Review of Gobsmacked by L.B. Gregg

L.B. Gregg
Gobsmacked (Men of Smithfield, #1)
Aspen Mountain Press, February 2009

Genre & Keywords: Gay, M/M, One Hot Cop, Betrayal

Rating: êêêê½
Heat level: ¹¹½

The Back Blurb:
No more Mr. Nice Guy.
Mild mannered Mark Meehan’s good judgment flies out the window when he finds his lover banging another man. Things go from bad to worse as Mark’s crazy revenge scheme uncovers shocking secrets—sending him straight into the arms of hunky lawman and old friend, Tony Gervase, a man of limited patience and secrets of his own.

This is the first of three books in The Men of Smithfield series. The other two are Happy Ending and Cover Me and both are on my TBR pile impatiently waiting to be read, because they know I badly want to.

Seriously, Gobsmacked was a delicious read! I obviously enjoyed it for the sweet romance and hot love scenes between cuties Mark and Tony, but even more for the highly entertaining, diverting voice with which this story was told. The voice is Mark’s, the story is told in the first person. Not a POV I normally prefer because it easily gets boring and annoying to miss the thoughts of the other characters. And I admit that in this case I missed Tony’s thoughts as well, very much so. But that little disappointment was compensated by the very amusing thoughts of Mark. It never got boring at all and some scenes were downright hilarious thanks to his voice. In previous posts I gave a few examples which I’ll recollect first:

On December 8th I wrote:

This morning, before work, I started reading Gobsmacked by L.B. Gregg and I can't wait to get back to that story. I loved the first chapter where the hero smacked his cheating lover on the head in church 'in front of God and everyone' LOL! Here's the description of that scene:

“My hands clenched the book rack, and my fingers brushed against the Bible proudly displayed there. Staring at Jamie's once sweet curls hugging his rough jaw, I slid the good book out of its safe haven. The cracked leather was worn, but its bulk reassuring. Encouraging, even. So I hauled back, fueled by boiling rage, and gobsmacked that bastard as hard as I could in front of God and everyone. The Bible hit the back of Jamie's head with a resounding Thwack!”

Priceless isn't it?

And on December 11th:

I posted some tid bits earlier and Mandi 'warned' me for a ‘cereal stuck to butt’ scene :) which I anticipated a lot! And indeed... it had me laughing out loud and it kept me chuckling for many minutes. Until the hot sex exploded from the pages... I plan to write a review about this first book in the Men of Smithfield series later, but for now I can tell that I'm very glad to have this book recommended to me! It's witty, sexy and has lovely characters!

Now, about that cereal stuck to the butt scene, it’s as memorable as the thwack to the head scene. I anticipated it a lot, so when I read at page 112:

“My naked ass crunched down on a few stray puffs of breakfast cereal. Tony stepped between my knees, his pants half down his legs, his face hungry. Those deep brown eyes searched mine. I gripped his arms, his back, his neck; anywhere I could reach him.”

I rushed through the sentences. And yes, at page 113 the lube has to be retrieved from the other room and then I was treated at these thoughts when Mark walks out of the kitchen to go get it:

“I hated walking out with my bare ass jiggling, crushed cereal bits falling to the floor. Still, it was a nice ass. I'd sweep the floor tomorrow.”

These are a good example of his hilarious and entertaining voice. Are you loving it already? Alright I give you one more example. This one is when Mark’s ex comes after him:

“I looked around for a weapon, throwing drawers open. I wouldn't dream of holding a knife, he was far bigger than I and had a long reach. Plus this wasn't West Side freaking Story; I had no clue what to do with a knife except to cut meat and tighten the screw on the toilet seat. The only knife I owned was a pen knife on my key chain.” (page 64)

Gobsmacked is more than a funny story, it had a pretty good suspense thread as well. It involved Mark’s cheating ex Jamie and his problems – a storyline with some unexpected twists to it. Again, as a reader, you’re kept in the dark about Jamie’s motives and thoughts and you’re solely dependent on Mark’s interpretation of the occurrences and the people around him. It makes you wonder about a thing or two and all you want to do is keep reading to find out if things are as they seem to be.

Besides humor and suspense Gobsmacked has hot lovin’! Tony and Mark are a sexy couple. They have a history of teenage crushes but never acted on their feelings. Mark lived under the assumption that Tony didn’t return his feelings, what Tony felt we don’t know until the end of the story when he voices his feelings towards Mark.
At the instant we step into their lives, Mark just found out about the cheating of Jamie. After cleaning out his apartment and getting rid of Jamies stuff, he goes to his friend Tony’s house to hide from Jamie for one night. And then things start to get hot, hot, hot. Thanks to some alcohol that’s thrown into the mix Mark and Tony end up in the bathroom finally getting down to some hot action.
I loved all the sex scenes between those two guys. My only complaint is that there weren’t enough of them ;) No seriously, the balance between the humor, suspense and hot lovin’ was perfect. I enjoyed Mark’s self absorbed ramblings as much as the ex involved action and the sexy scenes with Tony.

To round this up: if you happen to like reading M/M romances and you want an entertaining, sometimes even hilarious, romantic and very hot read with a little suspense and sexy as hell protags, you should definitely pick up Gobsmacked! Don’t wait, go get it now!