Guest Post: Kate Pavelle on Breakfall with GiveAway and Excerpt

Smoocher’s Voice is happy to welcome Kate Pavelle to the blog today. Kate Pavelle’s new book, Breakfall is available on Dreamspinner Press. It is the first book in the Fall Trilogy.

Guest Post

Back in the early 1980s, I decided to spend my babysitting money on a YMCA martial arts class. I wanted to take karate because one of the karate guys was from our school, and he was incredibly handsome: Serious, long hair tied back with a bandanna, broad shoulders. Aikido cost ten bucks less though, and my ex-boxer father steered me in the direction of an art “more suitable for a woman.”

I had studied aikido for eight years, and during my tenure as both a student and an instructor, I’d soaked it all up without asking many questions. This attitude of pure faith – in an almost a cult-like atmosphere – inspired me to write Sean as a bit naïve. Both he and I had been drinking the KoolAid from the same punch bowl.

Back then, sensei Shuji Maruyama made fun of karate people. He’s a good instructor and a good man, but for some reason he had this “us against them” attitude back then (I’m told he no longer does it as much), and the rest of us copied him in our quest for higher knowledge.

Aikido is superior, because we stand on a higher moral ground.

Aikido is more virtuous, because it teaches only self-defense.

Aikido teaches better daily life skills, because it promotes relaxation.

I had been under a mistaken impression that, as long as I maintain the higher moral ground of non-violence, I shall always emerge victorious.

Being attacked in my sleep had led to a rude awakening on many levels. My fairly advanced aikido training didn’t teach any groundwork. We defended from a standing position, or from sitting seiza on our knees. I was way out of my depth. This realization made me feel mortal and flawed – and embarrassed at my own arrogance.

Sean suffers from a similar affliction, but to make life a bit more interesting, he has a crush on his teacher. His teacher, just like my old one, doesn’t like “hybridization.” He likes his aikido pure. The reason is simple: in today’s world of mixed martial arts and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, we are stewards of the traditional forms and styles. We learn them and pass them on, lest they disappear entirely.

Sean’s teacher understands this in a way only a fictional character can. He lends Sean all his support in a difficult situation, and he admits to his own experimentations in other arts.

Nowadays, this attitude of “ours is better than yours” isn’t as bad as it used to be. We martial artists pull together despite petty rivalries, because we are losing students. Young people, who would have ended up at the dojo 20 or 30 years ago, find their outlet in high-adrenaline sports. Even I have been lured into the world of triathlon – and every minute I spend swimming, biking, or running is a minute is time I take away from working on a kata or a sword cut.

Asbjorn forms a necessary foil to Sean. A survey of men, both gay and straight, leads me to believe that most men are pretty darn violent, but they learn to control their tendencies early in life. I was one of very few women who fought in medieval armor for almost 20 years, and the guys around me all embodied alpha behavior. This co-ed outlet had no weight classes, and I got all kinds of experience dealing with larger opponents.

An alpha guy can be both violent and protective. Many are. Their violence is on a tight leash – we have societal mechanism to enforce good behavior, after all. Being an “alpha” also means feeling responsibility for the well-being of others. This had made Asbjorn a good officer, and it makes him a protective partner and friend.

This quality is also why it’s so very hard to stay behind and just watch the unraveling of the events from the sidelines. Asbjorn is a good man, a real man. He might have a few rough edges here and there, but he’ll always step up to do the right thing and protect those he loves.

      

Stay tuned for his way of dealing with adversity in Book 2, Swordfall.

Breakfall

by Kate Pavelle

The Fall #1

Publication Date: June 27, 2014

Genres: Contemporary, Erotica, LGBT, Romance


 

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Synopsis: Fall Trilogy: Book One

Sexual assault doesn't discriminate. Aikido instructor Sean Gallaway learns that when he falls prey to a violent stalker. Asbjorn Lund, a karate sensei on campus and a Navy vet, yearns to teach Sean how to survive. How to overcome. How to recover. Sean feels hunted and alone as the stalker escalates, testing his boundaries. With the entire dojo at his back, Sean resolves to play bait. He will catch the predator stalking him and reclaim his sense of self if it's the last thing he does. Yet Sean's hunger for justice clashes with Asbjorn's protective streak, and their budding romance might not survive their war of wills.

About the Author

Just about everything Kate Pavelle writes is colored by her life experiences, whether the book in your hand is romance, mystery, or adventure. Kate grew up under a totalitarian regime behind the Iron Curtain. In her life, she has been a hungry refugee and a hopeful immigrant, a crime victim and a force of lawful vengeance, a humble employee and a business owner, an unemployed free-lancer and a corporate executive, a scientist and an artist, a storyteller volunteering for her local storytelling guild, a martial artist, and a triathlete. Kate’s frequent travels imbue her stories with local color from places both exotic and mundane.
Kate Pavelle is encouraged in her writing by her husband, children and pets, and tries not to kill her extensive garden in her free time. Out of the five and a half languages she speaks, English is her favorite comfort zone.

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Excerpt:

THE QUALITY of silence around him awakened him. Sean strained his ears in vain for familiar sounds. The car traffic of Cambridge was replaced by the gray, early morning stillness of nearby woods. There was no sound of a clock ticking, no popping of ancient radiators, no footsteps of fellow students overhead. The silence was like a blanket of cool, morning fog, comforting and private.

He turned toward the source of breathing to his right. This was Sean’s first-ever opportunity to observe Asbjorn at leisure. His eyes, deep like the ocean blue, were closed, their pale eyelashes stretching down in a graceful arc. It amused Sean to find faded, sun-kissed freckles on Asbjorn’s nose and cheekbones—a testament to his heritage as well as to his lifestyle. The scar splitting his right eyebrow was still angry and red, a reminder of his bout with Don, a fight without a victor. Sean let his gaze travel down the chiseled planes of Asbjorn’s exquisite, sharp cheekbones, his lovely and defined jaw blurred by morning stubble, his stubborn chin. Above his chin, his lips: lush and generous and tinged pink with promise.

Sean leaned forward, sharing his breath with Asbjorn, feeling the stirrings of air on his nose. He brushed his lips against the stubbly jaw with a soft caress.

Asbjorn opened his pale lids. “What time is it, Sean?”

“I dunno. Early.” Sean reached for his cell phone, only to realize it was still in police custody.

“What day is it?” The pressure-cooker of recent events had left him disoriented.

“Uh, Thursday. Thanksgiving.” Asbjorn’s voice was still clogged with sleep.

“Shit.” Sean hit his head back against the pillow. The lab. He never handed in his stupid physics lab report.

Asbjorn reached for him with his large hands. “Shh. Don’t worry about anything right now.” Asbjorn’s voice soothed him. The strength of Asbjorn’s arms filled him with strange awareness as he was pulled in closer. The warmth was comforting, and he did not resist. He felt a cool nose nuzzle his neck.

“Bjorn!”

“Hmmm?”

“You’re not helping.”

“Not helping what?”

Sean blushed. “My morning situation.”

Sharp teeth worried the tan skin of his shoulder. Soon, a warm, wet tongue laved the nibbled skin smooth again. He felt sensuous lips taste of his arm and neck, and Sean felt himself arch. His morning wood was now a fearsome force of nature.

He felt Asbjorn press into his lower back, feeling his heat and the smooth hardness trapped between their bodies.

“Good to know I’m not alone in my predicament.”