Novel Asks, “When is it My Turn?”
WordCrafts Press and author Laura Mansfield are celebrating the release of her ethereal new Southern Fiction novella, A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing, which released to retail on February 29, 2024, in hardback, trade paperback, and all major ebook formats. Mansfield’s latest work gently tests the thin membrane between fiction and fable while embracing the mythic in the midst of life’s harsh realities, and ends up with a Southern literary fiction tale of longing, love, and resignation before ultimately embracing life with all its puckish mischief and inconsistencies.
“I think women, in particular, are always taking care of other people,” author Laura Mansfield muses. “We tend to be givers, and sometimes that happens at the expense of our own well-being. That is what sparked the idea behind A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing. It’s a story about self-care and self-love. Alice, the main character, is on a hero’s journey back to herself. What she finds along the way may surprise you. Yes, it’s a love story, but it’s a different kind of love story, full of joy and surprises. It’s a story about what happens next.”
Mansfield’s fans are already showing their approval for the novella, calling it “beautifully written,” “sweet and magical,” and “a beautifully woven tale.” A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing impacted multiple Amazon.com category sales charts, including debuting at Number 12 on the Hot New Releases in Metaphysical and Visionary Fiction chart; Number 12 on the Hot New Releases in Sea Stories chart, Number 66 on the Hot New Releases on Romance Literary Fiction Chart, and at Number 92 on the Hot New Releases on the Later in Life Romance chart.
From the Novel
The porch swing spoke to Alice.
Come sit and rock and read and relax. Watch the waves. Let the sounds of the sea hypnotize you and lull you into contentment, it whispered.
Could it really be that simple? Alice wondered.
Alice had led an eventful, if not an extraordinary, life. She was recovering from a disastrous second marriage, had been shaken to her core, had caved in on herself and crawled back out again. She had raised a son and watched him fly from the nest. She had cared for her aging parents and dutifully ushered them to the Pearly Gates, all while working at a series of demanding executive jobs.
Now, she wondered, is it, in fact, my turn? Even the thought felt naughty and selfish.
Alice’s reverie was interrupted by a still, small voice that said, “Hello.”
A little girl sat at her breakfast table; coltish brown legs dangling not quite to the floor, dirty bare feet swinging back and forth, a bracelet of seaweed woven around one delicate ankle. Alice thought the child could be no more than six or seven. She looked at once tiny and fragile and fierce and confident. Her hair was wild, wavy, windblown—the color of dune grass bleached by the sun and impossibly tangled in places. And there was something in her eyes, those exotic eyes, that made her seem an old soul, wise beyond her years. They seemed to shift sea green to dark navy to the softest shades of blue, the very color of the porch swing and the beach sky.
She had ocean eyes.
About Laura Mansfield
Laura Mansfield grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, surrounded by cats, books and good conversation. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Tennessee with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and later an MBA in finance. Formerly a professor of advertising and public relations at the UT, Laura has a flair for storytelling which informs her work in PR.
She’s also a certified yoga instructor and passionate yoga practitioner. Laura has one son, one dog and a cat named Karma.
Laura writes from her home in East Tennessee.
Recent Comments