Marguerite Labbe

I received A Little Side of Geek through the Don’t Buy My Love program for an honest and unbiased review. This story stars geeky artist, Morris Proctor, and chef, Theo Boarman. The book is told in third person from Morris and Theo’s pov, and two side characters.



This book is leisurely paced. Don’t expect a lot of action because it’s mostly about day-to-day activities such as going to a convention, conversations and work. I don’t usually mind casual stories because I like character development more than I like action. However, I have to be honest that for me, parts of this story dragged. Before I explain why I think this, I have to mention the layout of this book. It’s divided into what I would call Parts and Commercial Breaks. There are three main parts, which are more like short stories. The Parts are broken up by a commercial break. Each Break is from the pov of one of the side characters. The Breaks remind me of a short story blog post connected to the main story. Sort of like spin off stories. They’re not exactly full stories, but a short story written to let readers know what the characters have been up to once the main story is over. Therefore, the book’s layout is like Part One, Short Break One, Part Two, Short Break Two, Part Three.

I didn’t like the Breaks. The Breaks broke up the storyline and the main characters I was interested in. When the first Break happened, it completely and utterly threw me out of the story and annoyed me so much; I put the book down for a couple days. The shift to reading about Brenden, the convention organizer, didn’t do a thing for the plot. From the conversations the other characters had, and the monologue Morris had in Part One, I already knew how Brenden felt about his foster brother, Dakota. Adding Brenden’s chapter didn’t give me any more information. I didn’t feel any emotional connection with Brenden’s character, except for a lot of monologue about Dakota. Break Two with Felipe was the same deal, but not as annoying because, Felipe was more interesting, while Brenden was dull. Both characters would have benefited with their own separate stories because they were out of place in this one. It almost seems like the author inserted the characters as a preliminary for them to have their own books in the future. But, I’ve read series where the author just includes a bit about a future character and that works well enough for me. I would say that the Breaks, which were a full chapter each, were probably the worst part of this book.

I will get to the items I like, but I still want to talk about the pace. Part One was slow and more about things and descriptions. We’re introduced to the MCs a little, but Part One is heavy on descriptions of things and places and lots more description. The author is good at describing, but I felt it was too much and Part One could have been cut in half. Part Two is about Morris and Theo getting to know each other, and the trouble they had meshing their lives because of their careers. Part Three is about the MCs working through their troubles and families. I liked Part Three the best because there was more people interaction and it wasn’t just about things and places. I can’t remember what Part it was in, but Morris’ niece comes over to meet, Theo and Lincoln, Theo’s brother. Maybe it’s because I don’t like basketball, but I found the scene too long and I wanted to skim read. Another scene was Theo and his family haggling over who to hire at the restaurant. I felt that dragged on and it didn’t interest me. Again, I wanted to skip over that. My preference only, but I feel this book was too long, with excessive description and long scenes that could’ve been shorter.

Now on to the things I liked. The characters were great. From Morris, Theo and all the side characters, they are some of the best fleshed out and distinct personalities I’ve read. There’s also good character development. All that for me, is what made the story good. I did like the description of the cons, even though they were too long and I loved everything about the food, I mean I really liked the talk about all the food. The writing was good, but just too much description.

I’m waffling on how many stars to give A Little Side of Geek. The writing was good about the characters and description. But at the same time, there was just too much description and the story dragged at significant points. This book has good characters and growth, but I just wish there wasn’t so much other stuff happening in between which took focus away from the characters. I think I would have cared more about them if that were the case. I’m going to give this 3 Stars because the things that bothered me, outweighed the parts I liked.

… (meer)

I only read about half the stories in this anthology. It's mostly a mixed bag. There were a couple I really like (one particular stand-out story is Clare London's "Say a Little Prayer"), most were just ok. With such short stories, I felt a lot of the sex scenes were totally unnecessary, and some stories seemed to be set up around the sex scene, with character/plot background just to pad it out so it wouldn't be totally about gratuitous porn. Meh, most of these were not really my taste, I suppose.

J.P. Barnaby, "End of the World As We Know It". Did not finish. The age gap involving a minor really puts me off.

J.C. Chase, "Open Tackle". 2 stars. The relationship between best friends and football teammates Owen and Rory change when Owen confesses his feelings for Rory, then runs off after taking Rory's stunned silence for a rejection. A basic misunderstanding plot, really common in yaoi manga, which I find rather unrealistic and gets resolved fairly quickly.

Jaya Christopher, "Cody and the Hermit". 2 stars. Cowboy Cody pines after a former childhood friend and longtime crush when said crush returns to his hometown after several years away. I didn't really find this one believable at all. The sex scene was also clearly tacked on and didn't really add anything to the story.

Poppy Dennison, "Blindsided". 3 stars. Boxer/fighter Noah is nervous about his upcoming fight, his fellow boxer comforts him. This is a plot that I like a lot and wish I could read as a full novel. As a short story, the ending is too easy and unsatisfying and would be better if it was more developed.

Rachel Haimowitz, "Jungle Heat". 2 stars. American Ranger Pete gets captured by a drug cartel, is given cocaine and raped. The story completely falls apart at the end when the love interest (a fellow Ranger) comes to save him, confesses and suddenly everything's ok???

Jambrea Jo Jones, "Wild Blue Yonder". 2 stars. Bruce leaves his lover and fellow soldier Rick when it seems like Rick can't offer him the commitment he wants.

Marguerite Labbe, "Tears of the Sea". 2 stars. David is tied up by Liam, his crush and the husband of his husband's twin brother, in an attempt to make him remember memories he lost. An interesting enough idea but terribly executed. It dragged on way too long and wasn't particularly well-written.

Clare London, "Say A Little Prayer". 5 stars. While working a summer job, Jonathan finds a winged and naked man on the beach waiting just for him. This was a real gem of a short story and absolutely compelling from beginning to end. I like how the "mystery" unravels itself slowly and allowed for the development of some really delicious tension and heat. This was also one story where the sex scene felt like it was important and fit into the story rather than being a gratuitous scene added in. (Ironically, this is one story where I wouldn't have minded more sex-- I guess because I was very invested in the two characters.) Lovely writing and wonderful story overall. I will definitely check out more of this author's work.

M.J. O'Shea, "Bridges". 2 stars. I've read this one before, my review is here. Sweet but ultimately forgettable tale of two enemies turned lovers.

Devon Rhodes, "His Last Resort". 3 stars. A college freshman comes out to his roomate.

Andrea Speed, "My Bloody Valentine". 4 stars. Cody takes Drew to an abandoned house for some spooky fun. Super short but packs a real punch.

V.J. Summers, "Liar, Liar". DNF. Didn't like the writing.

Bryl R. Tyne, "Alipio". 3 stars. A very poetic and dream-like short story about an artist who becomes infatuated with the slave who is his model.… (meer)

Andrei Cuza and Dean Marshall expected a happily ever after life. But when Dean is murdered after pulling over to help a motorist with a flat tire, Andrei's world comes crashing down. And that world keeps spinning when Andrei learns that Dean's spirit is staying behind to send him a message and help him track down the murderer. None of this is how they expected to be spending their days, and it's certainly not how they expected to say goodbye. This is a bit of a whirlwind story--things move very quickly and I found myself having to slow down my reading and points to make sure I was really picking up all of the plot points and backstory pieces--there's a lot of backstory that drops as you go. But it was a rather unique story overall, and I found myself engrossed in it from start to finish.… (meer)

Nothing less than the full 5 stars for this story. It was one of those books I wanted to devour in one sitting but kept putting down because I wanted to stretch it out and savour each moment of it.
My own plans for a Roman slave story are now firmly on the back burner, since anything I attempt will surely pale into insignificance by comparison.
Beautifully evocative details, characters you care about and obviously bags and bags of research to back it all up (although it never feels like it is forced into the story).… (meer)