Prose (Story): Teddy Spenser wants to make good - more than good - at his new job as a designer and marketing guru for the up-and-coming Reddyflora, whose leap to the big time may well depend on an innovative new interactive vase the company hopes will be the latest "must-have" designer gadget in homes around the world. The obstacle? The tech necessary to give the vase it's uniquely appealing features is impossible to work into the design of the item itself - or so says the company software developer Romeo Blue, the only person in the company who managed to capture his own office instead of a cubicle, and seems to have the personality of an uptight nerd that dampens whatever attraction Teddy otherwise would have for his handsome African-American co-worker. When the two men are forced to work together to make the design and tech feasible as one, their results gain the attention of a fashion/lifestyle giant who just might back the vase and put Reddyflora into the big leagues - sending the guys on a mission to Seattle that will result in their eccentric client putting them to three challenges that test their ability to work together ... even as the two men learn more about each other and finding out that maybe they're not so unalike, after all.
Excerpt:
“Hey.”
Teddy hadn’t noticed anyone come up behind him, and he startled
so violently that he almost knocked over his coffee. He spun the chair around
and discovered Romeo Blue looking down at him, stone-faced.
“What?” Teddy knew he was scowling and
didn’t care.
“Can we speak in my office, please?” As
usual, Romeo’s voice was low, his words clipped. As if he refused to spare
much energy to speak to Teddy.
“I’m busy right now.”
“As soon as you can then.” Romeo spun
and marched back to his office, leaving its door slightly ajar.
Teddy could have followed him; Imani’s
numbers weren’t so urgent that they couldn’t wait awhile. But he remained
stubbornly at his desk even though he could no longer focus on the computer
screen. Romeo Blue. Teddy had googled him once, just for the hell of it—not at
all to dispel lingering notions that his coworker was a spy working under a
really stupid alias. It turned out that Lenny Kravitz used Romeo Blue as a
stage name back in the eighties, and that was more than a little weird since this Romeo
resembled a young Lenny Kravitz, albeit with a darker complexion and a
different clothing aesthetic. Kravitz probably didn’t wear suits from Zara. And
to be honest, although Kravitz was gorgeous, Romeo was even more so, with
perfect eyebrows, velvety eyes, and a mouth that—
“Nope!”
Teddy stood abruptly and grabbed his coffee mug. He needed a refill.
He finished off that cup, visited the depressing bathroom he’d
been fruitlessly begging Lauren to redecorate, and chatted briefly with the
cute copy-machine repairman before finally knocking on Romeo’s open door and
stepping inside. And then, as always when he entered this room, Teddy glowered.
It was a fraction of the size of
Lauren’s office, with barely enough room for a desk, two chairs, and a computer
stand. Despite that, it was a real office instead of a cubicle. But what truly
annoyed Teddy was that Romeo hadn’t even bothered to decorate the space. There
wasn’t a single knickknack or picture, and the mismatched office supplies—a
black stapler and taupe tape dispenser—appeared to be from the discount bin at
Staples. The only touches of personality were the three computer monitors—three of
them, for God’s sake—and, of course, Romeo himself.
Maybe
Romeo thought himself so decorative that his mere presence sufficed. Or he
didn’t want any other objects to detract from his glory.
Also, he smelled like sandalwood, bergamot, and vanilla. Dammit.
Don's (Review): My history with contemporary romance novels - m/f or m/m - has not been a great one. Usually I have found the writing and characterizations uniformaly bad or stereotypical, and often questioned the appeal of the genre in general, as every book I picked up basically read the same - and, God knows, you knew where they were heading. Then along came Teddy Spenser and Romeo Blue, and yes the suspension of disbelief may have to be stretched a bit throughout, but for the first time it was a genuine pleasure to find a romance where the characters come off as believable as the development of the love story, all set around a bit of a crazy plot that author Fielding manages to make work for anyone who gets the kind of eccentric character Joyce Alexander - the fashion maven and potential financial backer the boys have to deal with - can be . Before writing this review I checked out some others online, and was startled by the amount of negative reviews, universally by women, who cite the unbelievability of some plot points or "insta-love" relationship between the two main characters - and couldn't disagree with them more. I was especially wary of reading an m/m romance by a female writer, but both Teddy and Romeo come off 100% real on the page as young members of the LGBTQ+ community; their relationship and how it develops, to me, a hundred times more convincing than any other single romance novel I have tried reading to this day. Further, I don't understand the "insta-love" complaints, as it's made very clear from the beginning that Teddy was attracted to Romeo from the start but thought him an uptight jerk, and from the moment a move is made to make their relationship more than frenemies, it's hardly an 'insta-love" situation when the emphasis is more on where things might go should they fail their tests or not, than coming off as any kind of HEA from the beginning. No, sorry naysayers who perhaps don't understand the community, but Teddy Spenser Isn't Looking for Love is a charming, funny, romantic, and spot-on depiction (for a change) of real LGBTQ+ characters trying to hold onto their jobs, while discovering that "working together" has more than one meaning. It's also one of my favorite reads of 2020. (Available December 29) 4.5/5 stars
NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.
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