New Release: 5 and TWO 3 stars Broken Records (Spotlight #1) by Lilah Susanne (AUTHOR INTERVIEW) #MM #Romance @lilahsuzanne

I really really enjoyed this book. The characters were so loveable! I absolutely adored Grady, who despite being a HUGE celebrity, was down to earth and grounded.

Meanwhile Nico has to deal with all that comes with falling for a celebrity… the fans, the invasion of privacy, the rumors, etc.

I will say that I didn’t care for what tipped Nico over the edge, I thought it just seemed a bit forced, but I loved the way he handled it.

I haven’t read this author before, but I’d be willing to read more of her because I was sucked into the story and connected with the men and could easily follow the plot with her smooth writing style.

Renee

This is a cute, but overly done story about Nico the stylist and Grady, a sexy country singer. I don’t read much MMs with a music/entertainment theme, but once in a while I find a book that looks interesting. Broken Records seems like a repeat of a lot of the previous books I’ve read with rock stars etc. Well, in this case, Grady is a country singer. These two were cute together, but I wasn’t very invested in them. I kept putting down and picking up the book and eventually I finished reading it.

Will I read book 2? Eh…

~Cookie

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?”