Today we're talking with Ainslie Paton, writer of contemporary romance, wrangler of adorable/sinister cats, and Australia native. She's sharing the cover for her THE LOVE COUPON, which comes out April 9, 2018, details on her next series, and a cat photo (because we asked). Enjoy!
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The series conceit is about people who need a push to fall in love. They’re not looking for it, it’s kind of inconvenient, the love interest is someone they’d never have thought to match with and so there is slow burn coming together that’s surprising and hopefully engrossing.
You can read about THE LOVE EXPERIMENT or buy it over at Amazon, Kobo, iBooks. (The cover for that one is the reason we asked Ainslie to give us the privilege of revealing her next cover!)
Over 2018 and 2019 I’m releasing a new series - The Confidence Game - with Entangled about a family of Robin Hooding con artists. The series is my confused, angry and scared response to the US election result. Even though I’m Australian and live a million miles away, the idea that US elected a badly behaved businessman and game show host to their highest office was incredibly distressing. I started writing the first book One Night Wife immediately after the election as a way of dealing with my anger and sadness.
When US writers started to talk about resistance stories, I was like – yeah, that’s what this is, my version of the resistance.
The series is about a family of cons who take money from the ugly rich and give it to people, causes and issues more deserving. From people who abuse wealth to people who can better use it. The first three heroes, Cal, Halsey and Zeke are anti-heroes because they do lie, cheat and steal. But I promise their hearts are in the right place, and where it comes to the women they fall for, they’re in a world of trouble, because the Sherwood family code of conduct means that Sherwoods don’t lie to people they love.
One Night Wife is out on May 28.
Australia is full of things that bite, sting, crawl on you, fly at you and make noise to interrupt your sleep. It’s the price we pay for living in a wonderful place.
From laughing birds, hand sized spiders and deadly snakes to jellyfish and sharks. Somehow we’ve managed to survive and thrive. It’s a miracle. I often wonder if that’s because the things that can hurt us are bright or big, easy targets so we get them first!
In the suburbs of Sydney where I live you really only worry about spiders with redbacks, or bluebottles and Portuguese jellyfish at the beach. The sharks get all the bad press, but I’ve seen more dolphins, whales and penguins. Everyone has been stung by a bluebottle at some stage – it’s like a summer rite of passage. Toughens us up! Redback spiders are small, deadly and obvious and can be handled with the flat edge of a shoe.
Don’t let any of that put you off visiting. Not even the drop bears. (Urban legend that insists koalas will drop out of trees to get you. They won’t. At least I don’t think so.)
The Main Coon isn’t common garden variety here. These two are often found as pictured supervising me as I work – that’s my office window ledge. They are brother and sister. She’s the brains of the outfit.
Oh my goodnesss. My reading mojo up and died this year. I’m no good at sticking with anything that’s not a news site. It’s got to do with fiction not quite being able to compete with how mad the world seems. I’ve read very little fiction this year, which is really unusual for me. I can’t settle to read which is all about me and not about the books. I’m actually nervous about trying a favourite author in case I can’t get into their work! My TBR continues to grow to staggering proportions unabated by this latest reading health crisis.
I did recently read Nicola Rendell’s Just Like That and was so relieved to enjoy it. It was a random pick and it’s a clever, sunny, funny, non angsty, little bit Jenny Cruise-like read. The drought has broken. I hope.
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Ready
Set
Cover!
How many coupons does it take to fall in love?
Flick Dalgetty knows what she wants and how to get it, which is why she’s about to start her dream job in Washington. Until then, she needs somewhere to crash, and Tom O’Connell’s place is her sole option. He’s a repressed, antisocial ogre...but man can he kiss.
For Tom, being around Flick is like being too close to the sun. Her untamed energy is overwhelming, and he’d spontaneously combust if he had to live with her long-term. Housemates with benefits—and an expiration date—suits him just fine.
Then Flick gives Tom thirty coupons, each entitling him to one obligation-free activity, from bowling and bubble-bathing to morning delight, removing all the guesswork from being incompatible partners and shifting their fling into high gear.
Now the problem is their arrangement is drawing to a close, and they might be falling in love—and there wasn’t a coupon for that.
You can pre-order THE LOVE COUPON at Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Google Play.
Ainslie Paton can be found on Twitter @ainsliepaton (at Aussie hours) and you can read about her past, present and future books at her website.
