Monday, December 21, 2015

Virtual Book Tour ~ Broken Record by Lilah Suzanne ~ (Review, Character Interview, Excerpt + Giveaway)

Virtual Book Tour ~ Broken Record by Lilah Suzanne ~ (Review, Character Interview, Excerpt + Giveaway)
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?”



Character Interview:

Today I'm happy to welcome Nico and Grady from Broken Records by Lilah Suzanne to Bayou Book Junkie!

Gentlemen, thanks so much for agreeing to this interview. It's a pleasure to have y'all here! Tell us a little about yourselves!


What has been the greatest challenge in your relationship? 
Grady: Being away from each other so much is hard. I’m gone a lot. On tour and in the studio, or off to L.A. or New York. Sometimes Nico can be there, but he has his own busy work schedule. If it were entirely up to me I’d go back to playing in crummy bars, getting paid in tips, if I could go to home to him every night.
Nico: I think he would be miserable doing that, actually. But it’s a very sweet thought. I can deal with the travel, I stay busy. It’s harder for me when I feel like I’m only getting some of him. I am still not great at sharing Grady with the world sometimes.
Now that you’ve gotten together, what comes next?
Grady: Happily ever after.
Nico: You sap. I wish it were that simple. I’m just hoping for a long stretch of time when we can be together without obligations and fans and press pulling at us. Some peace.

Grady: And then happily ever after.
Nico: Sure, yeah. We’ll get there.
What was the hardest thing for you to overcome that you didn’t expect to be an issue?
Nico: That when we do have longer periods of time together, it’s an adjustment.
Grady: We can get on each other’s nerves if we aren’t careful. There is such as thing as too much togetherness, I guess. Too much togetherness can cause stupid fights.

Nico: And chafing. Mostly chafing.
What are your favorite qualities about your partner?
Grady: He’s so confident, you can see it in the way he dresses and carries himself, the way he speaks and does his job. But it’s not vanity, it’s a gracious certainty, because he wants other people to feel confident, too. When I’m with him I feel like he’s my calm in the face of chaos. My center point. Like he takes all the shattered mixed-up parts of me and puts them back together again so everything makes sense. And I have a huge thing for his ears.
Nico: Sometimes I find his manic optimism to be aggravating, but really I admire it. I know I can be cynical, so to be with someone who is determined to be positive and see the best in people, when he has every reason to see the worst, is really inspiring. Grady just wants to make people happy and to feel like they matter, because he knows how it is to feel unloved and unwanted. The fact that he’s insanely sexy doesn’t hurt.
What is your favorite song?
Grady: Oh man, that’s a great question.
Nico: No it’s not, we’ll be here all day, you can’t ask him that!
Grady: Okay, I’ll let Nico pick.
Nico: It’s Stay. The one Grady wrote for me.
Grady: I knew he was gonna say that.
Where do you hope to be in 5 years? 
Nico: Happily ever after.

Grady: Yeah. That.

4 Stars 

*copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie by the author/publisher via Pride Promotions in exchange for an honest review.* 

Celebrity fashion stylist, Nico meets Country music star, Grady when Grady barges into his office requesting help for a photo shoot. 

I liked the story. I adored the MC's, but I just didn't care for the author's writing style. There was too much detail given. I don't need to be told every step the character takes. "He got out the car, closed the door, pressed the lock button, headed up the limestone walkway to the purple wooden door". I completely understand some people love this much detail, but I don't. I find myself wanting to skim the description and get to the physical story. 

I loved the characters and story, but I don't think I'll be continuing the series.
Buy the book: 
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
Cover Artist: Victoria S. with CB Messer


Tour Dates & Stops:

Rafflecopter Prize: $25 Interlude Press Web Store Gift card plus five multi-format eBooks to runners-up

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