Norma Ever After

Once upon a time, specifically our time, there lived an ordinary commoner named Norma Dale. Hovering near thirty, Norma no longer expected passion, or even romance. Not since puberty and the retirement of her single Ken doll and his harem of Barbies. . . .

When Norma’s father leaves her a sea chest brimming with cash, and her beloved plush puffin from childhood, she takes the old stuffed bird as a sign– and decides that it’s high time she started believing in fairy tales. Particularly, the ones her father used to tell her about the mystical Orkney Islands.

So Norma travels to the far north of Scotland, where she discovers that nesting puffins are indeed real. And, unbelievably, so are the handsome men of the heather she’s always dreamed of . . . and they’re looking in her direction.

Suddenly, Norma feels sexy. Not go-go boots and hot pants sexy; more mysterious, like a lithe and lovely young Catherine from Wuthering Heights sexy (minus the dead part). But there’s more than one Heathcliff on these moors. Will she choose the brooding artist, the brash Texan, or the sensitive professor? If those Barbies could see her now. . . .

Nancy Baxter lives in Austin, Texas. She is the author of Norma Ever After and Made in Trinidad.