One of my favourite people in the world was my
grandfather. He had very little formal schooling and
certainly wasn’t a man who read books, but he told stories.
They always had fire engines and chocolate biscuits and picnics in
them. I grew up with Pop’s stories and being read to before
bed. Of course I was going to be a storyteller. The
problem with that destiny was the whole need to clothe, feed, educate
and house myself. That meant the first kind of storytelling I
did was for companies. I worked in communications fields in
media, public relations and marketing, and I still do. I
didn’t start to write fiction until a few years ago and I knew I’d have
to retrain my brain around a different kind of writing.
There’s generally not much emotion in corporate writing, not much need
for description or dialogue (though I wrote speeches) and absolutely no
need for anything vaguely romantic. I’m still learning to
write with emotional punch and pace so that my stories are little
islands of escape and respite.My latest book, Incapable came about because a friend’s daughter challenged me to write her a different kind of hero, one who was going through a difficult challenge like she is. Kat is going blind and wanted me to write her a blind hero. My first response was panic. Which is the state I’ve remained in through writing, testing, editing, shoving the completed book in a dark space on my laptop where it was going to stay, and finally the publication phase. I’ve written a depressed hero (Aiden in White Balance), a tongue-tied hero (Mace in Insecure), a mentally unstable hero (Drum in Inconsolable) but writing a blind hero was so much more challenging, not only from the point of making Damon feel like a real person, but in navigating the complex space of ableism. I can only hope I’ve done Kat’s request justice and written a story readers will enjoy not because Damon is blind but because his story is compellingly human.
About Incapable:
Incapable is a story about every day, real issues people deal with on their way to building successful lives and falling in love. It’s also the story of a tight group of friends and the band they sing in. Damon, our hero, is a voice actor. He meets his match in sound engineer, Georgia, who is fresh out of a marriage gone wrong and not emotionally ready to be swept off her feet.
Incapable is the third story in my Love Triumphs series, a collection of three hero centric stories where the leading men struggle with ambition and self-worth to bring their lives and loves together. The other two stories are Insecure, which is geek meets CEO in waiting and Inconsolable, hermit meets the women whose job it is to help him.
Incapable
Love Triumphs #3
By: Ainslie Paton
Releasing November 1, 2015
Escape
Buy Links: Amazon | Amazon Australia | Kobo | iTunes
Love Triumphs #3
By: Ainslie Paton
Releasing November 1, 2015
Escape
Buy Links: Amazon | Amazon Australia | Kobo | iTunes
Synopsis
As voice actor royalty, Damon
Donovan, is more trouble than any girl needs on her first day in a new
job. He’s professionally intimidating. He’s also charming, funny and
genuinely talented. He can make reading a parking fine sexy.
And he triggers the fix it instincts, newly separated, Georgia Fairweather has sworn off.
There are three types of women in Damon Donovan’s history. Those who fawn, those who mother, and those who want to fix him, so he’s intrigued by the reticent, prickly engineer who’s neither awed or charmed, and comes off like she’d rather he fell through a trapdoor.
And he’s having a bad day, so a trapdoor is a good idea.
A recording engineer and a voice actor sounds like a match to sing about, except Georgia needs to learn who she is when she’s no longer Hamish’s wife and Damon’s exhaustion is a symptom of something more serious.
Is there a future for a man who can lend his voice to angel or devil and a woman who doesn’t trust her own instincts, or are they destined to sound good on paper but be out of tune in life and love?
And he triggers the fix it instincts, newly separated, Georgia Fairweather has sworn off.
There are three types of women in Damon Donovan’s history. Those who fawn, those who mother, and those who want to fix him, so he’s intrigued by the reticent, prickly engineer who’s neither awed or charmed, and comes off like she’d rather he fell through a trapdoor.
And he’s having a bad day, so a trapdoor is a good idea.
A recording engineer and a voice actor sounds like a match to sing about, except Georgia needs to learn who she is when she’s no longer Hamish’s wife and Damon’s exhaustion is a symptom of something more serious.
Is there a future for a man who can lend his voice to angel or devil and a woman who doesn’t trust her own instincts, or are they destined to sound good on paper but be out of tune in life and love?
Excerpt
In the blackness Georgia’s body blazed, lit up like cut crystal shot with sunlight, fractured and reflecting a rainbow of bright pinks and blues. She kept her eyes closed so she wasn’t blinded, so the whorl of heat that made her tremble didn’t end, so Damon’s lips stayed on her skin and his hands held her upright, kept her from floating away like a dust mote.
Beneath his clothes he was lean and hard muscled. His body caged her in strength, made her fluid with need. She lost all sense of place and time, of purpose other than to feel the shocking weight of unleashed desire low in her gut. She overflowed with it, her breath snagging on it, her ears stuffed, her fingers made claws to hold him, stop him from dissolving into the night where she’d lose him, lose her sanity. It was already altered beyond recognition from his kiss, from the trace of his tongue and the movement of his hands, searching, possessive.
This would stop, and she’d be ended, burned up, cinder, ash, to rise a Phoenix, new and stronger. Or she’d be straightjacket, padded cell crazy.
In this moment was everything she’d missed out on as an adult except the sound of his voice. He’d locked that away behind warm searching lips and teeth that could sting to make a place for a soothing tongue to lap. She craved the anchor of his words but heard only the sound of her own desperate breathing and the wet snick and glide of their kisses.
Then Jace coughing. Then the tiny sound from the headphones on the floor.
Now the blaze was embarrassment. She pulled away from Damon and that won her his voice. He said, “Intermission,” all husky and shot through with a rumble of grit.
Intermission was over, it was time for the third act, but he cleared his throat and kept hold of her hand. It was a declaration they weren’t.
Check out some of these titles by Ainslie too
4 of 5 stars |
About the author
Ainslie Paton is a corporate storyteller working
in marketing, public relations and advertising. She’s written about everything from the African refugee crisis and Toxic Shock Syndrome, to high-speed data networks and hamburgers.
As Ainslie and as AA Paton, she writes cracking, hyper-real contemporary romances.
Author links: Website - Facebook - Twitter - Goodreads - Google+ - Youtube
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