Reviewed by Ro
TITLE: The Marie Sinclair Reader
AUTHOR: Marie Sinclair
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 450 pages
RELEASE DATE: April 3, 2024
BLURB:
The Marie Sinclair Reader: six stories and novellas that are the perfect morsels of romance. From first times and first loves to meet cutes, sensuous seductions, and second chances, these stories are sometimes sweet, sometimes steamy, but always with an HEA.
Might Delete Later: An epically clichéd breakup leads to the cutest of meet-cutes with love at first text, delicious pastries, and the best dog face ever.
Chef’s Kiss: A sensuous seduction of wine, food, and desire turns a failed romantic dinner into a brand new chance at love.
Man Down: Unrequited love and frustration as volatile as the whitewater rapids that bring a bar owner everything he’s ever wanted with his ex-head bartender if he can only let nature run its course.
Nothing Like a Summer Romance: First loves. First times. It’s everything you could hope for in a summer romance. Maybe.
Same Old Love: A former child actor turned winemaker and a spiraling, out-of-control rock star get a second chance at the love they were never able to have.
Voir Dear: Jury duty a bore? Not when you find yourself sitting next the guy you haven’t been able to stop thinking about since he sent your travel mug flying into traffic.
REVIEW:
This is a collection of short stories and novellas, so be prepared for that. I am a fan of both short stories and anthologies, so this was a happy thing for me! There are six stories here, all standalone.
Might Delete Later: Luc, a vet tech who adores animals, tells the story in first person. He works at an emergency vet and plans to parlay his social media presence into an animal care channel. To do this, he always takes pictures of cute animals and posts them on his IG. Typically, he asks for permission, but one day, riding his Kawasaki to work, he sees the most adorable dog in the back of a car and takes a picture. When he posts the pic, the owner ends up DMing him and they make a date. There is a cute little side story with Mrs Castellano, who owns the local bakery but there is also a seemingly unneeded side of Luc’s cheating ex, which didn’t add anything to the story. This is just their beginning and it’s a cute one.
Chef’s Kiss: Becks has hired Simon, a personal chef, to cook a romantic dinner so that Becks can propose to his boyfriend of three years, Richard. Simon is younger (I admit, it was driving me crazy that the book kept saying younger man), and is already setting up ”…when Richard’s first texts arrived. They were full of apologies and reasons…”. Simon has to tweak everything to push it back. This, after he had to switch cuisines because suddenly Richard is following keto. It’s a sign when Richard calls to be “working late,” and that’s the last straw for Becks. He invites Simon to make the dinner and eat it with him. Their conversation opens Becks’ eyes to the reality of his relationship with Richard. When Simon asks who would be Becks’ ideal dinner partner, “….then it occurred to me that, if I had my choice of dinner companions, Richard wouldn’t be my first choice.”
I like how Becks handles Richard and how comes to realize what his relationship was or was not. And I love how Simon is so introspective. “I never wanted to play with my cousins. I wanted to watch Omma cook.” It’s so sweet. This short is just a dinner, the very beginning of a hope, but it is lovely, and my goodness, the food sounds orgasmic.
Man Down: Probably my least favorite of the anthology. I felt like it had potential. Corbin is a bar owner, and despite being incredibly attracted to his master bartender, Jackson, he has been professional and has stayed away. Jackson is now leaving, and at his going-away party, the two hook up in Corbin’s office, and Jackson disappears. Corbin is upset and embarrassed. Fast forward to Corbin’s annual rafting trip (where the Man Down title comes from), and Jackson is there. For the length of the story, there was a lot of sex, and BDSM came flying out of nowhere, so be prepared.
Nothing Like a Summer Romance: This one is the longest story in the anthology and is about Jake and Micah. They are both friends of Alex – Micah a longtime friend, Jake Alex’s college roommate. They meet when Micah comes to visit Alex, and there is an instant connection. Jake is extremely organized, very handsome, dresses well, plays rugby and swims and “The hearts, the crushes, the feelings that made people giddy and stupid, all that made his skin crawl.” He has had a rough childhood that he doesn’t share and insists has nothing to do with how he feels. “Forever wasn’t in his vocabulary.”
For his part, Micah tries to be invisible. When he came out to his upper crust parents they made it clear they weren’t happy and Alex is aware, they keep up appearances in public and emotionally withdraw from Micah the rest of the time. Micah is a dancer and goes to Julliard and it’s so sad they don’t care. He is also a virgin, mainly due to being invisible.
When these two have this instant connection, literally speaking almost nothing but both feeling it, Jack is terrified and takes off. It is months later Alex surprises him with a trip to see Micah perform and again, that connection is so strong. Jake is spending a month there and during that time they take little tiny steps towards being together, sex and maybe a dinner and even holding hands, but it’s always with sex in mind. But it gets harder because Jake is still firmly no relationship and he can see the longing for one that Micah has. He doesn’t even kiss and I felt Micah needed that.
I loved Micah. I loved when he got brave, decided not to be invisible and went out for drag. I didn’t dislike Jake but it seemed like he was the cause of Micah’s sadness, which after his family history, he didn’t need or deserve. There is, again, a lot of sex in this story. It ends on a very barely HFN. I actually felt it was a cliffhanger, but apparently it is a prequel for another book, Nothing Like Forever.
Same Old Love: I had some trouble with this one. Ben and Dillon met when they were ten and were on a TV show, My Brother’s Keeper. They were immediately best friends, and after six seasons on the show, the two started playing in a band, which ended up being a boy band for real. Dillon loved it, the attention, the band, everything. Ben liked it, not quite as much, but he loved being with Dillon. What he didn’t like was the attitude of the fans. One beautiful kiss between them could have lead to more except a traumatic experience caused by fans was the beginning of the end and Ben had to walk away. “I truly thought we were going to die that night.” He started having panic attacks and had to leave. Dillon basically lied, denied and cut Ben off. It’s been five years, Ben owns a winery and Dillon is killing himself with drugs, booze, and parties. “I’ll use it, take it, drink it, smoke it, snort it. Anything and everything except shooting shit into my veins.”
After a raging party that he doesn’t even remember Dillon takes off. “As improbable as it seems, Dillon has finally come to find me.” So far, so good. But Dillon almost hurts Ben yet again, and then they are declaring and having sex. I felt like Ben, who has his life together, would have at least wanted more explanations, apologies, talking, something.
Voir Dear: Cam lives with his best friend since middle school, Marney, who I adored. Cam also adores her but in a strictly BFF way. Cam is always getting called for jury duty and yep, he’s been called again.
The anthology has some good ones and some not-for-me ones. For the length of most of the stories I wish there was less sex and more plot, talking and story. It is during jury duty he meets Ty. The story is pretty short, it’s a lovely meet-cute. There is quite a bit of describing the American jury system, how jurors are chosen and what you do there. It’s a sweet story and I liked both Ty and Cam, and to be honest, most of the rest of the jurors!
RATING:
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