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?
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?”
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.
Author Links:
Facebook: Facebook.com/lilahsuzanne
Twitter: @lilahsuzanne
Goodreads
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26223139-broken-records
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Lilah
Suzanne author of Broken Records. Hi Lilah, thank you for agreeing to
this interview.
Favorite thing about building your own world? Creating
characters is my absolute favorite part. For me it’s characters first, and then
their world comes to life around them.
What inspired you to write your first book? Pivot
and Slip was inspired by my own struggles with losing a dream and what
comes next, how you pick up the pieces when you feel like you’ve really lost
yourself somewhere. Pivot and Slip was itself a realization of a new
dream and new ambitions.
Do you have a specific writing style? I think I
have a pretty well developed rom-com style, which is something I both
intentionally worked on cultivating, and also what just sort of comes out when
I write.
Who are some of the authors that influenced you to
write? Anytime I read a book I find something inspirational, even if it’s
not my favorite author or book. So I really do feel as if every story I’ve read
has been an inspiration; I just wanted to do what they were doing however I
could!
What are some jobs you’ve held? Have any of them
impacted your writing? How? I’ve worked a variety of retail jobs, which
means you meet a lot of people and get to know humanity at its most demanding
and impatient. I also taught preschool, and I have to say taking care of a
classroom full of toddlers was much easier than working retail. The impact of
these jobs on my writing would have to be the realization that everyone has a
story, and everyone matters.
Thank you for stopping by today Lilah!
Tour Dates & Stops:
17-Dec:
Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Hearts on Fire, Cheekypee Reads and Reviews, Dawn’s Reading Nook, Velvet Panic, Michael Mandrake, Mikky's World of Books
18-Dec:
My Fiction Nook, Elisa - My Reviews and Ramblings, All I Want and More Books, Nautical Star Books, Havan Fellows
24-Dec:
Love Bytes, Lee Brazil, Happily Ever Chapter
25-Dec:
Divine Magazine, Inked Rainbow Reads
$25 Interlude Press Web Store Gift card plus five
multi-format eBooks to runners-up
