The Need by S.L. Hannah ♥ Fun Facts, Book Tour & GIVEAWAY ♥ (Erotic Thriller)

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

The Need by S.L. Hannah ♥ Fun Facts, Book Tour & GIVEAWAY ♥ (Erotic Thriller)

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.

1. The Need started out as a screenplay. The Need started out as a spec script that my husband was hired to write in 2009. Unfortunately, the financing for the project fell through, which happens a lot in Hollywood. My husband shopped the script to a few more interested producers and agents, but that certain bit of magic that you need to make a movie come to life did not materialize. I loved the story. Two strong female characters that get twisted into this dark love affair…it was the distraction I was looking for at the time (late 2012), so I asked my husband if I could adapt his screenplay into a book. He loved the idea, and in 2015, The Need was born.

2. In the original ending, Heather died. When my husband wrote the script, he wrote it as a thriller. There were few romantic elements, and the story focused more on Angie’s transformation. His transformation of Angie was also quite different from mine. In his version, Angie turns into the scary Heather; a sociopath intent on keeping the shady porn business alive. In my version, Angie transforms into a confident a woman that helps both her and Heather escape the grips of dark world that Heather’s business has created.

3. The Need won the New Adult Romance Category of the 2013 Golden Palm Contest. Several months into drafting The Need, I decided to do something I’d never done before. I decided to throw the dice and enter The Need into four writing contests. I wanted to see if The Need was compelling enough to win…and it did. One of my favorite comments from a judge was, “This is one powerful piece of writing. This story is well-told, honest and creepy as hell. You do a brilliant job of portraying the prey and the predator. I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything that made me so uncomfortable! Which means it’s very, very good. Excellent, in fact.”

4. The score in the book trailer for The Need is original. I asked my sister, who is a music composer living in Toronto, if she could come up with about a minute of music for my book trailer. I told her what the book was about and what I was generally going for, and she came up with something that perfectly hit the peaks and valleys. The visuals and music combined so well that a lot of people ask me when the movie is coming out.

5. I wrote The Need in five different countries. This happened by accident, because I thought I would be done with my final draft of The Need before I left on my European vacation in 2014, but I wasn’t. So I packed my lap top, which I was going to anyway, and came up with a way to fit in work while relaxing and sight-seeing. The experience was positive, and I’d do it again, if not for any other reason than to say my book is well-traveled.

Her chest sinks into mine, making it hard to breathe. “You came home with me for a reason, Angie. You wanted to learn something about yourself. I don’t have to make up some exorbitant lie to make you stay. You want to stay.” She loosens her grip around my wrists. “You know that craving you felt, and the anticipation, and then when I finally touched you…” Her fingers drag slowly down my arms and sides. “And let you unleash…” She grabs firmly onto my hips. “You know that was just the tip of the iceberg and there’s so much more for us to explore.”

Flashes of the last forty-eight hours replay in my mind. Watching her dance, the thrill of letting loose with her, the incredible orgasm. But then she tied me to her bed, and those prophetic photos, and the taser…

“You drugged me. And hurt me—”

“How do you think we learn about ourselves, Angie? By being comfortable and not pushing our boundaries? By always feeling safe?” Her lips pause at my chin and the smell of coffee is heavy on her breath. “You want to go home? Believe his excuses and go back to status quo? That’s always going to be there for you. But this, and me…if you walk away now, you may regret it forever. What’s a couple more days?”

I go limp under her. My emotions completely torn. How can I trust a woman who has threatened my life? And yet there’s truth in her words.

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.