Ray Smith contacted me all the way from the West Coast about his book and I was intrigued from the title alone! I enjoy sharing the work of other romance authors, so please take it away, Ray!
Thank you, Nancy, for offering a space on your excellent blog for my love story. The Magnolia That Bloomed Unseen was published in eBook and more recently (January 2020) in print by Upon the Sea Books. They are available on Amazon. I describe the novel below:
Book Blurb
“You’ve seen the woman in the photo. The woman screaming . . .”
“You’ve seen the woman in the photo. The woman screaming . . .”
So begins the story of Molly Valle, who at forty-eight thinks she knows all that life has to offer a single, middle-aged woman—namely, men’s dismissal and disrespect. But when handsome activist John Pressman arrives in her Mississippi hometown, he challenges her self-doubt along with nearly everything else in her world. Soon, Molly discovers a strength and beauty she never knew she had—and a love so powerful, it can overcome the most tragic of consequences.
The Magnolia That Bloomed Unseen is a love story, an adventure novel, and a self-realization journey. It reignites the truth that many women—and men—have unconsciously extinguished: you are special and worthy of love, and it’s never too late to make your dreams come true.
Excerpt from The Magnolia That Bloomed Unseen
So, so unfair, she had thought, how short that magical moment was, not even a quarter of the average woman’s lifespan. Her twentyish—or, worse, her teenage—self had been so naïve. To have assumed the spotlight would always be there, forever, like in a fairy tale. At thirty-five, she thought she had finally figured out what it meant to be a woman, and it was a return to the invisibility of prepubescent girlhood while remaining in a grown body and with a grown body’s responsibilities. Such was a woman’s life and fate.
Now, at forty-eight years of age, Molly realized her thirty-five-year-old self had been wrong. Staggeringly wrong. No, the spotlight had always been there—was indeed shining on her as she drove—and it would always be there. Her teenage and twentyish selves had been right, but they hadn’t understood how they’d been right.
The spotlight hadn’t dimmed as Molly aged but had changed its glow instead. It had grown more intense with each new experience, had become more personalized and distinguished. It was no longer the bland whitish light of youth, a light dictated by a ceaselessly shallow society and therefore able to be seen by everyone in such a society. No, hers at present was a spotlight with highly individualized rays that could no longer be seen by most men simply because most men’s eyes weren’t good enough to see them.
As she drove, she surprised herself with a sudden laugh. How blind, infinitely blind, she had been to think that men’s inability to see her forty-eight-year-old self was a regret or, worse, a failing on her own part. No, what it really was was a blessing, for that inability had separated the wheat from the chaff.
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More About the Author
Ray Smith lives in Los Angeles and is working on another book. Connect with him here: WEBSITE
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