My publisher informed me that the manuscript for Only Tim Sent Flowers finally popped up to the top of the editor’s to-do stack. This book is my first attempt at fiction, women’s or otherwise, which leaves me uncertain about how extensive her recommended changes will be. Tookie, my protagonist, is highly unusual, if not unique: undiagnosed Aspiegirl with girl next door exterior and Scarlett O’Hara interior. The editor’s comments may be my Christmas present. They will arrive embedded in my Word document. I will have to learn how to use the track changes feature because it is part of the publisher’s workflow and there will likely be two more rounds of editing on just this one book. I’ll have to get more than conversant with it because I’ve finished the first draft of the second book in the Tookie series and have written a few chapters for the third volume.

Follows is the synopsis for Only Tim Sent Flowers:

Only Tim Sent Flowers, a possible first volume for a Tookie series, is the 92,700-word story of an Aspie girl who fully embraces free love while raising herself from near poverty to a six-digit income with bumps and grinds along the way. My first women’s fiction book is lavishly blended with humor and explicit scenes, often combined for unexpected results.

Mary Louise, a bookish redhead nicknamed Tookie by her doting father, dispenses with Tim, her loving but far too serious and conventional first boyfriend, then thrusts herself groinfirst into the 1960s sexual revolution, pioneering concepts such as friends with benefits and serial monogamy while earning two college degrees in statistics. Tim gives Tookie, a freckle-faced 18-year-old virgin who doesn’t consider herself pretty, everything except what she wants most—sex and excitement. Tookie rejects Tim, whom she never completely forgets and who continues to love her, then engages in often humorous escapades with innumerable unsuitable lovers whom she seduces with her oral virtuosity.

Tookie, from whose POV ninety percent of Only Tim Sent Flowers is told, is a unique but captivating woman—girl next door exterior, Scarlett O’Hara interior, Susan Vance in the bedroom. Her story will likely resonate with female readers.