Version: 1.6

Kyra

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Kyra is a successful real estate agent while Delaney keeps house, looks after her son from her first marriage, and writes his nature column
She is on her second marriage — Jordan is her son from her first husband
Of the novel's four main characters, Kyra has the fewest sections dedicated to her perspective, making her a less fully developed character than the others
She lives a very comfortable, ordered life in Arroyo Blanco and is deeply invested in protecting that lifestyle

She is described as a driven, highly motivated person who is almost exclusively career-oriented — she loves the high she gets from selling a house
She is selfish and focused on her business success above all else, and seldom shows tenderness or love for Delaney — she seems to view him more like an employee whose job is to keep the household running and care for her son
She has a genuine and passionate love for animals — she is devastated by the loss of her dogs and confronts a stranger in a restaurant car park for leaving his dog in a hot car
However, this compassion does not extend to people — particularly immigrants — which is one of the novel's sharpest ironies

Her main goal throughout the novel is professional success — she works extremely hard and spends more time on her properties than with her family
She deeply values order, cleanliness, and property values — anything that threatens these things is a problem to be solved
She is acutely aware of any potential threats to the value of her properties, including those she perceives to be posed by immigrants, whom she sees as a blight on the community
She occasionally questions whether she spends too much time at work and not enough with her son — but never follows through on changing this

Kyra's anti-immigrant feelings are driven primarily by self-interest rather than open hatred
Her desire to shut down the local labour exchange where day labourers gather is more out of selfish reasons — she worries about how it might look to potential real estate clients
When she thinks about the growing number of Latino men in the area, she frames it as "simple business sense" rather than racism — telling herself that everybody has a right to live, but that there has to be a limit
After losing both her dogs to coyotes and encountering two threatening men at the Da Ros house, she becomes the strongest voice in the neighbourhood calling for the stucco wall to be built

Kyra displays a deep love of animals — yet this is sharply contrasted with her next action of clearing out the street corner where Mexican immigrants stand looking for work
She fights loudly for a dog locked in a car but feels nothing for human beings standing outside a petrol station in the heat, simply trying to find a day's work
This contrast — caring more about animals than people — is one of the most striking and uncomfortable things about her character

Kyra represents a particular kind of prejudice: one that is not based on obvious hatred but on money, comfort, and self-interest
She is, in some ways, more coldly calculating than Delaney — she never had the same liberal values to lose, so her transformation is less dramatic but perhaps more honest
She serves as a contrast to América: both are women central to their families, but Kyra has wealth, power, and protection, while América has none of these things
The fact that Kyra's cats and dogs end up with América and Cándido — Dame Edith acting as midwife, the dogs' kennel being raided for materials — quietly connects the two families in ways Kyra never realises or would ever accept