Virtual Tour: Would I Lie to You? by Brad Vance ~ (ARC Review, Author Interview, Excerpt + Giveaway)
Book Information:
Author Name: Brad Vance
Book Name: Would I Lie To You?
Series: The Game Players
Book: One
Release Date: April 24, 2015
Publisher: Brad Vance
Cover Artist: Brad Vance
Blurb:
Software billionaire Marc Julian’s orderly life is shattered one night by a cyber-intrusion into his company’s servers. He’s always surrounded himself with the best people, but finding the culprit behind this might require a real expert...and sometimes it takes a thief to catch a thief.
Jesse Winchester and his team of “grey hat” hackers are suddenly available to Marc. Marc doesn’t know if he should trust Jesse with the keys to his company’s kingdom. After all, Jesse’s a convicted felon, sent to prison for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. A felon sentenced to thirty-five years in prison, who mysteriously served only three years before being released…
Marc’s first company, his whole life, was shattered because he trusted the wrong person. This time there’s even more at stake, but few other options. Especially when his evil enemies, the billionaire industrialist Krom brothers, are revealed to be the source of the intrusion.
Is Jesse there to help Marc, or does he have his own history with the Kroms, his own score to settle? As Jesse and Marc spend more time together, their growing intimacy is at war with their need to win their respective battles. Soon the game they start to play with each other, against each other, becomes more exciting, more exquisitely frustrating…and more dangerous.
Pages or Words: 289 pages
Categories: BDSM, Crime Fiction, M/M Romance, Thriller, Cybercrime
Excerpt:
He’d made a mistake with Marc. He’d thought they could play a game together, to pass the time, let off steam, release stress. Marc was smart enough to know that that’s all it was.
Right?
But the look on his face, when Jesse said goodbye… The shock. The disappointment. The…
Say it. The hurt. That was when Jesse knew that for Marc, it had been more.
That was when Jesse knew that it had been more for him, too.
Author Interview:
We are so happy to have Brad Vance here with us today to talk about, the research that went into this book, what qualities he loves about these characters, what he does with his free time, and more!
First I have to say, Brad, that cover is awesome. That guy’s expression actually looks like he's asking "Would I Lie To You?" This cover nails it!!
Thank you! That picture actually inspired the story. I’m always looking for good stock photos, and of course this guy (Daniel Sobieray), his beauty, his personality, his charisma, just stuck out in every picture. He’s a Francesco Cura model, of course – Francesco has been on more of my covers than I can count, and was even my “muse” for “Apollo’s Curse.” Cura’s his own photographer, as well as having a coterie of amazing models in his amazing pictures. So I was not the least bit surprised to find that my new muse was one of his guys.
I just kept looking at that picture and thinking, what a charming con man. He’s got a look on his face that says, “Would I lie to you?” And of course, the answer is yes. And the story started writing itself from that.
Did you do a lot of research about the in's and out's of Computer hacking for this book?
I did know quite a lot already. I worked in high tech for (COUGH AHEM) many years, before finally going full time as a writer this year. I did additional research, of course, and one of the key sources was “Countdown to Zero Day,” a book about the Stuxnet virus, that America and/or Israel created to destroy equipment in Iran’s nuclear facilities. There’s a scene in the book where there’s an explosion, I won’t say more – a reviewer called it unbelievable, but it’s an event that I lifted directly from that book. Sometimes truth is stranger, and scarier, than fiction.
What are your favorite qualities about each of the main characters?
Their insanely high intelligence, their restlessness with the ordinary, their essentially moral natures despite the somewhat immoral things they have to do. The series is titled “The Game Players” because sometimes a relationship between two people like that is a duel, a chess match, there’s a pride that’s right up there in its power next to the longing, a pride that says, I know you, you’re like me, if I make this easy for you, you’ll be bored and so will I…let’s play a game… The two of them are just so perfect for each other.
Of all the books you've written, do you have a favorite set of characters, and if so who are they? (Mine are Brian and Roger from "Given the Circumstances")
Thank you! I love Roger and Brian. Brian’s a complex guy, he’s essentially good but he’s a corner-cutter, looking for the easy way around life’s obstacles, at least until later in the book. It’s so hard to pick one pair, but I’d have to land on Tom and Jamie from “A Little Too Broken.” These are two guys who have some serious problems, physical and emotional, but they face them with dark humor and a lot of inner strength. Most of my other characters, I think, could have had a HEA with someone else, in time, if they hadn’t met, but these two…I can’t see them being with anyone else but each other.
Do the people in you real life ever make it between the pages of your books?
Ummm…haha! Not cut and pasted, no. Elements of them get filtered into the characters. I have a friend who was a grifter at one time, and I learned a lot from her that went into Jesse’s past. Some of my enemies have definitely made it into my books in nearly cut and paste fashion, for sure.
If you’re not writing, how do you like to spend your free time?
I’m pretty boring. I love to read, I’m a homebody except when I’m traveling. I love to travel, I go to NYC all the time, and I’m hoping to sell enough books to take a massive European vacation next year!
Mari's Review:
5 Stars
***copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie via Pride Promotions in exchange for a fair and honest review. ***
Wow, just wow! Really, at first I wasn’t sure I was going to like this story. While I don’t mind reading stories that have some BDSM elements, I’m so not into humiliation, and my mind interpreted as such the first few pages, so yeah, to say I was wary to continue was putting it lightly. However, I pushed through and by the end of the chapter, I was hooked!
The plotline was so interesting! Fast paced and engaging and I just devoured the book, couldn’t put it down until I finished it around 2 am, which considering I had to wake up at 5:30 am is saying something.
Marc was awesome! I loved seeing his mind at work and all that made him so brilliant. How he pushed through his depression after losing it all, through being diagnosed as bipolar and then managed to build his company was inspiring. And even with all he’d lost and his trust issues, he was more put together than Jesse in the long run, in my opinion.
I liked Jesse, and I loved that he was so loyal to his mom, all he did was always with her in his mind. Well, her and revenge after being thrown in jail. He was also honest with Marc, even if he didn’t disclose his whole story, until Marc did some digging of his own, and boy, if he didn’t have more trust issues than Marc.
The two of them together, were great, despite the lack of kissing or sex for most of the book, their friendship and the intimacy they fell in from the start were just amazing. I didn’t even notice they hadn’t kissed until they mentioned it was their first, that’s how engrossed I was in the story. And when they actually got together? Damn hot! So yes, I really recommend this so very much! I can't wait for the next book in this series!!
Brad Vance writes gay romance, erotica and paranormal stories and novels, including the breakout hits "A Little Too Broken" and "Have a Little Faith in Me."
Where to find the author:
Tour Dates & Stops: May 11 – May 29, 2015
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Rafflecopter Prize: One of three E-book copies of ‘Would I Lie To You?’ by Brad Vance
Enjoyed the post. I'm adding this to my TBR list.
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