Promo Post: Dirty Games by Barbara Elsborg (Guest Post + Giveaway)

Dirty Games by Barbara Elsborg

Amazon

Read Mari & Rita's reviews here.

Blurb

Let the games begin.

When you play dirty, mud gets in your eyes. And when your vision clears, it might be too late to say sorry.

Linton Williams is moving up in life, he’s secured a great job, he’s living his dream - until it all comes crashing down, courtesy of a brother who’s hooked on cocaine and owes money to dangerous people. When Linton’s offered enough cash to pay off his brother’s debts and send him to rehab, he can’t say no.

But there’s a catch. To save his brother from the hell of addiction, Linton makes a deal with the devil. His job? To teach film star Thorne Morrisey a public lesson in humility that might just destroy Thorne’s acting career for good.

When Thorne and Linton meet, sparks fly, and one kiss sets into motion a chain of events that could destroy them both. By the time Linton decides the price is too high, it’s too late. He’s fallen hard. And now he’s trapped between destroying his lover or his brother.

Game over.

Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex.

I once wrote a story starting with those very words called Falling for You. When I’m asked what I find the hardest thing I find about being a writer, I always say – sex. Er, not me having it, I mean writing it because after over 40 books/novellas, finding a way to make sex scenes sound fresh becomes very difficult indeed.

Over the last three months, I’ve reread and republished almost 30 of my books, the rights to which I’ve had returned. Whenever I reached a sex scene, I gulped and braced myself. But they did all sound a bit different, largely due to the banter between the participants. I do like humour when guys are getting down and dirty. I have a very funny husband, which helps with research! Plus I love Google. The things you can find out! I have no idea how I managed before the Internet. Well, I do actually. I used the library, I wrote to organizations and asked for information, I used travel books and brochures. It was a lot of work. Now, it’s all there at the click of a button, though it is easy to get distracted.

As I’ve just been.

Sex.

Right.

It used to be the instruction from certain publishers that the sex scenes had to come thick and fast – whoa – a few words that sound rather suggestive – then the directive was scrap that, we need more sexual tension – so hold off on the sex for a while. I’ve written hundreds of sex scenes of one type of another. I feel exhausted thinking about it. I don’t feel that any were gratuitous but those first books of mine, phew, they are scorching.

So sex. I still struggle a bit when I write it but I NEVER leave the scene to complete later, I always keep going until I’ve managed to write something, even if it’s terrible. Going back over my story is the part I like the best, tweaking and adding bits until it really comes to life.

In my latest book – Dirty Games, which is long, 108,000 words, the heroes don’t actually have sex until over halfway through. I’ve realised, the longer I’ve been writing, that it’s the build-up I love, the setting up of the relationship, the laying down the layers that will lead to the happy ever after. And yet, the next book brewing in my head, will likely have the protagonists at it within the first chapter before they don't touch each other again for ages. Well, assuming I decide to write that story and not the other that’s percolating. Decisions…

See, I’m distracted again.

So Dirty Games is a story about brothers and their relationships and how far someone would go to help their brother. My brother was a pest when I was little. He’s 4 years younger than me. Waltzed through life without a care. Never revised for an exam while his suffering older sister, me, was upstairs night after night with my head in a book. My brother ended up with a PhD – is a world specialist in his field of chemical pollution and – damn it. I’m off topic again.

But I would do anything for him. Just as Linton does for his brother Dirk and it almost costs Linton everything.

Buy it at Amazon.

I’d like to offer an ecopy of Dirty Games or any other of my backlist if you have already read it, to a randomly selected commentator. Tell me about your irritating sibling if you have one – do you wish you had, if you haven’t got a brother or sister? 

Don't forget to leave your e-mail address so we can contact you if you win. You have up until Saturday, April 22nd at 8pm CST to enter.

I always love to hear from readers. Well, I usually do. My skin is not thick. But quite nicely tanned at the moment – damn, sorry. Off topic again.

If you want to learn more about me and my books – I’m here.

www.barbaraelsborg.com

Thanks for reading.