Paradise Found
the inside story
ISBN 0-8217-7280-5
A Romantic Times TOP PICK for March 2002
"Filled with compassion, warmth and wonderful characters, this is a book that should not be missed."
Jill M. Smith, Romantic Times
How does one see truly-with the heart or with the eyes?
What if a man who has everything-wealth, power, looks, talent- is suddenly stripped of one of life’s most basic needs- his sight- and what if the only person who can help him redefine his new world is a woman who has been so emotionally scarred and bruised by an ex-husband, that she can’t see past this man’s image to the real person inside?
We’ve all been hurt in relationships before, some of us very badly, but many of us have grown through that pain in ways we would not have been able to had we not suffered so deeply. Through the almost insufferable pain, came growth… of spirit…of self.
This was the basic premise for Paradise Found. I wanted to take two people with completely diverse backgrounds, values, goals, throw them together and see what happened. And I wanted to make the man totally dependent on the woman! Novel idea there! So, I stripped the all-powerful, talented, much sought after Matthew Brandon of his sight and his independence, forcing him to actually need Sara Hamilton, the meek, mild-tempered psychologist from Pittsburgh. Sara is every woman’s woman…she’s not a toothpick or a Cosmo girl, she’s never been prom queen, or dated the blonde haired god with the big white teeth…she’s honest and decent and real…and she’s got some serious issues herself. Sara lives on the perimeter, applauding her patients’ successes, nursing them through their failures, but never acknowledging or accepting her own. She’s loved and lost once, she’s not willing to risk those feelings again. Of course, she’s never met a man like Matthew Brandon before…
Paradise Found explores the delicate balance between ‘blind’ trust and hope, the development and nurturing of feelings where physical appearances are non-existent, and the inevitable fear that accompanies any relationship when the mask of politeness is discarded and the true self is revealed.
The following is a back cover glimpse of Paradise Found…
Seven months is a long time to spend hiding from the world. But when a freak accident takes celebrated author Matthew Brandon’s sight, he’s no longer interested in a world he can’t see- or a woman who thinks she’ll be the one to save him from his self-imposed exile.
Except psychologist Sara Hamilton is hiding, too- from her own memories and emotional wounds- and flying to California to talk sense into Matthew is just a favor for a friend. If the arrogant, self-important writer-so like her own ex-husband-refuses to “adjust” to his blindness, she won’t take it as a personal failure.
But neither of them is prepared for the way a battle of wills can become a union of hearts, or that sometimes the things you can’t see are the only guideposts on the road to paradise…a place Sara and Matthew discover is somehow possible, if they find it together...