How do you see yourself? Do you constantly compare yourself to other women? Do you strive to be super-mom, super-wife, super-employee, super-boss? Do you come up short? If you’re like most women—and like me—you have an image of yourself that is, at the least, inaccurate or a downright lie.
Instead of seeing ourselves as God created us—unique, special, one-of-a-kind, loved unconditionally—we believe the world’s standards of how we should be—beautiful, accomplished, and able to do everything without ever failing.
But the world’s standard is flawed. The world’s love is conditional. And that conditional depends on our works and how we stack up. And that, my friends, is a lose-lose situation.
That’s what happened to Cora Fitzgerald in On Sugar Hill. Her abusive father’s constant criticism left her believing she wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t pretty enough. Would never be accomplished at what her father thought was proper.
At sixteen, Cora fled Sugar Hill for the bright lights of vaudeville, where she was able to use her unusual talent, the one her father tried to beat out of her because it embarrassed him. On the stage, she became someone else, a girl whom make-up made beautiful. She became Dixie Lynn instead of plain Cora.
But a good, satisfying life can’t be built on lies or substitutes. Cora’s mother always told her she was like the garden faerie, Sugar Pie, who lived in their yard. When the Michaelmas daisies bloomed, the Sugar Pie became beautiful—just like Cora would when she bloomed. But her father’s words drowned out her mother’s. Cora tried to substitute an audience’s love for what was missing in her life.
Ask God to help you see yourself as He sees you. Believe that He loves you unconditionally, not for what you are but WHO you are. His.
She traded Sugar Hill for Vaudeville. Now she’s back.
The day Cora Fitzgerald turned sixteen, she fled Sugar Hill for the bright lights of Vaudeville, leaving behind her senator-father’s verbal abuse. But just as her career takes off, she’s summoned back home. And everything changes.
The stock market crashes. The senator is dead. Her mother is delusional, and her mute Aunt Clara pens novels that have people talking. Then there’s Boone Robertson, who never knew she was alive back in high school, but now manages to be around whenever she needs help.
Will the people of her past keep her from a brilliant future?
Ane Mulligan has been a voracious reader ever since her mom instilled within her a love of reading at age three, escaping into worlds otherwise unknown. But when Ane saw PETER PAN on stage, she was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. She submerged herself in drama through high school and college. One day, her two loves collided, and a bestselling, award-winning novelist emerged. She lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her Facebook, BookBub, Goodreads, and Twitter.