What if the love that changes everything arrives quietly… after you've stopped believing you need it?

★★★★★ "Serena's struggle between protecting her legacy and opening her heart felt painfully real. A gorgeous, deeply moving story about love, identity, art, and belonging."

From award-winning author Mollie Mathews comes The Color of Serenity (Prequel)—a sweeping, emotionally rich later-in-life romance set against the lush beauty of Panama and the glamorous world of international luxury hotels, art, and design.

Internationally renowned art curator Serena Steele has spent years building a life of beauty, discipline, and control. Traveling the world commissioning museum-worthy art collections for billionaires, luxury resorts, and iconic developments from Paris to Bali, New York to the Caribbean, she has learned to trust her instincts—never her heart.

Love, in Serena's experience, has always come at a cost.

After surviving relationships filled with chaos, betrayal, and emotional devastation, she has carefully rebuilt her life around one thing she can control: her work.

So when she is invited to Panama to curate the permanent art and sculpture collection for an extraordinary new luxury wellness resort in the mountains of El Valle de Antón, Serena knows this is more than another prestigious commission. It is the legacy project she has been waiting for her entire career.

A place of serenity.
Healing.
Transformation.

A project that could finally define her life's work.

What Serena does not anticipate is Mateo Álvarez. Powerful, enigmatic, and quietly magnetic, the billionaire developer behind the resort is unlike any man she has ever known. Mateo does not try to impress her with grand gestures or force his way into her carefully ordered world. Instead, he sees her. Beneath the polished exterior. Beneath the independence and control. Beneath the fortress she has spent years building around her heart.

And that terrifies her.

Because Serena has come to believe something fiercely:
That if she allows herself to truly love again, she risks losing everything she has worked for.

As the tropical beauty of Panama begins to work its quiet magic, Serena finds herself drawn into a world of breathtaking landscapes, luxurious hideaways, soulful conversations, and a man gentle enough to irrevocably disturb the carefully rebuilt life she thought she wanted.

But can a woman who has only known love through pain learn to trust the unfamiliar peace of being cherished? Or will fear convince her to walk away from the very thing her heart has been longing for?

Perfect for readers of:

later-in-life romance
emotional healing and second chances
slow-burn, tender love stories
emotionally rich women's fiction
glamorous international settings
clean and wholesome romance with emotional depth

The Color of Serenity is a deeply romantic story about healing, belonging, and discovering that the greatest love of all may be the one that finally allows you to rest.

This prequel introduces Serena and Mateo before the full-length novel releases soon.

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