Fresh out of college with an MBA and a job at a prestigious bank in the US, Rohan Rai seemingly has more than any twenty-five-year old Indian could have. But he has a different dream for his life, and a clear-cut plan to get there. A cocky workaholic determined to climb the corporate ladder as fast as possible in order to achieve his goals, he doesn’t care who he alienates on his meteoric rise to the top.
Then he meets Shona. She’s everything Rohan’s not—an easy-going Irish girl who lives in the moment, loves Whitney Houston, and enjoys life to the fullest. Although there’s no room for any love in Rohan’s three-year plan, he finds himself increasingly drawn to her. As their relationship blossoms, Rohan slowly finds himself viewing life differently, until a past grudge escalates and his inner demons resurface. Torn between his ambition, his responsibilities, and love, he must now re-examine everything he believes in…or risk losing it all.
Lovecarnation – The Promise is the heart-wrenching first book of the Lovecarnation trilogy, a thought-provoking series about fate, destiny, and the timelessness of true love.
Prologue
May 25, 1996
In the beautiful countryside of Missoula, Montana, on a lonely street in the afternoon, a car came to a
screeching halt.
“Please be careful, Hugo. We are parents now!” cried the lady sitting in the back seat of the car next to a baby who was crying incessantly, strapped in the car seat.
“I am sorry,” the father apologized, feeling very guilty.
“Can you please pick him up and see if you can calm him down?”
The baby was crying even more loudly now. The mother unstrapped the car seat belt and picked him
up. Unable to calm the baby down, she got out of the car with him in her arms and walked around caressing his back. The road was vacant, and the cries of the baby filled the air. There were a few shops a short distance away, but most of them were closed, and the place looked deserted. The cries became louder and louder. The mother kept walking slowly, worried, not knowing what to do. The baby was born two days ago, and the parents were going back home from the hospital. The little one had been crying continuously for the last two days. When they were still at the hospital, Grandma said on the phone that it must be colic or gas. The worried parents had gotten all the medical checks done, but doctors were not able to find anything abnormal with the baby. The mother, however, knew that something was definitely wrong. She did not sleep even a little since the baby was born, wondering why the baby was behaving that way.
There was pain in the way the baby cried, as though his little heart was breaking and his soul was being torn out of his body. The only quiet time in the last two days was when the baby fell asleep tired of crying.
With sweat trickling down her neck and the baby simply refusing to stop crying, the frustrated mother
turned around to get back into the car. Suddenly she came face-to-face with a middle-aged woman wearing a red bandana on her head and a long, flowing, colorful maxi dress in blue, black, and red. Her thick, long, bushy hair had beads tied all over, and both her wrists were covered with beautiful bracelets. The woman, who most probably was a traveling gypsy, looked at the crying baby very attentively.
“Lovecarnation,” she said, and looked at the mother, who by now was even more worried and stepped back a bit. “Don’t worry; he will stop crying when he goes through all his memories. He will smile when he sees new hope, in this new life,” the woman said. This time she was looking straight into the eyes of the mother.
“What memories? What are you saying?” The mother was a bit shocked and stepped back further, clutching the baby tighter.
The woman smiled, looked at the baby, turned around, and walked away. The terrified mother ran
toward the car.
“Who was that?” asked the father as the mother hurriedly threw herself and the crying baby into the
car.
“Let’s go quickly. This place is weird,” she said while strapping the baby into the seat.
As the car moved, the mother looked out of the window and noticed the mysterious woman at a
distance walking through a small door into a corner shop. A nicely crafted wooden board on the door of the shop read - Irish Fortune Teller.
CHAPTER 1
Around two and a half years ago - February 5, 1994—Bombay, India
I was at the Bombay International Airport surrounded by my entire family. A young MBA, twenty-five years old, chasing the America dream, I was all suited and booted, ready to say goodbye to everyone to fly off to America—for the second time. Last time it was for my studies just two years ago to get an MBA degree. But this time, it was for a job that I had landed with a multinational bank. It was the stuff dreams were made of. There was not a single person in Bombay who did not tell me how lucky I was. They weren’t wrong though. I was lucky, as not everyone who finished college got a job right after, and at a bank in America, at that! I had every reason to be excited.
However, this was not exactly what I had wanted to do in life. I wanted to be an entrepreneur and have my own business. While pursuing my MBA, during my spare time, I had drawn ambitious plans on how to set up a software start-up company. I then wanted to venture into the food industry by starting a chain of fast-food restaurants serving baked chicken dishes. I loved chicken. The idea was to create a very different brand of fast food which would be not only healthy but also very tasty. I had decided to complete my MBA, and unlike others, who immediately start looking for a corporate job, my plan was to go back to Bombay and start working on my business—by first looking for investors.
But as the saying goes, “Man proposes, God disposes.”
Just before the last term, we had companies visiting the campus for recruitment. Though I had prepared myself not to get into the corporate world, it seemed a bit unwise not to go to the campus interviews. If nothing else, it was at least an opportunity to learn something new. So I went, totally unprepared. But on that day I had answers to every question thrown at me. Somehow my subconscious mind had prepared me for the day, and I was selected for the job. Even to this day I don’t know how it happened. I got something I never wanted and something I didn’t know how to say no to. Only sixteen others from a batch of almost two hundred were selected along with me. I informed my dad and the family, and it was celebration time back home. How would I tell them what I wanted to do in life?
May 25, 1996
In the beautiful countryside of Missoula, Montana, on a lonely street in the afternoon, a car came to a
screeching halt.
“Please be careful, Hugo. We are parents now!” cried the lady sitting in the back seat of the car next to a baby who was crying incessantly, strapped in the car seat.
“I am sorry,” the father apologized, feeling very guilty.
“Can you please pick him up and see if you can calm him down?”
The baby was crying even more loudly now. The mother unstrapped the car seat belt and picked him
up. Unable to calm the baby down, she got out of the car with him in her arms and walked around caressing his back. The road was vacant, and the cries of the baby filled the air. There were a few shops a short distance away, but most of them were closed, and the place looked deserted. The cries became louder and louder. The mother kept walking slowly, worried, not knowing what to do. The baby was born two days ago, and the parents were going back home from the hospital. The little one had been crying continuously for the last two days. When they were still at the hospital, Grandma said on the phone that it must be colic or gas. The worried parents had gotten all the medical checks done, but doctors were not able to find anything abnormal with the baby. The mother, however, knew that something was definitely wrong. She did not sleep even a little since the baby was born, wondering why the baby was behaving that way.
There was pain in the way the baby cried, as though his little heart was breaking and his soul was being torn out of his body. The only quiet time in the last two days was when the baby fell asleep tired of crying.
With sweat trickling down her neck and the baby simply refusing to stop crying, the frustrated mother
turned around to get back into the car. Suddenly she came face-to-face with a middle-aged woman wearing a red bandana on her head and a long, flowing, colorful maxi dress in blue, black, and red. Her thick, long, bushy hair had beads tied all over, and both her wrists were covered with beautiful bracelets. The woman, who most probably was a traveling gypsy, looked at the crying baby very attentively.
“Lovecarnation,” she said, and looked at the mother, who by now was even more worried and stepped back a bit. “Don’t worry; he will stop crying when he goes through all his memories. He will smile when he sees new hope, in this new life,” the woman said. This time she was looking straight into the eyes of the mother.
“What memories? What are you saying?” The mother was a bit shocked and stepped back further, clutching the baby tighter.
The woman smiled, looked at the baby, turned around, and walked away. The terrified mother ran
toward the car.
“Who was that?” asked the father as the mother hurriedly threw herself and the crying baby into the
car.
“Let’s go quickly. This place is weird,” she said while strapping the baby into the seat.
As the car moved, the mother looked out of the window and noticed the mysterious woman at a
distance walking through a small door into a corner shop. A nicely crafted wooden board on the door of the shop read - Irish Fortune Teller.
CHAPTER 1
Around two and a half years ago - February 5, 1994—Bombay, India
I was at the Bombay International Airport surrounded by my entire family. A young MBA, twenty-five years old, chasing the America dream, I was all suited and booted, ready to say goodbye to everyone to fly off to America—for the second time. Last time it was for my studies just two years ago to get an MBA degree. But this time, it was for a job that I had landed with a multinational bank. It was the stuff dreams were made of. There was not a single person in Bombay who did not tell me how lucky I was. They weren’t wrong though. I was lucky, as not everyone who finished college got a job right after, and at a bank in America, at that! I had every reason to be excited.
However, this was not exactly what I had wanted to do in life. I wanted to be an entrepreneur and have my own business. While pursuing my MBA, during my spare time, I had drawn ambitious plans on how to set up a software start-up company. I then wanted to venture into the food industry by starting a chain of fast-food restaurants serving baked chicken dishes. I loved chicken. The idea was to create a very different brand of fast food which would be not only healthy but also very tasty. I had decided to complete my MBA, and unlike others, who immediately start looking for a corporate job, my plan was to go back to Bombay and start working on my business—by first looking for investors.
But as the saying goes, “Man proposes, God disposes.”
Just before the last term, we had companies visiting the campus for recruitment. Though I had prepared myself not to get into the corporate world, it seemed a bit unwise not to go to the campus interviews. If nothing else, it was at least an opportunity to learn something new. So I went, totally unprepared. But on that day I had answers to every question thrown at me. Somehow my subconscious mind had prepared me for the day, and I was selected for the job. Even to this day I don’t know how it happened. I got something I never wanted and something I didn’t know how to say no to. Only sixteen others from a batch of almost two hundred were selected along with me. I informed my dad and the family, and it was celebration time back home. How would I tell them what I wanted to do in life?
Born and brought up in India, RKC started working as a teenager to support his family while pursuing his studies. His first job was that of a salesman for a sewing machine company.
Unable to sell even a single machine even after 2 months of hard work in the hot sun, the company refused to pay him his salary and he quit. He then took up several jobs from working as a cashier in a 5 star hotel to working for a diamond merchant and in the share market.
Post-graduation, RKC joined a company in the banking and finance sector as a junior officer. Through sheer dedication and hard work, RKC rose through the ranks and managed to get an assignment in London.
He later managed to move over to London on a temporary contract banking job along with his wife for a short period before finally settling down in Dublin, Ireland with a full time job in a bank.
RKC’s intense passion for writing made him write short stories during his spare time though he never submitted any of them for publication. He however wrote articles of general interest which were published in the newspapers.
He co-authored 2 non-fiction books but he did not credit himself on the cover as he wanted his name to be on the cover of a novel first.
‘LOVECARNATION – THE PROMISE’ is RKC Puthran’s debut novel and the first book in the LOVECARNATION TRILOGY Series.
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I love the covers and the book looks interesting.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the excerpt and trailer. And the cover has so much atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading the synopsis and excerpt. Sounds like a good read.
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ReplyDeleteinteretsing blurb
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ReplyDeletetiramisu392 (at) yahoo.com
This cover looks amazing!
ReplyDeletesounds so good
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ReplyDeleteNice cover. Love the color.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of the book or the cover?
ReplyDeleteThe cover looks very interesting,i like the use of blue
THX
Sounds interesting.
ReplyDelete