Jake Ryder

Jacques "Jake" Ryder is one the main protagonist of the Cursed Village series. He is the only child of Joseph and Christina Ryder. He is currently in a relationship with Melody Carter.

History
Jake was born on April 5, 1998. He is son of Joseph and Christina Ryder.

Jake befriended a boy name Asher Willis at a playground in their village. They became best friends. Asher was also friends with two girls name Melody and Kristen. Melody was content on Jake only being Asher's friend. One day, Asher started to distance himself from the girls. Despite Jake's help, Asher defriended Melody and Kristen. Afterwards, an incident occurred which led to the Atkins' family death. Melody has despised Asher and Jake every since.

Around this time, Jake's mother, Christina, walked out on her family leaving an unstable husband behind to care for their insecure son. Joseph was an alcoholic and he abused Jake on a daily basis. He is always drunk and sleeps with different women. He's shown to despise Jake and cherish the ground Asher walks on.

Personality
Jake is easygoing, upbeat, energetic, funny, flirty and loves to tell jokes, even if they aren't funny. Jake is genuinely very intelligent and honest, and cares about his friends and family. He sometimes doesn't think before reacting and he enjoys pulling pranks on people, especially those who he doesn't like. Despite his jokey attitude, Jake is emotionally scarred from his mother leaving their family and is crushed by guilt as his father blames him for her absence. He hides a hurt and angry demeanor with humor.

Appearance
Jake is African American with jet black hair and dark brown eyes. Melody considers him to be very attractive. Cara describes Jake as someone to watch out for giving the readers the impression that Jake is a "bad boy". Melody says that Jake reminds her of one her favorite book characters though she couldn't remember which one.

Melody Carter
Jake's current love interest is Melody Carter. The two are shown to be associates in Mirror, Mirror and are shown to have feelings for each other, though secretly.

As the story takes off, Jake reveals that he remembers Melody as a girl that always smiled. The two spend time together as Melody taught him French and she saved him from going to the juvenile detention center for holding a a wanted criminal. The two escape at the same time to a worried and slightly irritated Dee and Josh.

Later, after the reunion, Jake tells Melody of his affection and the two share a kiss. Later, the two are said to be dating, but the arrival of Darius Steven adds a few complications to their relationship. While Jake is loyal to Melody, she seems to be drawn to Darius because of his similarities to Chase. This leads to Jake becoming annoyed by Darius and even starts a fight between herself and Jake

Chase Campbell
Jake feels jealous and additionally dislikes Chase for his relationship with Melody. Though the two rarely speak one-on-one with each other, Jake doesn't like the fact that Melody cherishes Chase existence. The boys are shown to glare at each other whenever the other is near. During Genie?, the two grow closer as Chase relationship with Cara Wright blossoms more.

Darius Steven
Jake initially disliked Darius, because of his relationship with Melody. Jake is also uneasy about Darius at first because of his similarity to Meldoy's former love, Chase. The two have contrasting personalities: Darius being far more serious and Jake's lack of control of what he says and his tendency to tease Darius. Jake often walks in on Melody and Darius talking, which annoys him.

Family
Christina Ryder: Not much is said about Jake's mother except that she walked out on hteir family. It shown that Jake loves her very much and that Asher knows where she is resding. Its hinted a the end of Fairy Godmother?, that Christina is somewhere in California runnning with the wolves. This may be a play on the author's use of connecting the characters as the author has another book dealing with werewolves.

Joseph Ryder: Joseph is Jake's father. It no secret that Jake is afraid of him until the fear is turned into anger and hatred. His wife walked out him leaving Joseph unstable. As a result, Joseph drinks on every occasion and blames Jake for the reason his wife left him.

Enemies
Asher Willis was the main antagonist throughout the whole series. Asher and Melody were once best friends until Asher pushed her away and he attempted to harm Kristen. He then went as far as to killing Kristen and trying to repeat the same actions with Melody. Jake despises him deeply for his actions (primarily more because he seduce a girl he once had a crush on and because he tried to rape Melody), but hesitates when it comes to calling the police on him.

Etymology
The name Jake comes from Middle English as a variant of Jack and another pet form of John (in Scotland, they used Jock). John is derived from the Hebrew name “Johahah” meaning ‘God is gracious.’ However, Jake is also considered a nickname or short form of Jacob. Jacob is a Latin derivation of the Hebrew name "Yaakov" traditionally thought to be derived from the word "akev" - which literally translates to "at the heel". In Genesis 25:26, Jacob was born the younger twin to Isaac and Rebecca and he "came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob." The Lord told Rebecca that the younger would be stronger, and that the older would serve the younger. As the Biblical story progresses, the cunning Jacob eventually supplants his older brother by stealing his birthright and his father's blessing. "Is he not rightly named Jacob?" Esau asks in Genesis 27:36. "For he has supplanted me these two times." So if the name is derived from Jacob, than the meaning is ‘to supplant or to displace’ as Jacob did to Esau. In any case, the name Jake, like Jack, has become an independent name in its own right.