Blog Tour Stop including Excerpt, Author Interview & Giveaway - Broken Records by Lilah Suzanne ~ BFD Book Blog

Author Name: Lilah Suzanne

Book Name: Broken Records

Series: Spotlight

Book: One

Release Date: December 17, 2015

Blurb:

Los Angeles-based stylist Nico Takahashi loves his job—or at least, he used to. Feeling fed up and exhausted from the cutthroat, gossip-fueled business of Hollywood, Nico daydreams about packing it all in and leaving for good. So when Grady Dawson—sexy country music star and rumored playboy—asks Nico to style him, Nico is reluctant. But after styling a career-changing photo-shoot, Nico follows Grady to Nashville where he finds it increasingly difficult to resist Grady’s charms. Can Nico make peace with show business and all its trappings, or will Grady’s public persona get in the way of their private attraction to each other?

Pages or Words: 280 pages

Categories: Bisexual, Contemporary, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance

Excerpt:

Grady presses his lips flat, looks up at the ceiling again to gather himself, sniffs and nods, then tugs Nico’s foot closer by his ankle. “Do you think… If we’d met at a bar. Or through a friend of a friend. Or the gym.” Grady’s thumb strokes the tender skin of Nico’s calf beneath the hem of his pants. “If we had just been two regular guys? We really could have been something.”

There’s a question in his voice, a hesitancy that maybe Nico would have rejected him eventually anyway. Nico scoots across the cramped bunk, crowds against Grady, shoulder to shoulder. “Well, we never would have met at the gym because I would have taken one look at you and gone home to mourn the body I’ll never have by consuming gallons of ice cream.”

Grady bumps his shoulder. “Shut up, you’re gorgeous.” He tips his head against the wall and grins. “If I’d first seen you at a bar I probably would have humiliated myself by trying to win you over with bad karaoke and shameless flirting.”

Nico’s eyebrows raise. “You mean to tell me you’ve been holding back on me? You have a level of flirting that’s even more shameless?”

“Oh yeah. You ain’t seen nothin’, sweetheart.”

“That is truly terrifying.”

Grady laughs, bright and uninhibited. Nico is so relieved to hear it, a moment of light in the darkness. Grady’s hand rests on Nico’s knee, Nico watches his own hand brush his fingers there, but he doesn’t linger.

“We aren’t, though. Just two random guys.”

Grady’s fingers flex, curving over his kneecap. “No.”

Nico exhales harshly. “I have never wanted to be a groupie so badly.”

Grady shoves at his leg. “Come on, you didn’t really think that I would do that to you—”

“In my weaker, more insecure moments?” Nico scrunches his face, embarrassed. “Yeah, I did.”

“You think that little of me, huh?” He says it with a teasing grin, but Nico’s heart sinks.

“No, Grady. I think you’re…” A million adjectives flash through his head: beautiful, amazing, stunning, compassionate, kind, generous. A supernova. He settles on, “Really special.”

Grady gives a skeptical lift of his eyebrows. “Uh oh. I’m really special, huh?”

“I’m so, so into you and it’s…” He cringes at the words but it’s true, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

“Oh lord.” Grady laments with a laugh. “Not that, please.”

“I’m the guy on the sidelines. I’m the one who makes everyone else shine. I don’t belong there, in the spotlight. I like that at the end of the day I can go home and just walk away from the cameras and the red carpets and the scrutiny. And you—you’re a star. And you can have anyone.”

Grady turns, the cramped space of the bunk making his limbs bump and nudge and curl around Nico’s body. During Grady’s shows, in the moment just before he starts singing the opening line of “Broken Records,” there’s this pause, this moment suspended in the air when the audience is silent and waiting and doesn’t even dare to inhale because in that moment, Grady’s soul is laid bare. He looks at Nico just like that and Nico can’t breathe around it.

“I don’t want anyone,” he says, voice low and serious. “I want you. How do you not get that?”

Buy the book:

Interlude Press Web Store

Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Lilah Suzanne author of Broken Records. Hi Lilah, thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Q: What is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about your writing?

A: It’s honestly hard to pinpoint just one, not because I’m spoiled with abundant praise, but because anytime someone takes a moment out of their day to say something nice or to thank me for writing it is the most incredible thing. I feel honored just to be writing things that people read, and especially love making people feel happy with my stories.

Q: Are you a full-time or part-time writer? How does that impact your writing?

A: Part-time, though I do hope to move into full-time writing at some point in the not-so-distant future. The impact is hard sometimes, because I always feel pulled in several different directions and that I can’t possibly give everything the time and attention it needs. But on the other hand, it means that I’m very aware of the small window of time I have to write and I need to take advantage of it or it’s gone.

Q: What interested you about the theme of this book?

A: I really wanted to explore the idea of success and fame and fulfillment, what that looks like, how to find it within instead of through external validation. Is fame necessary to success? Is success necessary for fulfillment? These were the questions I’d been asking myself.

Q: What is the most difficult part of writing for you?

A: It’s very challenging for me to stay focused and positive through all those very important and necessary changes. Writing the story is the easy part. Making it good is the challenge.

Q: Name your four most important food groups.

A: Coffee. Fruit. Cereal.

Meet the author:

Lilah Suzanne has been writing actively since the sixth grade, when a literary magazine published her essay about an uncle who lost his life to AIDS. A freelance writer, she has also authored a children’s book and has a devoted following in the fan fiction community. She is also the author of Interlude Press books Spice and Pivot and Slip. Broken Records is Book One in Lilah’s Spotlight Series.

Where to find the author:

Facebook: Facebook.com/lilahsuzanne

Twitter: @lilahsuzanne

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26223139-broken-records

Publisher: Interlude Press