Toni Noel, welcome back to Romance Lives Forever. Let’s talk about
your book, Rising Above.

Genre: Historical Time Travel

Publisher: Desert Breeze Publishing

Cover artist: Carol Fiorillo

Length (words): 105,000

Heat rating: R

Tagline: A misfit tomboy goes back in time, compromises her reputation
with a disillusioned Pinkerton man who to her dismay insists on a marriage of convenience,
while she longs to return to her own time.

Blurb:

Bad weather cuts short Wilda Stone’s hot-air balloon race, throwing
her back into widowed lawman Hal Grantham’s time, the 1870’s. A sand storm forcing
them off Hal’s horse and into a cave where they spend two nights, compromising Wilda’s
reputation, and forcing Hal into a marriage of convenience. Once they make love
Wilda realizes she has fallen in love with the terse lawman and abandons all thought
of returning to the twenty-first century. Her stoic husband conceals his true feelings
for her. When diphtheria– the same disease responsible for taking his first wife
and son — threatens the silver mining town of Cerro Gordo, deep concern for Wilda’s
welfare drives Hal to send his wife back to her own time in her balloon. His actions
convince her Hal shuns her love and she departs, whispering a promise to return,
without revealing her pregnancy. Once her conveyance rises beyond his reach, Hal
realizes his mistake and launches a futile search for the woman he now readily admits
he loves.

Buy links:

Desert Breeze Publishing http://is.gd/Toni_DesertBreeze

Amazon: http://amzn.com/B009ZP5JOS

Or from your favorite eBook store.

What are your main characters’ names, ages, and occupations?

Wilda Stone and Hal Grantham. 28 and 32. In her other life Wilda
was a flag person on a Caltrans road crew. In Cerro Gordo
the only acceptable work to fill her time is helping out in the kitchen of the American
Hotel, a totally unacceptable activity for an awkward outdoor girl who can’t cook.

Hal is a disillusioned undercover Pinkerton agent ready for a
change.

Inspiration strikes me at the oddest times, and in unexpected
places. Usually it’s through something I see, or hear. A boarded up house in a ritzy
neighborhood we were driving through inspired Decisive Moments. A network news story
about the rising birthrate in a faraway Irish town inspired Fairy Dusted. A weekend
stay in the refurbished bunk house of a restored silver mining town inspired Rising
Above.

I love the freedom of being my own boss, and the chance to escape
reality while I write, but I also enjoy the anticipation I feel when a friend buys
one of my books. I can’t wait to hear how they liked it, whether it made their day
a little happier or gave them something new to think about.

The thing I enjoy most is simply being alive. I am so blessed.
A loving family. Good health. A wealth of knowledge at my fingertips and time to
explore all of it to the fullest. It’s a great life.

The inspiration comes first, then a character’s name or the novel’s
setting. Next, as ideas come to me, I list fifty scenes necessary to move my characters
through the story and reach a satisfactory conclusion. I’m very visual, so I transfer
the scenes to stickies, arrange those on a story board, and after identifying the
major turning points and the blackest moment for each character, I’m ready to write.
The beauty of this method is the stickies can be moved around countless times, and
the scenes rearranged as I write to give the story ending a satisfying resolution,
showing ways in which the main characters have changed.

In my teens I called square dances for the Y.M.C.A. and later
did alterations for a cleaners. When we were without health insurance, and our four
young children had run up a big debt at their doctor’s, I made drapes for his new
office to settle our account. I’ve also performed puppet shows and taught crafts
at nursing homes. Before retiring, I supervised a computerized payroll, and included
some of my office experiences in Temp to Permanent, a romantic suspense.

I want my readers to feel satisfied with their read. I write
novels about finding a safe haven for the heart and firmly believe this is what
everyone hopes to find. I found my safe haven early in life, but it still delights
me when the book I’m reading ends with the heroine finding her safe haven in the
arms of her newly found love.

I would specialize in classically styled upscale dresses and
suits, go-to outfits a woman reaches into her closet for every day. I’d have a complete
selection of leather boots in a variety of styles and widths. The leather purses
I carry will have wide openings and no places for lipsticks and car keys to hide.
I’d showcase earrings with silver or gold posts for pierced with only snap closures,
no easily-lost separate parts. In the casual clothing department you’ll find quality
merchandise for travel, spectator sports and working out all in one place, the huggable
woolens and cashmeres incredibly soft to the touch, the baby terry and fleece silky
smooth next to your skin.

I loved the countless opportunities for expanding my horizons
school provided. I had endless curiosity and still question everything. My favorite
question is “Why?”

Caution. Contents under extreme pressure and with good cause
will likely explode. (I inherited my father’s volatile temper.)

I love vegetarian pizza with artichokes.

I’m always ready for fun.

When I’m alone I eat dinner on our best china. It makes me
feel like I’m eating out.

You’d never be able to tell, but I was the head cheerleader
for my high school.

If I had a halo it would be bent.

If I could crochet I’d own that sweater I’ve been admiring.

I can never diet for long because I love to eat and
have no willpower.

Law Breakers and Love Makers, soon in print, too.

Temp to Permanent

Decisive Moments

Restored Dreams

Fairy Dusted

Rising Above

To Feel Again

Fragile Bonds

Homeward Bound

Toni Noel’s Novels… Safe havens for the heart.

Toni Noel’s love of books started in childhood, when her
mother first read The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew to her. She helped
start church libraries in two rural Tennessee
towns and appeared before the City Planning Commission and the San Diego City
Council to urge a site be purchased. As the neighborhood spokesman for the new
library the City Councilman for her district invited her to turn the second
shovel of dirt at the groundbreaking for the new library. Toni’s fondest dream,
to see one of her safe-haven-for-the-heart novels available for checkout there
may soon be fulfilled. Desert Breeze Publishing will release in print form in
November the author’s first published novel Law Breakers and Love Makers.

Website: http://ToniNoelAuthor.com

Blog: http://ToniNoelAuthor.com/blog.html

Twitter: http://twitter.com/toninoelwriter

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