You have to be careful when writing about a disability you don't have

I'm reading Graham Masterson's Unspeakable. I think the title is going to turn out to be a play on words because the heroine is deaf. She had some kind of fever as a child and hasn't heard a thing since.

Well almost hasn't heard a thing. An excerpt from page 72 of the paperback version, the chapter called "Mickey Slim" Comes to Dinner.

She climbed the stairs, and as she put her key in the lock she heard laughter from inside her apartment -- Daisy's and Mickey's laughter -- and the television playing.

Masterson has been very careful in other scenes and the deafness is a major plot point but still little things like this sneak in because the author is so used to hearing himself. I guess his editor and proofreader didn't catch it either. Or we're going to find out she stopped off on the way home for a surprise surgery that fixed everything.

I don't think that's likely. My reminder to you is that you really have to put yourself in your protagonist's body. If he can't smell he can't save himself from being burnt up because he smells gasoline.

Pay careful attention to this kind of thing on your last polish because otherwise someone like me is going to be pulled out of a perfectly good story and once the reader is pulled out they may never go back in again.