Friday, May 25, 2018

Watch Me Fall by Riley Parks Blog Tour


After pulling himself out of poverty and shame, Elijah Tucker finds he's yanked back to the South Side of Chicago by a man he never saw coming.

SOMETIMES, YOU CAN

Having it all is hard work, and Elijah Tucker has no problem 24/7-ing to keep himself on top. But life has a sense of humor and a big-ass mirror that reminds Eli where he came from, and shows him what he’s really made of when he meets Gideon Valsecchi.

Gideon Valsecchi has one life goal – get out of the shithole where he lives on the South Side of Chicago. To say life has been unkind is a joke he can’t even laugh at; to say he’s going to have to claw his way out is a reality that nearly crushes him every day. But...he has a secret weapon, and he’s learning how to hone his skills. Yet, hope is a feeling he won’t indulge in until he gets to know Elijah Tucker, who shows Gideon there is an out, and it can include love.

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Book 1
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“I don’t want your fucking sweatshirt, man,” Gideon stated, clicking his tongue. “Ain’t your fucking charity case. Go give shit to some other motherfucker if you need to deal with some kinda winner’s guilt or something. I’m not the one.”

“It’s not any kind of guilt,” Eli protested. “I fucked yours up and I’m giving you a new one.”

“Don’t want it,” Gideon replied simply. He began to walk again, visibly irritated when Elijah continued beside him.

“How about breakfast?” Eli asked, holding up the McDonald’s bags in his other hand.

Gideon stopped again and reluctantly held his hand out, appearing taken back when Elijah handed him both bags.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got you everything,” Eli said, giving Gideon a small grin as he peeked in the bags.

“Are you serious right now?” Gideon questioned, his nose crinkling as he studied Elijah’s face. “Did you poison this shit or something?”

“Seriously?”

“It’s a normal question,” Gideon stated, suddenly looking amused by the situation. “If a guy fucked your wife, would you buy him a Ferrari?”

“I don’t have a wife. I’m gay,” Elijah reminded him.

Gideon narrowed his bright blue eyes. “That’s not the point. It’s hypothetical. When people do fucked-up shit to you, do you always bring them fucking breakfast?”

“Mostly I buy them lunch,” Elijah admitted, thinking getting mugged on the South Side wasn’t that different than getting fucked over by half the agents he bought lunch for. He smiled when Gideon coughed out a reluctant laugh.

“I’m not gonna eat all this for breakfast,” Gideon informed him, turning around so he could head back to his house, “but I’ll put it in the fridge and eat it sometime.”

Eli nodded. “Good.”

As they walked in silence back to the Valsecchi house, Elijah reflected on how strange the moment was, but how pleasant at the same time.

“D’you want something? Before I put it away?” Gideon questioned, grabbing a wrapped sandwich out of the bag without giving much of a thought to what it was.

“I’ll eat something,” Elijah decided, reaching his hand into the bag and grasping the first thing he could.

“Hold this,” Gideon said, tossing Eli his sandwich and stomping out his cigarette before disappearing into the house. Once he returned, he took the food back, still regarding Eli suspiciously. “You sure you didn’t do something to this?”

“I’m eating one, too,” Elijah replied, tearing the wrapper and smirking at Gideon, who cautiously did the same.

“I don’t got time to shit my brains out if you laced it with laxatives,” he stated. “Got a game tonight.” He took a tentative bite of the sandwich, watching Eli do the same.

“Mmm, this is damn good,” Elijah remarked, shocked by how delicious the food was.

“You okay over there?” Gideon asked, his mouth full.

“Yeah, it’s just…wow. It’s better than I remember.

“Were you on Mars for a while?” Gideon snarked, grinning when Elijah laughed.

“I don’t eat it a lot,” Elijah replied, talking another big bite. “Shit. So good.”

“Yeah, well…” Gideon cleared his throat as they approached the corner, “enjoy jizzing over your fucking McGriddle, man, but I don’t need you to walk me to school.”

Eli nodded his understanding and offered the sweatshirt one last time. “You sure you don’t want it?”

“Positive,” Gideon scoffed, giving him a dirty look.

Elijah shrugged and started to walk back toward the L.

“Thanks,” Gideon called out, but before Eli could turn and respond, the guy was gone.




Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Sarah☆☆☆
This romance set in Chicago’s gritty South Side starts with a bang – or at least a mugging. The mugging is the start of an unlikely romance between a real estate mogul and the teenage gangsta who steals his watch.

I’ll admit from the start that wealthy Eli’s relationship with an impoverished high school student doesn’t sit well with me. I get that at 18, Gideon is legally an adult, but the power imbalance between the two characters really doesn’t work for me. Between Gideon’s quite desperate poverty, Eli’s lavish gifts, the ‘Daddy’ references, and Gideon’s lack of sexual experience, these two never quite feel like equals and they don’t feel like partners.

While I couldn’t get very invested in the romance and I still feel a little squeamish about some of the sex scenes, I really like both Eli and Gideon as characters. As the one who ‘got out’ and became successful, Eli is slightly isolated, straddling the two sides of the city without properly belonging to either. At 18, Gideon still can’t believe that his soccer skills might actually offer him a way out of his life and he doesn’t trust the hope he is starting to feel.

This is an entertaining read but most daytime soaps are more plausible than many elements of this Cinderella story. I’m not convinced by Eli’s transformation from gangsta to mogul by the age of 27. The details of both Eli’s wealthy lifestyle and Gideon’s existence in the hood are equally unconvincing and parts of the story feel like voyeuristic ghetto tourism. Ultimately, this isn’t a favourite of my recent reads, but I liked the characters in this story and I enjoyed parts of their relationship.




Riley has always loved to write, believing that life has the possibility to be its most beautiful when it’s portrayed on the pages of a book. Feeling the need to create and liberate in the midst of the political landscape, Riley writes novels that focus on LGBTQ protagonists, wanting to honor a community that deserves better representation depicting lives, loves and triumphs in all facets of fiction.

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Watch Me Fall (Start Something #1) by Riley Parks to read and review for this tour.

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