Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Teddy Spenser Isn’t Looking for Love

AUTHOR:  Kim Fielding

PUBLISHER:  Carina Adores

LENGTH:  320 pages

RELEASE DATE:   December 29, 2020

BLURB:

“A fizzy, fun, and full-of-heart romcom.” —Booklist

Some people search their whole lives to find love. He just wants to avoid it.

Teddy Spenser spends his days selling design ideas to higher-ups, living or dying on each new pitch. Stodgy engineer types like Romeo Blue, his nemesis—if you can call someone who barely talks to you a nemesis—are a necessary evil. A cute necessary evil.

Working together is bad enough, but when their boss puts them both on a new high-stakes project, “working together” suddenly means:

• sitting uncomfortably close on the same plane
• staying in the same hotel room—with only one bed
• spending every waking minute together.

Turns out Mr. Starched Shirt has some hidden depths, and it’s getting harder to ignore the spark Teddy feels with every brush of their hands, with every knowing glance. He might not have been looking for this connection with Romeo, but will he ever be ready to let him go?

Carina Adores is home to highly romantic contemporary love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.

REVIEW:

Teddy Spenser likes his job at Reddyflora.  He’s doing fun design work and he likes his co-workers – for the most part.  But when there are issues with the design for the product, he has to work with the software engineer to get the product to the point where it’s aesthetically pleasing and also works as intended.  That means he has tow with Romeo Blue (can that be his real name?), the engineer at his company.

Talk about opposites.  Romeo’s office is white – no pictures, no office supplies or interesting pens/staplers/calendars – anything.  Teddy’s cubicle is a mix of eclectic pieces and fabulous coffee cups.  They are definitely opposites.  But they have got to come up with a solution or the company is sunk.  Their boss Lauren has one last opportunity – an investor  But it’s going to be up to Teddy and Romeo to convince the investor, a revered style icon, to keep their business afloat.

What starts off as a business trip between two guys who can barely stand each other, ends up as something completely different.  Joyce, the rather eccentric investor has devised a set of “tests” for Romeo and Teddy to complete.  They have no idea what she is going to test them on nor what the tests entail.  They cannot really “prepare” and they are really fish out of water for all of the tests.  The one silver lining in their rather dismal execution of the tasks is that they get to know each other.  Really know each other. And it turns out they REALLY like what they find.  And by the time they return from what they see as their failure of the tests and most likely unemployment, they realize that the one thing they can’t live without is possibly each other.  And there are still more twists and turns to the story 🙂

Well this was adorable!  I am a big fan of this author and this is something a little different from her than what I normally expect.  This book would make a lovely little movie and I would have such fun casting the characters 🙂  Romeo has a lot of hidden depths and the assumptions about him that Teddy makes are understandable.  Romeo makes a lot of assumptions about Teddy as well.  But when they have to work together, the walls come down and they each reveal a lot more of their real selves.  Their public masks come off and it turns out that they are each just vulnerable young guys doing the best that they can.  When they share their dreams and aspirations, it turns out that they understand each other a lot more than they ever imagined.  I loved both guys families – especially Romeo’s who we see more of.  I loved the sort of whacky Joyce character (I can image Meryl Streep playing her in the movie) and her rather unconventional household 😉  There were surprising twists that weren’t outlandish and I just really enjoyed the whole ride.  Highly recommended for fans of romantic comedies of opposites attract, overcoming some adversity and workplace romances in particular 🙂

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

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