IGH Author Publishes 'Dark, Paranormal Love Story'

Editor's note: The following article contains excerpts from a press release.

A two-year bout with writer's block recently paved the way for an Inver Grove Heights author to publish his first fiction novel.

George Michael Brown—daytime events supervisor at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts—recently released A Rose for Cheryl, "a dark, paranormal love story ... an exciting tale of love, trust and fate." 

According to a press release:

A Rose for Cheryl weaves together a modern day love affair with the story of two star-crossed lovers from the nineteenth century, bound together even in death.

[The novel] explores a number of what-ifs: What if a man and a woman fell in love in a chat room? What if he wanted to meet her but she refused? Add to that a supernatural twist and you have the stuff of good fiction.   

Brown describes the relationship between the main characters in a Q&A: 

Jim and Cheryl are like many who have never found their true love: someone who loves them for what and who they are. They also have an anxiety about meeting new people since they have both experienced rejection and embarrassment in the past. Because of past incidents, Cheryl has a complete mistrust of men. Both have been married before. Jim married because he decided to do the right thing when his girlfriend became pregnant; Cheryl because she thought she had found her 'forever lover.'

"I strongly believe that love can overcome distance," Brown said in the release. "It happens all the time. But what about time? Can love be so powerful an emotion that two spirits that were in love in the past can succeed in locating each other in the present?"

The book began as a short story Brown put together while struggling with an extended case of writer's block. But, according to the author, he liked the end result so much that he used it as an outline for the full-length novel. 

A Rose for Cheryl was published by The Small Press, a division of Brown Books Publishing Group and retails on Amazon for $9.99.