Dinner Disasters: Gideon and Lyra

Dinner Disasters

by GroveltoHEA

My high school sweetheart and I made it all through high school and college, and then we moved in together.
Then one night when I came home early from work, I overheard him telling our friends I was smothering him and he needed space.
Oh, I'll give him space, all right.
As much space as he could possibly want.

Genres: Novella, Second Chance, Contemporary Romance, Friends To Lovers, Romance, M F Romance

ebook

Published April 1, 2023

About the author

Wattpad author

Reviews

[Jen ♥]

Gideon and Lyra have been together since they were sixteen, and at the present time, they're already eight years into their relationship.
 
But when their friends came over and Lyra came earlier from her shift, she overheard Gideon telling them she's been clingy and can't go into every corner of their apartment without bumping into her. He told them that she's like a Koala when it comes to clinginess. Then one of their female friends who was interested in Gideon offered her spare room, and he said that if the situation didn't get better, he might take up that offer.
 
Lyra felt hurt and betrayed by this revelation. However, little did she know that he only said those words because he wanted one of their male friends to lose a bet. Their so-called friends made up a bet to ask who's clinging to whom, and this guy bet that it was Gideon. It was the truth, but he's annoyed with his friend's smugness and has let his pride overtake him. So he lied and told them it was Lyra.

She went away for nine days and cut contact with Gideon. He was going out of his mind, looking for her. On the ninth day, he saw her coming out of the hospital and asked her to give him time to explain. She let him, but she also told him that while he's making up for what he did, she will be living in her parents house. So he "romanticized" her for six weeks until she trusted him and gave him another chance. She eventually forgave him, and he proposed in the end.

I'm not sure how to feel about this. He did put in efforts to show her and make her feel that she's everything to him. But I'm still testy that he let his pride take over. Maybe I'll get over it in a few days. 🤷‍♀️

[Cheesecake · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was sweet and short but ultimately kinda boring.
Gideon and Lyra have been together since high school and they have had the same set of friends just as long... but are they really friends?
It was a fun easy read but I did skim a fair bit in the second half.

Lyra and Gideon have recently moved in together and like to throw parties for their friends from high school. Usually they are together all the time but Lyra got called in to work and arrives late for the party... but just in time to hear Gideon say some stuff that was disloyal to her. He didn't have her back. In fact most of her so-called friends didn't have her back either.

I do love this author's stuff, but it is a formula and so sometimes it gets kinda boring towards the end.
Gideon grovels nicely and their life together moves forward while their friends.... not so much.

Safety is fine. Gideon was just trying to spike his so-called friend's guns to make him lose a bet. It was childish and his friends are childish. And Lyra schools him better. No OW/Om stuff except for one skanky friend who is determined to get in the pants of all her male high school friends. But Gideon seriously isn't interested even though he briefly gave her the impression that he was.

[Mairi Swan · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a good quickie.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

12/1/23-
Not bad. I really enjoyed the smack-down dinner and the picture of space the heroine put up in their living room.

Sidenote: If the guy on the cover is Gideon, I'm glad to see him suffering in the shower, but he's going to suffer even more for choosing to keep his pants on in there. Showers of Suffering usually mean they're long with hot water, so that's going to be extra uncomfortable for him.

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little more than 3 stars because this didn’t bug me.

Short and sweet! Oh man Lyra was hilarious with her passive aggressiveness. The picture of space and the koala bear were hilarious. You could tell Gideon was obsessed with her the moment we got his POV so he was forgiven quickly.

also I loved that the friends were dropped as well. Karma is a biatch. I love that no crumbs are left in these books, anyone who disrespects the FMC is dealt with in a real and satisfying way lol.

NO CHEATING
KIND OF OW DRAMA
NO OM DRAMA
SHORT SEPARATION

[Miki’s⚠️ Safety Reviews & Rants⚠️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guy was a complete idiot and say horrible things about his woman to their friends and let’s OW paw at him all for his pride and to save face. She overhears
She def get back at him and he does grovel
Short story
No OP sex no cheating

[Lu Bielefeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 ⭐⭐⭐ - OK or decent reads
========================

[Pinky]

Trigger Warnings: Not sure if this is a trigger but there is an OW that gets a lil too close to the MMC and he doesn’t push her away. Nothing happens, no feelings are involved but just putting it here in case people need it.

Note:The author who has added the books to Goodreads is not the author who has written these books (the account is not theirs, this has been verified by the author on Wattpad). Out of respect for the author, I won’t be posting detailed reviews for these books. I’ll add trigger warnings for those who wanna check them out as well as the link to where to read them. I’ll have personal ratings for me but I won’t be posting them either. I have already read a lot of their books and might have to copy and paste some portions of this on other "reviews" since I do wanna add these books to my shelves. But their books are freely available on Wattpad, they are kind enough to let their stories be free for us all to read. Unfortunately, a lot of people have plagiarized from this author and have tried to add their books to pay-per-chapter apps. If you can help and report this when you see it, that would help a ton.

Link to book: https://www.wattpad.com/story/3321978...

This is about Lyra and Gideon who are high school sweethearts. They moved in together after college and are so in love. That is until Lyra walks in on Gideon during a friend get-together. She overhears him saying that she’s clingy to the point that it annoys him. He made it seem like some sort of chore to deal with her. So Lyra confronts him and gives him the space he wants. I loved how short this was and the grovel was satisfying. The writing is amazing as always, if you need something quick check it out.



Happy reading folks. I love GroveltoHEA and they have surprised me by making MMCs do TERRIBLE things and have me forgive them with grovel. And y’all know how much I love grovel. There are so many things I’m against but they somehow manage to make it work. And even if I don’t forgive the MMC entirely in the end, the stories are so well-written.

[Valentine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Annoying Zero, really whiny. Short read.

[Rhea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is it only me who doesn't think it's grovelling if she's already given you the chance to redeem yourself?

My favourite part of grovelling is once he realises he's fucked up and is doing everything to have only a second of her time. It feels counterproductive if she's already thrown in the rag and said she'll let him figure out how to fix this. I want angst, I want her to not wanna come home, to be so angry and not give you the time of day. I want you to sleep outside her fucking door every day until she finally does listen to you. I want actual wooing, the flowers and gifts mean nothing when you've broken eight years worth of trust in a single night.

Gideon's an idiot, a literal man-child.

[Ꭿຖᥲ·♡ ྀི · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5✯

This was surprisingly entertaining...

The hero was a dummy, he let his "friends" get in his head and made a terrible decision **one of his "friends" in particular was teasing him relentlessly, telling him that he was pussy whipped, that he was pathetic because he and the h were always together, that he doubted they could function without each other, etc, etc, he told him that their group of "friends" had a bet going on and that he had money riding on him being the pussy in the relationship, the hero got pissed and stupidly took the bait so he started talking shit about the h (because he wanted his asshole "friend" to lose the bet), he told him that he got it all backwards, that the h was the one who wanted to spend every waking minute with him, he basically described her as a stage 5 clinger, to make things worse another "friend" of theirs, a very annoying woman named Carine started flirting with him, telling him that if he ever needed space from the h he could stay at her house that she had an extra bedroom and because he REALLY wanted the other guy to lose the bet he told her that if things didn't improve with the h he might have to take her up on her offer, the numbnuts also let Carine press her fake tits against his arm while she rubbed his back in a soothing motion 🤦🏼‍♀️**. I really liked the heroine, I especially loved the scene where she let the hero and their "friends" know that she had overheard their conversation, it was so satisfying. The hero was very remorseful but sadly most of the groveling was off page.

Other info: the MCs were separated for 9 days, both were celibate; both are 24 y/o and have been together for 8 years; the story is told in dual POV; the ending was just ok: about 1 year later, they get engaged

Quotes:

**"You just said there's nothing to fix after I heard what you were saying about me! Pretending I didn't hear what I heard isn't going to make the problem go away, Gideon. You put it out there for everyone but me to hear about. So now there's no sweeping that mess under the rug! I can't even tell you what it felt like to hear the man I love talking about me behind my back to our so-called friends, and then telling that bitch that you might be down to fuck if I didn't straighten up and stop clinging."**

**Everything I'd said about her being too clingy, about her being in my space all the time, about her being up my ass ever since we'd moved in together? It wasn't Lyra being that way. It was me.**

**He sat down right next to me on the couch and lightly touched my thigh for a moment, as if he was grounding himself. And then he told me about Brandon and our friends teasing him, Brandon telling him about the bet as to which one of us was actually up the other's ass, and Brandon's smugness. "I know it was a dick move, Lyra, but I just wanted to wipe the smug look off his face. I let myself be goaded into saying shit about you just so he'd lose the bet. And I let Carine say that and get near me because Brandon was just waiting for me to back down." "So, basically, your pride was more important than me and making sure Brandon lost the bet was more important than telling Carine to back off and telling Brandon to fuck off? And by the way, she wasn't near you, as you so euphemistically put it -- she was straight up pressing her implants against you and rubbing your back. But hey, it was all in the pursuit of making Brandon be wrong, so no big deal."**

**Gideon sounded sincere, but it was hard to get past the fact that he'd tossed me under the bus to make someone lose a bet. Even if that someone was an asshole, it still didn't make what Gideon had done right. It still didn't take away the stinging hurt.**

**"You've got some rebuilding to do, Gideon. I can understand why you felt goaded, but I didn't like that you were weak enough to be goaded. Before that night, you'd always shown me strength, and I need assurance that will never happen again. I need a strong man, not a middle-schooler in a man's body."**

**"You're doing what?" I asked after I was certain I had misheard him. "I'm romancing you," he said so seriously it was kind of adorable. "I'm working to win back your heart and your trust fully and completely so you can't wait to come back home to me. I'm going to make myself irresistible to you through my actions."**

[Ashleigh Neame · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dinner Disasters: Gideon and Lyra is a short and sweet romance novel by Wattpad author GroveltoHEA. Full disclosure, I am an enormous fan of GroveltoHEA. I've read almost all of their novels, and once you read their writing it's easy to see why.

This book follows the author's standard formula:

A strong heroine

A Hero who messes up with either cheating or some other betrayal

A Hero who gets his ass handed to him for said mess up

The Hero grovels until they reach Happily Ever After.

In Dinner Disasters: Gideon and Lyra, Gideon says something horrible about Lyra, which Lyra overhears. It breaks her heart, and Gideon must spend the rest of the book working to earn Lyra's forgiveness and win her back.

This is not a long novel, with only 7 chapters. However, the author does a fantastic job of showing just how deeply Gideon and Lyra love each other.

If you want a short, sweet romance story, or you want a taster of GroveltoHEA's writing before committing to a long book, this is the book for you.

[Haylee]

*won’t be rating these books (or at least some of them) just because I have no idea how I feel about them lol not used to reading books where the asshole gets the girl. Kudos to the author for making me rage out on all the guys in these stories. Can’t stand any of the guys but some get redeemed in my eyes*


💜First person/Multi POV
💜SLIGHT OW drama(see below)
💜No cheating



Short story, he talks crap about her to their friends behind her back and lives to regret it. Major groveling with time jumps.

Small OW drama as one of the girls in the friends group wants Gideon but he pays her no attention (other then pretending he ‘take her up on her offer of sleeping at her house if him and Lyra needed space’ he 100% doesn’t mean it)

[Jennifer Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good "overheard" angst/grovel story.
I appreciated that there were reasons, even stupid ones, and that made it a bit easier to see them get back together.
Sometimes it's tough to see the heroine take a stupid MMC back (Emily&Beard is prime example) even if he grovels and loves her, and I wish she'd just find a better guy. For that sort of story, Jona Leigh books are the way to go.
But Gideon's heart was in the right place even if he was stupid. Can't always say that for all grovel stories.
For some empty calorie grovel junk food, GroveltoHEA gets it done. This is one of the better ones.
Case and Gemma is also good.
4 stars because the angst is all there and the heroine is good (I love it when they quietly plan their escape & or pack fast!)

[Nyla Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

5⭐️

Another short one, but I loved it! Groveling wasn’t too bad, he genuinely seemed sickkk without her and I loved that! Also love that she held strong to her conviction and went to stay at her parents for a month and a half! I love the way the characters were created and developed! And even though I didn’t care for Fallon, no one deserves to be cheated on but Brandon was a useless tool, so I’m glad that’s over!

But anywho, another good one that took me on a roller coaster!

[Pooh Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can read this book for free on wattpad. I love this authors writing I specially like how the heroines don't forgive the assholes who betray and/ or cheat anytime soon and take their own revenge on the assholes! The grovels in her books are good. In this book the asshole tells in front of his friends that the heroine sticks to him like a glue and doesn't give him space but infact the opposite is true. So the asshole wants space and the heroine shows him exactly that!

[Danny Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Really quick read and a boyfriend who was embarrassed about being clingy and needy towards his gf. So much so his friends made fun of him and to save face he turned it around and made it seem she was the needy one. Of course she overhead everything. They spilt. He grovelled and they got engaged. Angst free for me and satisfying ending.

[Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[artsandgrace *ೃ༄ · Rating 4 out of 5]

GUY IS A FREAKING WUSS!!!!!!

[Jay Bell]

Self note - spineless MC

[Dee Haddrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but sweet

[Annelie · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐3.5⭐⭐⭐

I'm not I really understood why and how they went back together...🧐 Not so much groveling for my taste but it was still a good book.

[Lara Bayfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

A short story and a bit childish compared to the others. Gideon spouted off lies to make his idiot friend lose a bet. The friends were childish and not really that strong a plot.

[Dre · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Gilroy Garlic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it... sure MMC was a dumbass but her was remorseful and grovel. I'm happy they got their HEA 🥰.
P.S I would like to know more about the side character Fallen(?)

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good grovel but why is the book so short lol.

Safe, no cheating, mild ow drama but he isn't interested

[olivia V. · Rating 2 out of 5]

this one was a little boring.

[honeybee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short read on wattpadd.
Thing about this is, I remember I like this book but I dont remember the story at all. '
Haaaa.

[Korri Schuster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a cute HEA quick read.

[Eliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stars are for this and Alex and annie