About the Book

Book: Forever Free

Author: Hope Toler Dougherty

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Release Date: January 24, 2024

Phoebe Sinclair combines her love of flowers and teaching to nurture a cut flower business on her grandfather’s land. She’s got her hands full growing the farm, growing her customer base, and dealing with her growing attraction to the aloof man who’s volunteered to help make her farming dream come true.

Can she focus on her main job, or will a pair of yearning eyes and a hurting heart divert her worthy goals?

Heath Daniels has resigned himself to a life of singleness as he watches his siblings couple up and set wedding dates. Tracking their happiness, however, is more difficult than he expected. A real struggle, in fact.

Feeling the old troubles from his college years creeping back to tempt him, he’s propelled to volunteer for manual labor, leaving him exhausted, but out of danger, at the end of every day. His additional hours of agri-business, however, lead to different struggles with an intriguing farmer.

Does he have the strength to resist old temptations as well as a beautiful new one too?

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About the Author

Hope Toler Dougherty holds a Master’s degree in English and taught at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, and York Technical College in Rock Hill, SC. Her early novels are Irish Encounter, Mars…With Venus Rising, and Rescued Hearts. Her Forever series includes Forever Music, Forever Home, and the novella, “A Hatteras Surprise,” which is featured in Candy Cane Wishes and Saltwater Dreams.

A chronic volunteer, she’s a member of ACFW, NC Writers’ Network, and Triangle East Writers. She and her husband live in North Carolina and look forward to visits with their two daughters and twin sons.

More from Hope

A few years ago, I decided to write a series since readers enjoy reading stories with familiar characters. Four siblings came to mind, perhaps because I have four children, and the Daniels family from Charlotte, North Carolina, burst onto my computer screen.

I’ve loved spending time with Ben, Heath, Sam, and Josie for the past several years and sharing how three of them found their happily ever after. One, however, always appeared on the fringe of the story, participating, yes, but always a bit set apart from the family.

Heath Daniels is the second oldest sibling, the middle brother between Ben and Sam. Readers will discover him first in Forever Music and then in a larger role in Forever Home, but he never disclosed too much about himself in those stories.

Before I began the series, I didn’t know to plan key plot points and goals for each story as well as the whole series. As a panster, I wrote each story as it came to me or as I needed to like, for instance, the novella, “A Hatteras Surprise.”

When it came time to write Heath’s story, I hardly knew him. I wasn’t sure about his backstory, his occupation, tastes…nothing. He grudgingly released those missing pieces bit by tiny bit.

At the beginning of Forever Free, Heath feels like the black sheep in the family. In the high achieving Daniels clan, he’s the one who dropped out of college, the one who struggled with substance abuse, the one who feels less than. With all his siblings coupling up, he’s staring at a single future because of old misguided beliefs.

Guilt from an early tragedy along with bad choices play important parts in Heath’s personality. Phoebe Sinclair has her hands full nurturing her cut flower farm, plus she has to deal with a cute, but distant employee, the mysterious Heath.

I enjoyed getting to know Heath and watching his growth from the sullen, misunderstood character to the confident businessperson who wants Phoebe to achieve her dream. I hope you’ll enjoy his story, too.

Here’s a recipe Phoebe bakes for her grandfather in Forever Free. I’m not sure why it’s called Swedish Nut Cake, but I’m sure it’s delicious.

Swedish Nut Cake

Ingredients for cake:                                       Ingredients for icing:
2 C flour                                                          1 8 oz pkg creamed cheese
1 ¾ C sugar                                                     1/2 stick butter
2 eggs                                                              1 t vanilla
2 t baking soda                                                1 ½ C powdered sugar, sifted
1 t vanilla
½ chopped nuts
1 20 oz. can crushed pineapple with juice

Directions:
Mix all ingredients for cake and bake in a greased 9×13 pan at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. For icing, mix all ingredients and frost the cooled cake. Store in the refrigerator.

Interview with the Author

What is your favorite Bible verse or life verse?

One of my favorites is Ephesians 3:20. “[God] is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” No matter what we can come up with, God can do more, can give more. God is more. I love that.

What is your vacation spot?

We’ve been spending a week in June at a YMCA family camp in central Pennsylvania since 2004. My husband went as a child and also became a camp counselor in high school. It’s a beautiful place set in a valley beside a big lake. We can bike, mountain climb, hike, swim, kayak, sail, make pottery, do crafts, play board games and cards, read, or just take a nap. At this point, it’s like a family reunion with some of the same families returning every year.

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick. I’ve read several of hers and enjoy her stories. It’s on top of a tall TBR pile.

Describe your view as you’re sitting in your writing chair.

On the wall in front of me is a bank of twelve cubbies filled with skeins and balls of yarn because I love to crochet. To my left is a double window, and I can see a corner of the woods beside my house. Then the driveway snakes two tenths of a mile to our country road. I can see the pecan trees that don’t have leaves now but will burst with color in the spring and drop pecans next fall. Across the driveway, I see a field that’s been in my family for generations. Last fall it held sweet potatoes. Now it’s growing some kind of cover crop.

If you could have one book or piece of art or music on a deserted island, what would it be and why?

I’m a book person, so I have tons of favorite books. Years ago, I was about to answer Jane Eyre until a friend in a book club asked that question and then said, “You can’t choose the Bible, Hope.” I felt bad because I wasn’t thinking about choosing that. I started thinking, though. The Bible would be the perfect choice. It has everything: encouragement, humor, love stories, adventure, biography, history, and speculative. Yes, the Bible is the perfect choice.