Three women in three very different eras share one
very similar experience.
The stories of the three leading ladies in
Cynthia Rutchi’s When the Morning Glory Blooms
(Abingdon Press) take place in three different
years—2012, 1951 and 1890. Cynthia uses the
three narratives of her characters to tell a vivid
and heart-wrenching story of love, loss and hope.
“I knew I was taking a risk weaving three eras
together from three viewpoint characters,” she
says. “If my mom were still alive, she’d shake
her finger at me and say, ‘Now, you know those
kinds of stories drive me crazy!’ I tried not
writing When the Morning Glory Blooms that
way. It insisted.”
In 1890, Anna rehabilitates an inherited mansion
to give unwed mothers a safe haven. Ivy, in
1951, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant while
her fiancé is deported during the Korean Conflict.
Becky, in 2012, quits her job as a top magazine editor
to raise the grandson of her teenage daughter.
All three stories share a theme of unexpected
pregnancy. “The news that a baby is on its way
can either thrill or devastate, or both. The details
of the stories may be different, but whether in
a prim Victorian setting or a
send-her-off-to-live-with-Aunt-
Brenda 1950s or today’s high
school graduation gowns with
room for a baby bump, the path
the heart takes is remarkably
similar.”
Cynthia says there is much
to learn from the past: “We’re
intertwined with choices made
in the past. We’re linked heart-to-heart with women who bore
and lost babies hundreds of
years ago. Pain and emotional
trauma may change shape
from century to century, but
the common threads of longing
and hope are undeniable.”