Celebrating Fairy Dusted with chaptermate Toni Noel

Toni Noel is a long-time member of RWASD, and her story behind her latest release is a testament to how our chapter members reach out to help one another…

I couldn’t have picked a more difficult manuscript to write than Fairy Dusted.

This novel was:

• Set in Ireland. I’ve never been to Ireland
• About a married couple going through rocky times. No romance there.
• About infertility.

I realized right off it would be nearly impossible to make a couple who disagreed about nearly everything likeable, so I made the heroine a volunteer in the neonatal ICU unit where infants born with drug addiction are treated. I made the hero a respected marriage counselor trying really hard to solve his own marital problems.

Conquering the problem of never having traveled to Ireland was easier to solve. I’d traveled. I’d read all the Nora Roberts novels set in Ireland.  And I had a wireless connection to the Internet.

My first search was for Ringaskiddy, the once sleepy seaport town where the newscaster who inspired this story set in Ireland reported elected officials there were scratching their heads over the sudden increase in the birthrate among older women. Could the Pfizer plant producing one of the chemicals used in Viagra really be the cause? Were the residents really being fairy dusted as some claimed?

With the help of Google I found street maps, the names of restaurants and pubs, even the names of schools, and of course, the location of the Pfizer plant.

I like to photograph the headstones in old cemeteries, so writing about them came easy. I’ve had no actual experience with a playful ghost, so those scenes are pure fiction, but I do believe in them and hoped the red headed ghost wearing a 49er’s cap in my novel would find and read the heroine’s note intended to set her mind to rest.

I consulted authors Jeanne Dickson and Judy Duarte for help with writing Irish dialect. Each had a different take, so my Irish dialogue is a melding of their suggestions and what Nora Robert does. 

See for yourself: http://www.amazon.com/Fairy-Dusted-ebook/dp/B0094I78YA/

BLURB:

When fertility issues strain their marriage a childless couple travels to Ringaskiddy, Ireland for a stress-relieving visit with his family, where they rekindle their love and enjoy a second honeymoon. Their vacation brings back ghosts from the hero’s past and his childhood nightmares return, adding additional stress for the heroine until the near-drowning of his nephew forces the hero to come clean about his past. Not until they return home to San Francisco do they discover while in Ringaskiddy they were fairy dusted by the chemical used in Viagra.

EXCERPT:

If only Jill didn’t want a baby so badly.

Better still, if only he wanted a child. Things might work out for them if he did, but he wouldn’t change his mind about this. Not when another young life would hang in the balance.

Drew’s gut clenched. Sure as day followed night Jill would never forgive him for not coming clean with her on this.

The sudden clang of a pot lid and footsteps moving about in the kitchen ended Drew’s reverie.

Exhausted from trying to solve his clients’ marital problems, he was more than ready to seek refuge inside. Enjoy a tasty meal seated across from his beautiful wife in their well-appointed dining room.

As if he would.

Dread kept Drew glued to the spot, afraid to open the back door, hesitant to face his one-hundred-ten-pound wife.

The pot lid clanged again. Drew yanked open the door and strode in.

Jill stood at the stove, stirring something in an iron pot, her dark auburn hair pulled back from her face with a silver clamp.

“Gosh that smells good.” He grabbed a long-handled spoon and sampled the bubbling stew. “How soon do we eat?”

She glanced at him and smiled, a good sign. Lately, he never knew what to expect when he came home. Fertility drugs played havoc with Jill’s hormones. With their relationship, too.

He constantly worried about their marriage. He’d be satisfied if they never had a child, overjoyed, actually. He and Jill growing old together, walking through life hand in hand.

Just because we’re married doesn’t mean we have to have a child.

To Jill, it does.

She’d make too much of his action if he patted her softly yielding butt. Before his next breath she’d have him stripped and stretched out on the bed.

Fertility drugs changed Jill. Gave her the upper hand in their sex life. Made her lust for him, and had gradually eroded their love for each other in her determined rush to give him a child. A child he was afraid to father.

So far, his prayers had been answered and Jill hadn’t conceived, but how long could he depend on his luck lasting?

“How was your day?” he asked, giving her a tight hug, his hands firmly planted at her waist.