Through the pages of her mother’s diary, Sugar steps into a past shaped by faith, ambition, and rebellion.

July 3, 2001. Mae is young, gifted, and restless—singing hymns beneath church rafters while dreaming of stages far beyond her small town. Raised under the strict watch of her father, a Reverend who believes music belongs only to God, Mae quietly nurtures a hunger for more: bright lights, city streets, and a life where her voice can be fully heard.

As Mae reflects on her great-grandmother’s abandoned dreams and vows never to make the same mistakes, her diary reveals the first cracks in a destiny already forming. A band. A choice. A belief that talent and determination will lead her to freedom.

But as Sugar reads on, she begins to recognize the painful irony woven through her mother’s words. The very fame Mae chased to escape limitation would one day become a cage—one that shaped both their lives.

Chapter Two — Mae explores the inheritance of ambition, the conflict between faith and desire, and the moment a dream takes its first irreversible step forward.

Under blinding lights and thunderous applause, Sugar is everything the world adores—a global sensation at the height of her power. But when the stage goes dark and the crowd fades away, the truth is far quieter.

Behind the flawless performances and carefully crafted image lies a woman who no longer knows where the act ends and she begins. Groomed for stardom by her mother, Mae, Sugar has spent her life fulfilling someone else’s dream, paying a price no one ever warned her about.

As she retreats into the silence of a limousine after another sold-out show, Sugar turns not to her own diary—but to her mother’s. Within those worn pages are the fragments of a past she never fully understood, and the first clues to the cost of fame, ambition, and love entangled.

The Price of Fame begins with a question whispered beneath the applause: What happens when success costs you yourself?