THE STORY
A family history. A young woman’s rebellion. A ghost who knows the past.
Petronia Slater's life has been plotted out for her since birth. As the daughter of successful Black builder and landowner Alonzo Slater, she has been raised to understand her family's expectations—and her place within them.
But Petronia longs for something more. When curiosity about her mother's mysterious past leads her into a disreputable Atlanta neighborhood, she meets Ben Simmons, a young doctor, and begins to imagine a life beyond the one her family has chosen for her.
Then history—and her family’s ghost—has other ideas.
THE WORLD OF THE NOVEL
ATLANTA - 1906
A city changing. A family rising. A past that will not remain hidden.
In 1906, Atlanta was a city of enormous promise and profound contradiction. Black Atlantans were building businesses, institutions, homes, and futures while confronting the violence and restrictions of Jim Crow.
It is within this world that Petronia’s story unfolds.
THE FAMILY HISTORY
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
The characters and setting of A Ghost Among Magnolias are rooted in the author's family history.
What began with the stories, places, and people of one Georgia family became the inspiration for a novel about memory, ambition, love, and the inheritance of the past.
Though Petronia’s story is fiction, the world that inspired it is grounded in lives that were real.
THE AUTHOR
A Ghost Among Magnolias grew from the author's interest in those stories, places, and people woven into his own family history. Through fiction, he brings those fragments of the past into conversation with the present, imagining the lives behind the names and histories passed down through generations.
A GHOST AMONG MAGNOLIAS
Some stories live in the past. Some stories refuse to stay there.
© 2026 James Slater Simmons, III