim Jones had the appearance I was visualizing for Gully so I did a little Wikipedia search on the rapper and discovered the name Guillermo, which is actually Jim Jones’ middle name. It fit perfectly with the nickname Gully and made sense. I then gave him the last name Perez because of its Spanish origin.

Gully makes his first appearance in Book Four of The Diamond Collection, but will have a strong presence in the rest of the series. He will serve not only as Jay’s cousin, but also has his new right-hand, best friend, and “brother.” At this time, there are not any plans to give him a love interest, but this can always change. To see how the character, Guillermo Perez pans out in Black Diamonds, check out a copy of the book on Amazon’s Kindle and the Nook.