Rachel Stanislaski

Rachel Stanislaski
Rachel Stanislaski
Occupation	Public defender; later judge
First appearance	''Taming Natasha'' (mentioned); ''Falling for Rachel''
Series	[[The Stanislaskis]]
Books	Falling for Rachel, Considering Kate (mentioned)
Family	Yuri Stanislaski (father), Nadia Stanislaski (mother), Natasha Stanislaski (sister), Mikhail Stanislaski (brother), Alex Stanislaski (brother), Gideon Muldoon (son)

Rachel Stanislaski is a character in Nora Roberts' The Stanislaskis. The youngest child of Yuri and Nadia — and the only one born in the United States — she is a sharp, ambitious public defender, and the heroine of Falling for Rachel, the third book in the series.

Overview

Rachel is fiery, principled, and quick with a retort, with a work ethic that borders on consuming. Assigned to look after the legal interests of teenage delinquent Nick LeBeck, she finds her professional focus upended by his hot-headed older stepbrother, Zack Muldoon — and, eventually, by the case itself, which sets in motion Nick's path into the Stanislaski family.

Background

Rachel is the youngest of Yuri and Nadia's four children, and the only one born after the family settled in America, sparing her the memories of fear and flight that shaped her older siblings' early childhoods. Perhaps because of this, she has thrown herself wholeheartedly into the opportunities of her American upbringing, building a career as a public defender devoted to giving people — particularly kids like Nick LeBeck — a fair shot.

She shares a close, teasing bond with her eldest sister, Natasha, with whom she shared a childhood bedroom, and is protective of and protected by her older brothers, Mikhail and Alex.

Personality

Rachel is sharp-tongued, principled, and almost compulsively devoted to her work — to the point that the people who love her worry she doesn't make enough room for anything else. She has a strong sense of justice and fairness, inherited from a family that knows what it means to need a fair shot, and she does not back down easily from a fight, whether in the courtroom or in her personal life.

Story Arc

Falling for Rachel

Rachel's book. Assigned to represent teenage gang member Nick LeBeck, she finds his older stepbrother, bar owner Zack Muldoon, storming into her professional life as well. Rachel and Zack's chemistry is immediate and inconvenient; her arc is about letting that connection — and her growing personal investment in Nick's case — pull her out of the all-consuming focus on work and into a fuller life.

Later Books

By Considering Kate, Rachel has become a judge and is married to Zack, with a son, Gideon. She appears at the family's gathering for Kate's wedding good-humoredly explaining the sprawling Stanislaski family tree to a bewildered Brody O'Connell.

Relationships

Zackary "Zack" Muldoon

Rachel's husband, a bar owner whose hot-headed entrance into her courtroom — defending his troubled younger stepbrother, Nick — sets their relationship in motion. Their marriage produces a son, Gideon.

Nick LeBeck

The teenage client whose case brings Rachel into the orbit of both Zack and, eventually, the rest of the Stanislaski family's informal adoption of Nick. Rachel's professional advocacy for Nick is the hinge on which the whole next generation of the family's story turns.

Natasha Stanislaski

Rachel's older sister and closest childhood confidante, with whom she shares the family's playful, dramatic streak.

Physical Description

Rachel has tawny eyes and a quick, expressive face that shows her temper as readily as her humor.

Trivia

Rachel is the only Stanislaski sibling born in the United States rather than the Ukraine or in transit.
Her professional relationship with Nick LeBeck in Falling for Rachel is the seed of his eventual full adoption into the Stanislaski family in Waiting for Nick.
She is later established as a judge, a notable step up from her career as a public defender in her own book.