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Emily Deschanel as Dr. Temperance Brennan

Temperance Brennan is a fictional character created by author Kathy Reichs. She appears in a number of crime novels, beginning with Déjà Dead (1997). Since then, she has appeared in 8 more books. The latest work to feature Temperance Brennan, Break no Bones was released in mid-July 2006.

In these novels Dr. Temperance Brennan is a Forensic anthropologist, as is the author. Also like her creator she divides her time between work in North Carolina, and working in Montreal for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. She is divorced and has a daughter called Katy. Throughout the books, she is constantly meeting with Detective Andrew Ryan and has developed a romance with him.

Dr. Temperance Brennan also appears as the main character in the fictional television series Bones, very loosely based on the work of Kathy Reichs. However, the Brennan of Bones is substantially different from the Brennan of the books, among other things working in Washington D.C. rather than Montreal, Quebec. In the TV series Temperance Brennan writes books about the 'fictional' anthropologist Kathy Reichs. Fans should note, however, that in the series' pilot, Brennan says that the closest other forensic anthropologist is in Montreal. Another obvious parallel is with Temple Grandin, the famous livestock genius and famous for having autism, in which high intelligence is coupled with a lack of social skills. She is an atheist, rather cynical about religion, and believes in the death penalty.

The television version of Temperance Brennan was paired with Special Agent Seeley Booth in the pilot episode who nicknames her "Bones", and the two thus-far seem to have a fairly comfortable working relationship, despite the differences in their personalities and the mild sexual tension evident between them. There are currently two seasons of "Bones".

Temperance Brennan (television version) mostly confides in her best friend and fellow co-worker, forensic artist Angela Montenegro. Aside from Angela, Dr. Brennan has a band of 'squints' (a term given by Agent Booth to describe what scientists do -- "they squint at things"), specifically entomology expert Dr. Jack Hodgins, and Tempe's young assistant/grad student, Zack Addy.

Temperance has an older brother names Russ Brennan. When she was fifteen and Russ was nineteen, their parents went out and never came back. In the episode aired May 17, 2006 it was revealed Temperance Brennan's birth name was Joy Keenan. Her parents were bank robbers forced to change their names and go into hiding when they testified against other robbers in their group. Temperance Brennan discovers her mother's remains (which were actually in the Jeffersonian) and finally solves her murder in the final episode of Season 1. Temperance also reunites and makes up with her older brother Russ (formerly Kyle Keenan). In Judas on a Pole (Season 2, Episode 11), Temperance's father finally surfaces when Temperance and the others investigate a murder he committed to protect her and Russ. Temperance's father, Max, disappears as quickly as he surfaced- this time taking Russ with him.

Despite her extensive knowledge of anthropology, she is quite unaware of pop culture, and her coworkers, particularly Booth, like to tease her about this. A running gag on the series is someone making an obvious popular culture reference and she blankly states "I don't know what that means", and she is somewhat excited on the rare occasion that she does understand them. She also somewhat lacks social skills and has trouble understanding jokes and sarcasm.

Temperance has begun to demonstrate some changes in her manner when she is with Booth, for example, in Episode 8 of Season 2, she refers to the rest of the team as "our squints" even though the term 'squints' is predominately used by Booth when he describes the team, Brennan included.

Temperance "Bones" Brennan's favorite music group is Massive Attack