Don't forget to enter the giveaway at the end of the post. You could win one of the following prizes: $25
Interlude Press Web Store Gift card plus five multi-format eBooks to runners-up. The contest closes on January 6th, 2016. Tour is sponsored by pride Promotions.
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Lilah Suzanne author of Broken Records. Hi Lilah, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.
Do you have pictures that you use for your characters? Can you share
them with us? Yes I do! My image inspiration for Grady was a model named Cole Monahan. For Nico it was a combination of Japanese actor/model/musician Jun Matsumoto (hair and build) and a dancer named Mark Kanemura (face and ears.)
What kind of book would you like to write that people would see as a huge departure for you? I’ve toyed with writing Historical Fiction, something more difficult and less lighthearted. I think that
would 1)
be unexpected.
I’m always up for trying something different.
Have you ever killed a character? Was it traumatic for you? If you haven’t killed one, would you ever consider it? Broken Records and the book to follow, Burning Tracks, both do deal with death and loss, though no main characters are killed off. It was actually kind
of cathartic. I would potentially kill off a main character, though
generally 1)
those aren’t
the kind of stories I write. Never say never!
Favorite location you’ve ever written about? I’ve really enjoyed writing this Spotlight series that is set in Southern US, which
is where I’m from. I love Nashville, the music and the laid-back hip vibe, so this
has been really
wonderful to settle into for a while.
What’s your favorite season and favorite activity for that season? I love fall, all of it. Pumpkin patches and the changing leaves, warm drinks and layered clothes and cuddling up by a roaring fire. Plus my cats only like to sit on my lap if it’s chilly out, so that’s nice.
Now let's check out Lilah Suzanne's Broken Records....
Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover
Artist: Victoria S. with CB Messer
Series: Spotlight
Book: One
Release
Date: December 17, 2015
Goodreads
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26223139-broken-records
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?”
Tour
Dates & Stops:
24-Dec:
Love Bytes, Lee Brazil, Happily Ever Chapter
25-Dec:
Divine Magazine, Inked
Rainbow Reads
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
3 comments:
Thank you so much for having me!
Interesting questions, and answers too! I'm off to look up the image inspiration people right away :-)
I loved Thriller and Off the Wall by Michael Jackson.
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