At The Brink by Anna del Mar – Blog Tour with a Story about grey areas & a Giveaway

Posted 1 June, 2016 by Danny in Blog, Blog Tour, Danny, Giveaways / 9 Comments

Hey you guys! I’m thrilled to have Anna DelMar today on my blog who is right now on a promotional tour with her newest (most sexiest) release AT The Brink. And I asked her to talk about sexual grey areas in fiction and how she approached this in At The Brink. You really should read her post, it’s pretty awesome!!

Finally, if you stay until the end, you can enter a fantastic giveaway!

Sexual Obsession in At the Brink – A Matter of a lot of grey areas. How did you know when to draw the line?

from Anna DelMar

Sexual obsession is the undercurrent of every steamy romance and I definitively tapped into the heart of it with my new erotic romance At the Brink.

At the Brink is the story of Josh Lane, a decorated war hero, a former SEAL and a Boston business tycoon. He’s blunt, ruthless, intense and exacting; a workaholic driven by internal demons; a man who doesn’t play games, except in bed, of course, where he is always in command. When he meets Lily Boswell, a talented but stifled artist trapped in a dangerous situation, he devises a sexual agreement that explores their most primal erotic cravings, the only chance he might have to protect her and vanish the demons that haunt his dreams.

You may find some of these initial themes familiar. The idea of a sexual agreement has been floated before. But remember, the beginning is only a platform and At the Brink soon launches into a journey that will take the reader into unexpected territory. At the Brink is a rich, intense, intricate tale that explores sex as an agent for love and love as an agent for change. It takes its time to introduce us to two flawed, imperfect heroes, who join in an unlikely path to discover not only their deepest sexual fantasies, but also each other.

Which brings me to the original question. If sexual obsession is the undercurrent that drives this story, if sex—explicit and open—has such a huge role in this plot, then where and how did I draw the line?

I have five guiding principles that I stick to when I write erotic romance and they keep me at the line:

Sex has to be meaningful: To me, sex has to have a purpose in the story. This is hard to explain without giving away spoilers, so I’ll just say that, when you finish At the Brink, you’ll understand what I mean.

The sexual story matters: It’s vital to the emotional plot and it’s going somewhere, somewhere important, somewhere transformative.

The setup also matters because it allows us to follow the characters’ transformation from point A to point Z. The art of telling a story without shorting the characters requires time and space to develop a plot that allows us to see the character in motion. Yes, it takes a few extra pages, but at the end we’re rewarded by that jewel: the complete story.

The sex is hot, fun, kinky, intense and explicit, but it’s also safe, sane and consensual, key words that keep us at that the line.

And perhaps most important, love is the objective, the prize and the goal that brings it all together to a heartwarming, satisfying conclusion. Because sex becomes a powerful force in the context of true love.

At The Brink

by Anna del Mar

Get a Copy: Amazon | Apple iBooks | B&N |Kobo | Google Play
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Release: May 2nd 2016 by Carina Press

A Story of Sexual Obsession

Lily: I should never have agreed to it. A woman will do a lot to keep her husband happy. But when my husband sells me to the highest bidder—billionaire, former Navy SEAL, pride of Boston’s business scene—I agree, not to keep him happy but because it gives me the chance to finally escape. Escape my marriage, escape my debts, escape my life …

Josh Lane demands a steep price: my pride and my morals. But the truth is, I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for him. He brings color into my gray world. And his insistence that I submit to his commands—his depraved, filthy, amazing commands—only feeds my craving to be taken by him. Again. And again. I should never have agreed to it, but I’m so glad I did.

Josh: I don’t need to pay to keep women in my bed. Though my preferences may be unorthodox, I never leave a woman unsatisfied—far from it. Lily Boswell, though … her innocence draws me, her secrets intrigue me. Having her is worth dealing with her cowardly scum of a husband.

I want to release her passions and heal her wounds .On my terms. Because the blindfolds and restraints hide more than she could imagine. I must keep her safe from the people who would destroy me—and the demons that haunt my dreams.

About Anna Del Mar

Anna del Mar writes hot, smart romances that soothe the soul, challenge the mind, and satisfy the heart. Her stories focus on strong heroines struggling to find their place in the world and the brave, sexy, kickass, military heroes who defy the limits of their broken bodies to protect the women they love. She is the author of The Asset (Carina Press), the first novel of her Wounded Warrior series and three other novels scheduled for release during 2016.

A Georgetown University graduate, Anna enjoys traveling, hiking, skiing, and the sea. Writing is her addiction, her drug of choice, and what she wants to do all the time. The extraordinary men and women she met during her years as a Navy wife inspire the fabulous heroes and heroines at the center of her stories. When she stays put—which doesn’t happen very often—she lives in Florida with her indulgent husband and two very opinionated cats.

Find Anna online: Website | Facebook | Twitter