That said, Raymond had actually seen people do this when he was a kid. But now that he was 25, did he really have to do something this childish?
Under the expectant gazes of the two kids, Raymond had no choice but to steel himself, stick out his pinky, and hook it with Jolene’s—thumbs touching—with a look of utter resignation as he said, “Pinky swear, if you lie, you get your eyes poked with a needle.”
Jolene said the same thing at the same time. After they finished, both adults awkwardly let go and returned to their spots as if nothing had happened.
But the two kids cheered like they’d just completed some sacred ritual. “Whoohoo! Let’s keep playing!”
Thankfully, from then on, Ben never cried over losing a game again.
That night, after reading picture books to the kids, Jolene went back to the living room to start outlining her next book.
Yes—after two days of bookstore browsing, Jolene had decided to write a women’s fiction novel. If this first book sold, the readers with the strongest connection would be married housewives. If she wanted to build her readership, she needed to hold onto that audience.
So for her next book, Jolene planned to write a similar theme—the female lead was still a divorced single mom, but this time with three kids. Instead of revenge, the father had passed away, and the story was about how she turned her life around after relying on welfare.
This fit nicely with the emerging trend of women’s empowerment and aligned with mainstream values of independence and autonomy. To get published, there had to be some depth, but she still had to leverage her “single mom” persona and meet her readers’ expectations.
With her topic decided, Jolene started drafting the outline:
The female lead’s name is Amy, and she has three children—ages 7, 5, and 2.
Amy had a happy family until her husband suddenly passed away in an accident. Overnight, she had to care for three kids while facing financial hardships.
But the problem was that Amy had been out of the workforce for too long—ten years as a stay-at-home mom. Their savings quickly ran out.
To support her kids, Amy sent out resumes everywhere, but kept hitting dead ends. By chance, she learned from the widow of her husband’s coworker that there was a compensation fund for children until age 18. When she reviewed her husband’s pay stubs, she discovered his insurance premiums were much higher than the legal minimum—and decided to sue the company to get the full compensation.
But she couldn’t afford a lawyer—she couldn’t even afford to photocopy evidence.
Amy thought of rallying other employees and families for a class-action lawsuit, starting with her own case.
That would lighten her burden—but as she gathered compensation records and pay stubs, she faced threats from the big company, obstruction, and distrust from others.
In the end, through repeated visits, she collected enough evidence, used community newspapers, local TV, and held protests outside the company to draw media attention. She helped employees who hadn’t received full compensation—due to the company failing to pay legally required workman’s comp and hiding traps in contracts—ultimately winning them substantial settlements.
Amy transformed from a struggling single mom into a guardian of justice, proving that persistence could bring enormous change.
She later became famous, walked the path of justice, and even helped a retired woman win $2 million from a tire company over unequal pay—overturning a Supreme Court ruling and establishing a clear legal precedent for equal pay for women.
After finishing the outline, Jolene still needed to gather relevant research. Originally, she’d thought of writing about a single mom who started a party-planning business for wealthy women—but that lacked conflict and real-world significance.
So she shifted the conflict to the classic struggle between ordinary people and powerful corporations, highlighting the strength of women who persevere. After the civil rights movement, grassroots mobilization and litigation were two powerful tools available to the underprivileged.
That would give lower-income readers even more of a connection.
After reviewing her outline, Jolene stood up and stretched—twisting her hips and moving around. This was a habit she’d developed in her past life: every hour of writing, she had to get up and walk around.
Just as she was wiggling her hips, she locked eyes with Raymond, who happened to be coming downstairs.
Jolene: “…”
This was the second awkward moment today—first the childish pinky swear, now this…
“Hey!” Jolene stopped moving. She’d been careless—forgetting she was living in someone else’s house and working as a live-in nanny.
Raymond nodded. He knew she wrote something downstairs every night, though he didn’t know what it was—and he didn’t pry into others’ private matters.
Watching her employer head back upstairs, Jolene rested her forehead on her hand and prayed her book would sell big. Then she could support herself and Emma through writing, buy her own house, sleep in as late as she wanted, and take Emma on trips whenever she wanted—no more racking her brain trying to communicate with someone else’s kids…
To be honest, if Ben were her own kid, Jolene probably wouldn’t have that much patience. That was exactly the main reason she hadn’t wanted to get married in her past life.
Clenching her fist, Jolene stretched and picked up her outline, planning to head to the library tomorrow to do research and flesh it out.
Random House was incredibly efficient. Within just a few days, Jolene received her sample copy.
Her pen name was J. Lynne—distinct from her real name, but similar to her Chinese name.
The book sold for $10, a thin paperback with a very simple cover: a blue background with two black silhouettes—a woman on the left and a man in a suit on the right. It was the kind of cover you could tell was a cheap stock photo bought from a library.
Still, the print quality was decent enough for reading. Jolene had to keep her expectations in check—this was just the beginning. Maybe sales would turn out okay.
She’d heard that New York had launched the new-book period two days ago, and San Francisco would get stock today.
Early that morning, after dropping the kids off, Jolene went to the bookstore to look for her book.
This Noble bookstore was the largest in the area, and Random House—being a major publisher—had partnerships with big bookstores like this.
Soon, Jolene spotted her book in the new-release section. It wasn’t in a prime spot—probably because Random House didn’t have high hopes for it—and the cover wasn’t eye-catching at all.
Jolene immediately started worrying about sales. If there was only one day of new-release placement, then after that, it’d be up to Brian to figure out promotion.
She bought a copy of The Ex-Wife’s Revenge herself—$10.
Then, on a whim, she stood in a prominent spot in the store, holding the book with its cover facing out, and started reading.
This was her first time publishing a book in the U.S., and in English—it felt surreal.
Since she’d written every word herself—especially the first three chapters, which she’d revised countless times—she could tell there was still a gap in prose quality compared to other books. After all, English wasn’t her native language, and the original owner’s education had been average. The only reason this book got published was the concept, timed with this year’s movie marketing and the “correct” messaging—the publisher was testing the waters.
She read all morning. Maybe because she was so absorbed, she did draw a few browsers. But in the end, only two people actually bought the book.
Selling two copies felt lucky already—after all, there were thousands of books in this huge store.
Back home, Jolene wondered when Brian would call with sales figures. She was almost afraid to ask—scared he’d tell her sales were dismal.
And yes, Brian didn’t really want to call either—because sales were indeed terrible.
But the next day, Brian did call Jolene—at least to let her know whether the book had flopped or made money, so she could brace herself.
So even though Jolene had already prepared for a flop, the total of 43 copies sold over three days was still shocking.
It was a huge blow to an experienced author’s confidence. For a moment, Jolene felt she might as well just be a nanny—at least that job was easy and paid decently…
“Okay, I understand,” Jolene said, taking a deep breath. “It doesn’t look like there’ll be a reprint. Still, thank you for believing in this book.”
Brian sounded resigned too. “The publisher didn’t want to promote it. You know, this might be the peak of its sales.”
After hanging up, Jolene figured Brian had probably given up too. She’d likely have to go door-to-door submitting her next book again.
Which meant she was basically using her nanny salary to fund her writing career—paying to write books?
Oh well. It wasn’t like she’d never flopped in her past life. Writing was a journey of ups and downs—mostly downs. She’d get used to it.
She turned around to pick up the kids, took them home to make lemonade, packed the cooler, and hurried to the swim school.
By now, Ben’s lemonade business had built a reputation—even stealing customers from the swim school’s vending machine. Many classmates came to buy from him during breaks. The vending machine only had soda—which wasn’t very refreshing—and the line was long. Ben’s lemonade was plentiful, cold, and tasty. Everyone liked it.
But Jolene wasn’t strong enough to carry more than 15 cups in the cooler—that was her limit.
Ben was now a little entrepreneur, making his own money.
To his credit, he was fair—since Jolene and Emma both contributed labor, he said he’d pay them wages.
Jolene found it both funny and touching. Emma, on the other hand, was genuinely excited. Ben handed each of them $20.
Jolene told Emma, “This is your salary—you keep it. You can buy whatever you want with it.”
Leave a Reply