A Little Side of Geek by Marguerite Labbe

When opposite worlds collide, it’s anyone’s game.

Proud geek and comic book artist Morris Proctor wants nothing more than to live in semiseclusion with his devil cat and gamer friends. Despite what his well-meaning family thinks, he’s perfectly content with his status quo. The last thing he needs is to date another nongeek hell-bent on changing him.

Then he meets his adorkable new neighbor, Theo Boarman, who doesn’t know Star Trek from Star Wars, but who tempts him like no other.

Theo has spent the last year recovering from the loss of his parents and trying to play both roles for his teenage brother, while working to keep the family restaurant afloat. Dating is the last thing on the menu, especially with a man who thinks the height of dining is shoving a packaged meal into the microwave.

But if Morris gives him one more shy smile or flaunts that kilt he wears so well, Theo will be forced to convince him that a hot summer fling is just the recipe to let off a little steam.

When that fling gets serious fast, Morris has to decide if he’s willing to give his heart to Theo on the chance that they’re a perfect mix.

Book 1
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Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Sarah – ☆☆☆☆
This is the story of the unlikely romance between a comic book writer and self-professed ‘geek’ and a chef running his family business.

Morris and Theo are both very likeable characters and I enjoyed learning about their lives and their jobs. But this is a much heavier book than the cover or the blurb suggest. Theo is the oldest of four siblings who have just lost their parents. When he meets Morris, he is already struggling to balance his restaurant responsibilities with his new role as his teenage brother’s guardian. Morris’ life is somewhat simpler but he struggles with his relationship with his large family, and running his own business takes a whole lot out of him.

This really isn’t a sexy read. Like most romance readers, I read to relax and to escape from the demands of my own life for a while. Theo and Morris’ struggles to find time for their relationship between family and work commitments is a little bit too realistic. There is one point when Morris reflects that he doesn’t think of Theo as sexy – more boy next door. Unfortunately, this comes across to readers in the way the two relate to each other. Morris and Theo build a friendship and a relationship but there isn’t ever much spark between them.

I like Morris and Theo and I enjoyed their interactions with family and colleagues. I like the relationship that builds between them, but this is a romance without much romance and there were times the story dragged some for me.

MARGUERITE LABBE has often been called both Trouble and Sunshine by those who know her. She’s not sure how she manages to make both those nicknames work together, but apparently she does. She’s a New Hampshire girl who married an Alabama boy, an Air Force brat who has somehow managed to settle herself firmly in Southern Maryland, with one overgrown son and two crazy cats.

Marguerite loves to spin tales that cross genre lines, where stubborn men build lifelong ties of loyalty, friendship, and family no matter the odds thrown against them, and where love is found in unexpected places. She has won the Rainbow Award for Historical Romance with Fae Sutherland, as well as the Rainbow Award for Paranormal and the Rainbow Romance Award for Excellence, also in Paranormal.

When she’s not working hard on writing new stories, she spends her time reading novels of all genres, enjoying role-playing and tabletop games with her friends, and helping out her husband with Apocrypha Comics Studio.

Connect with Marguerite

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of A Little Side of Geek (Geek Life #1) by Marguerite Labbe to read and review.