Today I’d like to welcome Rosemarie Piemonte to Fallen Angel Reviews. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions for us today Rosemarie.

Thanks for having me Tammy. I’m excited to be here.

To start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a single Mom. I have two crazy little boys. Nicki (8) and Matthew (5). I’ve been a fire department secretary for a department located in the western suburbs of Chicago for the past 7 years. My biggest hobbies are writing and doing websites. I do my own as well as other authors. I graduated high school in three and a half years instead of the usual four (but I still went to Prom and for my father I walked down that aisle in June) and during that time, I received my diploma for Writing for Children and Teenagers from the Institute of Children’s Literature. I have an Associates Degree in Criminal Justice. I was an on-air radio disc jockey for one summer. I sang in a garage band at one point in my life. In my 31 years, I’ve lived and learned.

What does your working space look like?

I’m embarrassed to say. I used to have a microwave cart for my desk, but now I have a real black rectangular one with shelves. Someone was moving and was going to throw this big desk away and I was like wow, can I have that? I have a standing ashtray next to my right side. It’s an antique and it has fallen over I don’t know how many times and it never broke or cracked. On my desk, I have one of my three hard drives. It flashes this cool florescent blue color when I use it. My cordless phone, empty cigarette packs that I should probably throw away. A bottle of Windex, a packet of Marinara Sauce and ketchup, a VCR tape of Transformers. My book Falling Roses, my manuscript for Falling Roses: The Years Between. A Pokemon card, a crystal or actually a big piece of glass that I’ve had for 17 years. There’s a lot more on this desk, my son’s homework I could go on and on.

How do you know what to name your books or the characters?

I’ve always loved the name Bobbie. When I was five, my brother Johnny was born, I even started calling him Bobbie. I wasn’t too crazy about the name Roberta, so I chose Bobbie to be short for Gabrielle. Her last name Newtonendie, I’m sure that came from Fig Newton’s that I was eating that day. And Johnny’s last name Ravolie came from a Chef Boyardee can of ravioli. Bernadette the evil villain in my story, at first I always wrote her name B.U.R.N. and her last name was Malon, but it was my mother who said put an e on the end so it sounds Italian.

Do you have any bad writing habits?

Grammatically—I like to write in fragments. Although I always received A’s in English, I am not good with grammar at all. I don’t know what I would have done without my editors.

Could you tell us about your upcoming release of Falling Roses: The Years Between?

The Years Between is the sequel to Falling Roses and it has more drama, suspense, romance, two secret babies, action, two love triangles, it has it all! It continues where Falling Roses left off and before the Epilogue in Falling Roses begins. It’s complete, edited, and even the cover is finished, which I have to keep a secret for a little while longer. There are so many twists and turns. It’s another page-turner.

For those who haven’t read your first release Falling Roses, could you tell us more about it?

Falling Roses expands on 5 years of a young girl’s life. Gabrielle (Bobbie) runs away from home for the day and while walking on a sidewalk in downtown Chicago searching for a payphone to call her father she is hit by a car. Falling Roses opens with the car scene and for the first two chapters Bobbie’s in a coma with Johnny sitting by her side. Johnny Ravolie is a rock star hiding out from his ex-girlfriend Bernadette Malone who has mob affiliations. Ultimately Johnny brings Bobbie home to Long Island, New York. It’s like an Elvis and Priscilla story where Gabrielle’s parents agree to allow her to go although she’s only 15 and Johnny is 24. They’re in love and Gabrielle is brought into Johnny’s world where he’s keeping her safe from Bernadette who has threatened Johnny that if he left her she’d kill his best friend Mick (who is the bassist of the band) and frame Johnny for his death. She’d go after Johnny’s family. And now, since he did this publicity stunt at the hospital when Bobbie was in a coma, Bernadette threatens Johnny that if he had any affiliations with ‘Coma Girl’ that she’d kill her too. And then pictures were taken of Johnny and Bobbie and Bernadette threatens him that she’ll go publicly with that as well. Bernadette kidnaps Bobbie after finding out from Bobbie’s blood work results that were mailed to Johnny’s home that Bobbie is pregnant. Bernadette’s plans are to keep Bobbie alive until she has the baby and then Bernadette planned to kill Bobbie. Then Bernadette’s psycho half-brother Jeffrey Rolando kidnaps Bobbie. He thinks she’s his dead wife. Toward the end of Falling Roses, Johnny and Bobbie are literally buried alive together. But a young girl’s fairy-tale has to have a happy ending. It’s a book of romance, suspense, drama, a secret baby, and a love triangle all wrapped into one. Expect the Unexpected!

How many hours a day do you spend writing?

When I wrote Falling Roses it was from 4:30 PM until 3 AM. With The Years Between, it was from 4:00 PM until my eyes closed.

From your website I learned that you love Marine Biology. What draws you to it?

I love dolphins. Just learning about their bone structure and echolocation and debating if a dolphin can hear a human voice completely interests me. I was close to completing a Marine Biology Certification, but then the program was dropped from the college. I use to take college classes at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. I even spent the night there where the following day I gave a presentation on the study my team did on the Beluga whales. I love marine mammals. Sea Otters are the cutest little things with pockets in their fur. I swam with a bottlenose dolphin once when I was pregnant with Matthew and the dolphin’s tail fluke hit me right in the stomach. Although she turned around and gave me an apologetic look, it was a bad experience.

How did you celebrate selling your first book?

I had a party with family and friends a few months later after the release. I’ll be doing the same thing next year. Open bar and sweet table.

Almost every author at some point or another suffers from writer's block. Have you ever had that problem? How do you deal with it?

For the first time I suffered with writers block at the end of Falling Roses: The Years Between. The movie in my head just ended with a fast ending and then a new movie began to play for another Falling Roses novel. Falling Roses is 52 Chapters and Years is only 26. I thought I was going to have at least 40 chapters, but the movie was over, a new one was beginning, I was done, my main characters decided to go to bed and not wake up. It was time to wrap it up. I dealt with it for almost two weeks and then wrote the last Chapter. And then I had my editor, Autumn Bittick deal with my problem. She spent a lot of time on that last Chapter and I think she could tell too that I was baked. Since the new movie began to play in my head for a third book, I added the scene into the epilogue. I know right now Gabrielle is at the pet store with Toto and I can’t get her out of that store.

If you could meet one of your characters, which one would it be?

It’s funny that you ask this question because when I was doing research in Long Island, New York I was so tempted to find a house in the general area where I thought John and Gabrielle’s beach house would be and I was going to walk up to the door and actually ask if John and Gabrielle lived here. Of course the person would tell me that I had the wrong house or that I was nuts and then I would walk away. Or, maybe my mother and I would have been invited in. I highly doubt that. I feel like I know Gabrielle so well. I’ve been through every experience she’s been through. I laughed with her, I cried with her. I was with her when she had her first sexual experience. When she had her children. When she was kidnapped. When I wrote the last chapter of Falling Roses, I was bawling while my fingers kept moving and the movie played in my head. I guess I would want to meet Jackie, Gabrielle’s daughter, because I don’t feel as if I know her as well as I know her mother.

Thank you for taking time to speak with me today Rosemarie. Readers, be sure to check out Rosemarie’s website.

Interviewed by: Tammy