The Need by S.L. Hannah (VNBtM, guest post, excerpt and GIVEAWAY) GFT ADULT title

What do you think is the strongest attraction about the genre(s) you like to write in?

SLH:  I have always been interested in human relationships, and the older I got the more that fascination translated to romantic relationships and my own dating experiences. I found myself analyzing and contemplating the strengths and weaknesses of how I was interacting with different types of men and women and in how I was discovering human sexuality. Reading all those Cosmopolitan magazine articles about what made a relationship tick or fall apart, and then discovering romance novels, which espoused their own truths about the human condition was like an exploration of our most intimate thoughts and actions with our boyfriends, girlfriends, partners, husbands, wives, lovers, and everything in between.

My interest in erotic literature began around the same time I started calling myself a feminist. I’d always been a feminist, even in elementary school, when I protested against boys and girls having separate lines by lining up with the boys. I just didn’t know the term back then. Erotica allowed me to explore my sexuality in a safe place and normalized my sexual desires, i.e. I didn’t feel odd about certain things that turned me on. Having that type of grasp on your sexuality is a powerful thing and gives you a greater sense of control during any courtship.

The idea to cross erotica with a thriller storyline, like in The Need, stems from my being a big fan of fast-paced, drama-driven books with complex psychological layers. Some of the earliest romances I read (like, The Thornbirds) were historical, spanned decades of love, loss, and intrigue, and had incredibly strong heroines that I looked up to. After watching the movie, Basic Instinct, I really felt like I’d found the type of story that had everything I was looking for: hot sex, a murder mystery, and a heroine that liked to mess with your head. I felt similarly about Gone Girl, and it solidified my quest to explore the cross-genre of erotic thrillers.

The beauty of the romance genre is that you can have so many sub-genres, as long as there is a happily-ever-after or a happy-for-now ending. Whether you’re writing something sweet or kinky you will always find an audience.    

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The Need

by S.L. Hannah

ADULT title

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GENRE: erotic thriller

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BLURB:

Stood up by her boyfriend, she goes home with a woman…

Straight-laced coed Angie has never felt daring enough to…experiment. Until tonight. The skin around Heather’s lips is soft, unlike the stubble Erik lets grow in, and the night unfolds like an erotic dream, tapping into an unexplored part of Angie’s body and mind.

But Heather’s seduction turns into a nightmare when Angie wakes up tied to the bed and is told she can’t leave. Alternately seduced and tormented by her lover-turned-captor, Angie is pulled ever deeper into a twisted world of pain-for-pleasure and multimedia exploits. As the stakes rise, both women give into a desire for connections neither has had, and Angie’s struggle to escape becomes a bigger dilemma: Would she leave if she could?

Winner of the Golden Palm Contest for New Adult Romance, this erotic thriller dares to explore the darker side of our fantasies and their sometimes unintended consequences.

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EXCERPT

Her taut frame is sandwiched between an attractive couple. They don’t look much older than me, but they look fashionable and carefree, like they belong in a place like this. She’s suggestively pushing back and forth to the DJ’s evocative beats, letting her blonde mane bathe in the crest of the girl’s neck, until the guy grabs it and pulls it back, like he doesn’t want to get left out of anything. Their hands wander freely. It’s almost as if they’re not on a dance floor, but in a bedroom. Doing it standing up. She pulls the girl in tightly. She’s commanding. How I wish I was.




I turn my gaze back to my near-empty drink and the cell phone next to it. Still no response from my boyfriend to my voicemail and several text messages and it’s almost midnight. Where is he? I swirl the ice cubes in my glass.




He knows I’m not really into nightclubs. The drinking, the posturing…it makes Erik feel like he’s part of a squad. It makes me feel like I don’t fit in. But I don’t want to disappoint him, or myself. I can’t spend all of college immersed in books. These are supposed to be the defining years of my life, brimming with experiences that you reference forever, experiences that help you figure out who you really are.



I look back up at the mirrored wall. She has this look on her face, like there’s nowhere else she’d rather be. As if time has stopped just for her, so that she can feel every tensed, slick muscle, hear every throb of desire. Will I ever feel that?

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

S.L. Hannah was born in Poland, grew up in Canada, and moved to Southern California to pursue her love of single-engine airplanes. The Need is her first erotic thriller. The manuscript won the 2013 Florida Romance Writers Golden Palm Contest for New Adult Romance, and is an adaptation of a screenplay about a woman struggling to free herself from her lover’s physical and emotional binds. Buzz about the break-out novel calls it “one powerful piece of writing…creepy as hell.” S.L. Hannah lives in Los Angeles, CA. When she’s not writing fiction, she continues to solve the aviation problems of the world.


Links:

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GIVEAWAY

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The tour dates can be found here