Great Falls author Jamie Ford says it took him years to get out from the shadow of his first book, New York Times bestseller “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.”

Now, he’s traded that shadow in for an even bigger one.

On Aug. 15, Ford appeared on the Today Show after being picked by co-host Jenna Bush Hager for the Read with Jenna Book Club.

If that wasn’t enough, Bush Hager announced that her production company has optioned Ford’s new book, “The Many Daughters of Afong Moy,” for a TV series.

The book isn’t the first of Ford’s that has been optioned for the screen, but the production of “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” has been stalled for years. Ford said the option from Bush Hager seems much more possible.

“I feel like Cinderella and the clock's never going to strike midnight,” Ford told Bush Hager on the show.

Ford was more excited than nervous to be on Today, he said, but it still wasn't his usual authorly adventure. He had a driver who took him from the hotel to the studio − a total distance of about five blocks. He was whisked into a secret, unmarked entrance to the studio. His dressing room was next to Sheryl Crow, although he didn't get to meet her.

"Everyone, they just take great care of you," Ford said. "(Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb) are very disarming, and afterwards I realized that if anyone is going to be a Today Show personality, you have to be a people person. You have to be very approachable and genuine."

Ford followed up the appearance with a longer interview broadcast on Xfinity and an evening bookstore event.

Compared to his first book, which was a sleeper hit, Ford said the immediate momentum of this book has been a relief because you never know how a work will do until it's out there. He said he still had some leftover insecurities after his last book, which wasn't as well-received.

"It wasn't until I'm walking around Times Square looking at the billboard that I turned to my agent and I said, 'I think this book might be OK. I'm starting to believe it now,'" he said.

Ford found out he was going to be on Today in an unconventional way. He said he was on Zoom with a library, talking to the librarian and 40 or so patrons — a regular gig, in other words.

Afterward, he got a message from his publicist saying that his book was being considered for the show and that there had been a bunch of producers listening in on the Zoom call.

“And that’s how I found out,” he said, laughing.

Ford calls his latest book his “epigenetic love story.” He said it’s a book about inherited trauma that features Afong Moy, the first known Chinese woman in the United States. Ford created ancestors and descendants for Afong Moy to fashion a generation-spanning story that’s both historical and speculative.

“The Many Daughters of Afong Moy,” which features six point-of-view characters in six different time periods, is set all over the world and is not written chronologically. That meant a ton of research and juggling from Ford to make it work.

“This one, I really wanted to kick the training wheels off and write a much more complicated book,” Ford said. “If my first book was my freshman book, this is my senior book.”

Ford said he’s known about Afong Moy since the 1990s and had wanted to write about her. However, her story has a tragic ending, and there’s not much that’s really known about her life.

Afong Moy gave performances across America giving audiences bits and pieces of Chinese culture, including foot binding, the use of chopsticks and traditional Chinese songs and dress. She was written about in hundreds of newspapers, Ford said, but never in her own voice. Instead, the people who were monetizing her spoke for her.

Ford said Afong Moy was celebrated and had fame, “and yet she had no autonomy, so she was really living in a golden cage.”

Through his novel, Ford had a chance to extend her story and give her descendants a more redemptive ending.Ford said he’s often asked what he does to create authentic female characters.

“The specific thing I did was live my entire life as just a very sensitive, overly emotive person,” he said. “Being this proto-emo kid in high school that cries at sad movies, it’s not a beneficial character trait in high school, which is more about how far you can throw a football and how much you can bench press. But that sensitivity, I thought it was my weakness, but it became my superpower as an adult.”

Ford said he also has an outstanding female editor and couldn’t imagine a man editing his books.

Going on Today didn’t make Ford nervous. Instead, it was a four-minute video about him and his life that gave him a sleepless night before it was released. He said he didn’t get to see it before it became public, so it was a nerve-racking experience. The final result blew him away, though. He said he absolutely loved it.

Ford still lives in Great Falls, and he talked a little bit about the level of worldwide fame he’s received. When he went on Today, he signed a copy for Bush Hager’s mother, former First Lady Laura Bush. He calls the feeling “surreal.”

“It’s weird,” he said. “I just like to write books. I like the process of writing. That feels good. The fact that someone else wants to read them and they have nice things to say, that’s just like icing on the cake. But the cake itself is pretty filling.”

Ford’s gotten pretty used to his notoriety in the U.S., but he said he’s blown away to get emails from readers in other countries where his books have been translated. He’s also fond of getting feedback from people who are from the same culture as his characters because they have a deeper level of understanding of his writing.

So far, some highlights of Ford’s nationwide book tour include its launch in Seattle. It was at the same bookstore where his first book launched, bringing this part of Ford’s story full-circle.

At a recent engagement in Denver, Ford said he was shown a group of books with misprinted covers because the cyan ink was fading.

“It was like a pack of Life Savers,” Ford said. “It was so cool. It’s a silly little thing but I was just delighted to see that.”

Ford’s been traveling a lot on this book tour, so he’s excited to get back home for his Aug. 25 author event at Cassiopeia Books downtown.

“It’s cool to be out here, but it’s also cool to do an event down at Cassiopeia, see a lot of people in the crowd that I know and then sleep in my own bed,” he said.