Get ready…get set…READ…
Broken Records
Lilah Suzanne
Series: Spotlight, book one
Release date: December 17, 2015
Lilah Suzanne is in the hot seat!
What’s the easiest thing about writing?
I find dialogue to be the
easiest part; a character’s voice is the first thing that comes to me when I’m
writing, I “hear” them very clearly. I think it’s probably because I’ve always
been a quiet person. I spend a lot of time listening to and observing people,
the way they interact and speak in conversation.
Name one author (living or dead) you’d
like to write with?
I don’t think I would be
able to collaborate with an author I admire! Writing is so solitary for me, and
I’d also be so intimidated by an author I admire that I’d just let them do
their thing!
Tell us about your cover and how it came about.
I can’t really take any
credit for the cover, it was all the genius of the art director at Interlude
Press, CB Messer, and the cover artist Victoria S. They really managed to
perfectly capture Grady and Nico’s story; the lights of the cameras and the
beautiful suits, Nico’s hesitancy and Grady’s confidence. It’s perfect.
Is this book part of a series? Do you have ideas that could
make it into a series? If it is a series, tell us a little about it.
Broken Records is the
first book of my very first series! I’m really excited about it. The Spotlight
series will center on the country music industry and Nashville, and I’m
hard at work on the second book: Burning Tracks, which focuses on the
women we meet in Broken Records: Nico’s business partner Gwen, her wife Flora,
and Clementine Campbell, another country music star.
Word association. Tell us the first thing that comes to mind
when you read these words.
Ketchup And mustard! Gotta have both.
Flakes Frosted. I have some of those in my pantry right now...
Elastic I go through a lot of hair elastics. My hair is so thick
that they’re always breaking.
Timer When I’m cooking I think of the timer (and everything else
about the recipe) as a mild suggestion instead of an important guideline. I’m
not a great cook.
Google Essential. What did writers do before Google? I can’t even
remember.
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?
Categories: Contemporary, Bisexual,
Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance
280 pages
Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover Artist: Victoria S. with CB Messer
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
It’s all about 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.
…and stalking them :)
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