My Mate, Jack
Author Name: Garrett Leigh
Author Bio:
Rainbow Award winner Garrett Leigh is a British writer and book designer, currently working for Dreamspinner Press, Loose Id, Riptide Publishing, and Black Jazz Press. Her protagonists will always always be tortured, crippled, broken, and deeply flawed. Throw in a tale of enduring true love, some stubbly facial hair, and a bunch of tattoos, and you’ve got yourself a Garrett special.
When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible. That, and dreaming up new ways to torture her characters. Garrett believes in happy endings; she just likes to make her boys work for it.
Garrett also works as a freelance cover artist for various publishing houses and independent authors under the pseudonym G.D. Leigh. For cover art info, please visit blackjazzpress.com
Where to find the author:
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: G.D. Leigh
Blurb(s):
Will Barter’s been in love with his best mate Jack for as long as he can remember. They’ve shared everything: love, life, laughs, even Will’s first kiss. But Jack’s straight, and Will’s long-buried infatuation means nothing until their last summer together draws to a close.
Then one night, everything changes, but with Will bound for university in Leeds, and Jack for his dream DJ job in Ibiza, there’s no time to explore their blurred lines. Before long all that’s left are secrets, lies, and misunderstandings.
In the months that follow, anger and hurt overshadow fifteen years of friendship, and Will must dig deep to remember Jack is his mate… his best mate, and nothing matters more than that, right?
Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance
Excerpt:
“So, are you game, or what?”
Will blinked. “Eh?”
Jack laughed. He lay back on Will’s bed and folded his arms behind his head, all dark eyes and shaggy hair. “You’re such a dreamer. No wonder you don’t notice any blokes. I was saying we could practice kissing if you want. You know, so you’re not nervous next time the bottle lands on you.”
This time Will couldn’t stop the beer going down the wrong way. He coughed. “Next time? What are you going to do? Out me to the whole school by snogging my face off? I’d rather smooch the girls.”
“Liar.” But Jack looked sheepish all the same. “Okay, maybe we shouldn’t mess around in front of other people, but I still reckon you should try your techniques out on me. Ginny says I’m the best kisser in the whole school, and she should know.” Jack swooned and pitched into a fit of weed-fueled giggles.
Will dove at him and pushed him off the other side of the bed. “It’s not funny, arsehole. I’m the only gay in the whole bloody town. I’m going to die a virgin at this rate.”
Jack hit the floor with a thump. He lay there a moment, still laughing, then hauled himself back onto the bed. “Chill out, mate. No one said anything about bonking.”
Will tried to grin. Chill out. Yeah, right. Jack had been taking the piss since that stupid bloody bottle had put the idea of them kissing in his daft head. “You’re not funny.”
Jack sobered and stared with an expression Will couldn’t decipher. “I wasn’t joking, at least not about the kissing part. We’re friends, right? Ginny and Meg snog all the time.”
He had a point. The girls were always messing around with each other, and Will had often watched them and maligned the fact that girls had it easy... from his point of view, at least. They could do whatever they wanted and no one cared. It would be a different story if Will jumped on Jack in the middle of the park. Snogged his face off and squeezed his arse.
So why not do it here? No one will ever know.
Pages or Words: 104 pages
Mari's Review:
*** Copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review. ***
*4.5 Stars*
This was such a lovely read. I adored how British the story was, although I guess not everyone is familiar with British slang and some phrases could be difficult to understand at some point. Anyway, that didn’t deter from the overall enjoyment of the story, which is fast-paced, sweet and angsty and spans through several years in the lives of Jack and Will.
My Mate, Jack is told in Will’s POV, except the Epilogue where we get Jack’s. So, we get to see that Will’s been in love with his best mate, Jack, for almost as long as he’s known him. He’s out, at least to his father and Jack, since in the little town they come from being out and proud is unheard of.
Jack is straight, but even so, he offers Will the chance to practice kissing with him when they’re fifteen or so. Chance that Will jumps to take, of course, since how could he not. The kiss rocks both their worlds, but they don’t let it affect their friendship and just let it go, at least until they are older and Will’s about to go to Leeds to University and Jack to Ibiza to take on a DJ job, and Jack asks Will to have sex with him, so he wouldn’t be going to Spain still being a virgin. After that, a series of misunderstandings and their hectic schedules converge to reducing a lifelong relationship to a few e-mails here and there, until they finally meet again, only to separate a little while longer.
Jack’s dad, even if we don’t really see him in all that much in the story, is instrumental to the first of the misunderstandings. After Will and Jack had sex for the first time, they couldn’t see each other all that much, and when Will went to say good-bye to his friend the morning he left for Leeds, Jack wasn’t home, but Jack’s dad was and Will gave him a letter for Jack, that Jack never got. After a few months, Will caves in and contacts Jack and they start e-mailing sporadically back and forth, until Jack finally convinces Will to visit him in Ibiza, and tells him to bring some friends with him. By then, Jack is famous in the Ibiza DJ scene and he appears in magazines and such, so Will has seen him with several women and thinking he has no chance with his friend, finally gets himself a boyfriend and brings him down to Ibiza with him.
Of course that isn’t the brightest idea, seeing as Will is not that serious about Evan anyway, but he is not sure what he’s going to find when he sees his friend again. Once there, after a night of partying, he comes out of the room and finds Jack with a woman, therefore cementing that his friend is straight and he should just get over it already. Until some pictures of Jack making out with another man surface and long story short, Will gets angry, but is willing to let Jack explain, when he doesn’t, Will feels betrayed and stops talking to Jack, until Jack contacts him again and they manage to clear the air some.
The whole story was like going two steps forward, two steps back, but even if it was kind of annoying at times that the boys couldn’t get to the point where everything was resolved and move on, without something else happening, it was nice to see that their friendship was at the forefront for both boys, no matter what, and in the end it all was resolved satisfyingly and all questions are answered. Never mind that by then, I was so invested in hoping they got their HEA, that a few misunderstandings here and there didn’t take away from loving the story.
I truly enjoyed this story, and wouldn’t mind reading more of these boys in the future. And while Garrett Leigh is a new author for me, I’ll certainly go looking for more books by her.
Tour Dates: December 23, 2014
Tour Stops:
Parker Williams, Velvet Panic, Havan Fellows, Lee Brazil, Bayou Book Junkie, Love Bytes, EE Montgomery, 3 Chicks After Dark, LeAnn’s Book Reviews, Molly Lolly, BFD Book Blog, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents, Carly’s Book Reviews, Charley Descoteaux, Wicked Faerie's Tales and Reviews, Sinfully Sexy, Fallen Angel Reviews, Dawn’s Reading Nook, MM Good Book Reviews, Up All Night, Read All Day, Elisa - My Reviews and Ramblings
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no i wasnt because my male best friend was gay...lol
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