Review: Check Me Out by Jordan Castillo Price, Clare London, Dev Bentham & Kim Fielding

Title: Check Me Out

Authors: Jordan Castillo Price, Clare London, Dev Bentham & Kim Fielding

Publisher: Self-Published

Length: 201 Pages

Category: Anthology, Romance, Contemporary, Fantasy

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: Check Me Out gives good feels and has a little something to please every reader.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurbs: THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS by Jordan Castillo Price

Between his guitar gig in a local indie band and his cashier gig at the Val-U-Mart, Angus has no time to worry about discount-pricing an vaguely-labeled can at the back of a shelf. But that dollar price is currently all that Newton can afford for today’s grocery haul, which brings him into Angus’ orbit. Can you put a price on happiness? Angus and Newton are about to find out.

DEMO DAY by Clare London

Pips has been having one of those weeks. Possibly a year of them. His bad luck with boyfriends and jobs is legendary, and seems to have followed him into his new role as this week’s Demonstrator at Your Better Buyz.

That is, until the succession of disasters at the demonstration table brings him to the attention of Marcus, the very cute marketing trainee Pips had been trying so hard – on principle – to hate.

GAY NINETIES NIGHT AT THE PICK AND GRAB by Dev Bentham

Seth mistakenly attends the local supermarket dating social, but quickly realises it’s not exactly his demographic. Luckily Dakota, the attractive manager, is more Seth’s age and type, and there’s no denying the attraction. Together, they watch and navigate the amusing, poignant, and turbulent love stories unfolding for the other customers – from a romantic wrangle over cocktail peanuts to an anguished love waiting from afar – and discover a story for their very own.

LOST IN by Kim Fielding

Joe Becker can’t find the dental floss. In fact, he can’t find any of the items he’s looking for in the huge, sterile supermarket he’s arrived at. Even with the help of Han, the best customer service rep Joe could ever have imagined, he’s lost in more ways than he can explain. Faced with a crisis between his life to date, and what the future now holds – what’s the chance of a fresh start?

Review: Anthologies have so many great things to recommend them. Sometimes it’s finding an author I’ve never read; sometimes it’s getting stories from long-time favorite authors all in one place; sometimes it’s simply being treated to a collection of short vignettes that share a common theme which the authors then come to in their own individual styles.

In Check Me Out these four gifted storytellers used a common, everyday setting—the grocery store—and conjured up unique ways to bring two people together to fall in love. A couple of the stories came at the romance from a fantastical angle, while the other two are contemporary romances that introduce their love interests in what might seem ordinary ways, but are full of charm, humor, and plenty of chemistry.

Jordan Castillo Price can always be relied upon to bring a little something out of this world to her writing, and that describes The Price of Happiness for exactly what it is. The title is as literal as they come, while Angus and Newton are drawn to each other over a $.99 can of something truly magical.

Clare London can always be counted on to bring humor to the table, and she does it in abundance in Demo Day. It’s an open mouth-insert foot meet-cute story full of mirth and warmth that leads to something lovely for Pips and Marcus, through a series of rather comical mishaps and plenty of people coaxing them on.

Dev Bentham is a new-to-me author whose story, Gay Nineties at the Pick and Grab, is a case of a little misunderstanding paying big dividends for Seth and Dakota. Love and romance isn’t only for the youngsters, after all, and their playing at a bit of matchmaking added a nice touch to their own budding romance.

Kim Fielding’s Lost In surprised and impressed me in all the best ways. I loved this story’s twist on the concept of two people meeting and falling in love while grocery shopping. It’s such a mundane task, and yet Joe’s search through the aisles of an unusual grocery store in a strange city leads him on a bizarre and wondrous journey. It’s a store employee named Han who shows Joe the way to a happy and abundant life.

Check Me Out gives good feels and has a little something to please every reader.