Why Women Hate Me? by Mark Ridgely is about Jordi’s journey through life, experiencing success and failure, all the while trying to find lasting love.
For the purpose of the Authors’ Lounge, Why Women Hate Me? follows the adventures of Jordi McClintock from the beginning of his Freshman year in high school to the end of his working career. The manuscript started out as an indictment on the treatment of women in Russia. In addition, a friend provided emails he had with “mail order brides” and his letters with a girl in high school. I tried to meld them together into a story, but as the work progressed Jordi’s story turned into a trip through life, with success and failure. The Russian women became less important.
Each chapter is Jordi’s experience with a woman. He meets Laura Bader, falls head over heels in love. At the end of their senior year in high school she breaks up with him. He’s thrown by the reality, but it haunts him, she continues to haunt him throughout his life. Starting with Stanford University, starting new ventures, moving to Chicago, then Charlotte, the harder he tries to involve himself with a woman, the worse his experience. His business acumen excelled, creating and selling several businesses for millions. The poor experiences with women are offset by his business success. At points in his life, he blocks out personal relationships entirely to focus on business, which explains his attempts to meet Russian women. From time to time he ventures out to involve himself with a woman, only to be reacquainted with rejection and disaster.
What happens if a young wealthy man earns a lot of money and nothing to spend it on? How would he spend it? What if a recently divorced employee is desperate to have a baby with no prospects of finding a father? Jordi answers the questions with his contrasting life.
The stories from people I’ve observed and talked to gave me ideas for this book. A funny personal story can become a scene in a book. The story does not contain sex or graphic violence, which opens the readership market to a wider age group.
The reader is taken through the life of Jordi, you feel his frustration and sadness with every failure and success. I hope they understand life isn’t a game, the score doesn’t matter. The people met along the way provides exciting journey called life.
Why Women Hate Me? is my second novel. I am learning how to market a book in a distinctly crowded and monopolistic industry. I hope to find ways to promote it to women readers and men interested in the life of a wealthy geek. I want to see it on a bookshelf in a bookstore. When this story is discussed in a social environment, the title grabs everyone’s attention. The different stories provide great fun to the listeners. Who doesn’t want to know Why Women Hate Me? It is a natural curiosity driving readers to the title and the cover.
I am an author of seven novels. Currently two are published on Amazon. A third, War Book, is a James Bond-type novel releasing this fall. The other four, Center Cut, Leaderboard, Red Cell and The Drive Toward Magnolia Lane are a series that will see the light of day in a year. I am hoping to find a publisher willing to take a serious look at an older author with several unpublished novels. If not, they will go on the large pile of Amazon self-published novels.
In real life I am an operations manager of a warehouse in Ohio. Ava, my English Setter, provides constant vigilance as I write in silence. My wife and daughters laugh at my stories and begrudgingly give me time and space to hone my craft.