Since reviewers thought the main character of her last romance novel, “My Heart Sings,” was either too smart, wore too many impossible hats, was too rich, or perhaps just too black, this author wanted to do a meet the MC and become more familiar with the mysteries connected to her varied DNA.
The world, especially Hollywood, has always been fascinated by the inexplicable, the unlikeable, or the misunderstood, i.e., like UFOs beaming up farm animals in spaceships. Some people believe that there are other peopled planets in outer space waiting to be discovered that would explain the mysteries of prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge. Or they may ask are The Crystal Skulls of Akator just Indiana Jones-type movie magic? Has the Lost City of Atlantis really been found in Cyprus? Did it ever exist? Do angels visit us on earth? Do aliens really walk among us?
In today’s world, the media is finally exposing youngsters going to college and even graduating at young ages. This is not a new thing, it’s just that it was not the in-thing to do to let the world know that there are smart people among us, especially when they are minorities. Keep in mind that Black people were denied an education for decades, they were thought to be dumb, unteachable, and unintelligent by those who consider themselves the master race. So, having a character who outshines the norm drew much criticism.
Let’s sit down and take notes on the research and development of the origination of the infamous Constantine Naedeyl Normandiq (Coni to her family and friends).
We learned about her tragic story from the first novel where she was kidnapped after being a witness to the murder of her father at the age of 12. She was forced to live with his dead body for three days in a boarded-up shack with no electricity. Upon her rescue, she waded through the murder of her father and the traumatic experience of her mom not being available to her because she was grieving her husband. A family friend, in an effort to lift her spirits, took Coni to see her daughter’s college commencement. This is where Coni caught the excelling bug, focusing all of her energies on excellence to keep her mind occupied. This fanaticism resulted in many firsts, i.e., graduating from college as a teenager, and collecting many degrees in different areas, and having the wisdom to make sound investment decisions, all of which allowed her to earn great wealth before she was 21. Let’s not forget that her parents and grandparents left trust funds for each of their children before they passed so she had never been destitute. That in itself is not an everyday thing in some minority communities. I’m not saying that to be gauche or to put anyone down, it’s just a fact that one minority, in particular, had to raise itself up by its borrowed, raggedy bootstraps just to eat. There was no money for generations to send the kids to college, and, of course, for generations, it was even against the law for this particular minority to even get an education. So, she believed in the power of compounding interest. Get the picture?
She did all this as a citizen here in America, which was not her original home. She could have done more but she had to fit in, to go by the rules of the human race. She had already mystified the Mensa IQ measurement system. She couldn’t prove herself to be too, too smart and waltz through higher learning institutions in a week or a day, which she knew was highly possible.
I challenge you to follow her story and see how she gave back (or paid it forward) from the goodness of her heart. How she used her musical ear to gift a special group of musicians with extraordinary lives.
