What do you think?
Rate this book
Tribal Culture Studio #1
TCS: The Studio
Jason Gelardi is a college dropout who wants the perfect life and the perfect boyfriend. With a knack for photography, he establishes Tribal Culture Studio, a modeling agency in San Diego, and hires several hot guys to be models for him. Over the course of his career, he works with a charming surfer, a mechanical engineering graduate student, and a rising water polo athlete, among others.
TCS: The Studio is a coming-of-age experience for Jason as he learns responsibility and self-reliance. Find out which of the lucky studs he ends up with, and how successful he becomes at not only love, but in business.
TCS: The Studio is a coming-of-age experience for Jason as he learns responsibility and self-reliance. Find out which of the lucky studs he ends up with, and how successful he becomes at not only love, but in business.
- GenresM M RomanceLGBT
338 pages, ebook
Published September 7, 2018
3 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Mike E. Galloway
4 books1 followerRaised in Central California, Mike E. Galloway grew up in a world filled with the expectations of heteronormativity and homophobia. He overcame these expectations by writing LGBT stories and vignettes ever since the age of 14 and has never turned back since.
Mike lives in Las Vegas, NV and is currently working on a 3-book series featuring a young gay photographer who is on a journey to find love and his way in the world. The first of the series, TCS: The Studio, was released in September of 2018. The second, TCS: Into Summer, was released in October of 2019. The final book in the main series, TCS: Beyond Tribal, will be released in Late 2021.
In addition to the main series, TCS will have numerous spin-off stories focusing on minor characters that do not fit the tone and feel of the novels.
In his spare time, Mike loves to travel and visit friends/family. He has been all over Europe, including France, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In addition, he is an avid gamer, his current favorites being Final Fantasy XIV, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the Kingdom Hearts series.
For more information, check out the website for TCS at www.tcsnovel.com.
Mike lives in Las Vegas, NV and is currently working on a 3-book series featuring a young gay photographer who is on a journey to find love and his way in the world. The first of the series, TCS: The Studio, was released in September of 2018. The second, TCS: Into Summer, was released in October of 2019. The final book in the main series, TCS: Beyond Tribal, will be released in Late 2021.
In addition to the main series, TCS will have numerous spin-off stories focusing on minor characters that do not fit the tone and feel of the novels.
In his spare time, Mike loves to travel and visit friends/family. He has been all over Europe, including France, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In addition, he is an avid gamer, his current favorites being Final Fantasy XIV, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the Kingdom Hearts series.
For more information, check out the website for TCS at www.tcsnovel.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 9, 2018
This book was provided by the author via IndiGo Marketing & Design in exchange for an honest review.
Jason Gelardi drops out of college and starts a photography business called Tribal Culture Studio, or TCS for short, in San Diego. He hires hot guys to model for him, but his ulterior motive is to find a boyfriend. He hires Noel, an engineering grad student and is immediately in love with him and within two weeks takes him to Las Vegas to meet his go-go dancer cousin Tyler, because while there, he wants to start a relationship with Noel. Things don't go so well, and Ty, or Ty as he's called, decides that he's tired of supporting Jason as he's been doing all these years. Now he want's Jason to pay him back by a certain date, which means Jason either needs to get a job, or start making a lot of money with his photography. Jason starts hiring more guys, and Ty helps him draft a contract for his models. The rest of the story focuses on the interaction of Jason and his photo shoots with his models and and all of their interactions together. It was a really long book.
So why did I give it two stars? Because it was just okay. I really had to push myself through it, and I'm being generous with my stars. I don't want to convince others to skip it, but I don't want to lie either. These are, of course, my opinions.
One thing that turned me off is a particular pet peeve of mine: calling a cock/dick/penis by oddball names. Here is a prime reason you don't call a cock by a funny name or a food name, or other strange word that authors sometimes seem so keen to do, aside from the fact that it's one of the top things that readers hate the most. Jason refers to his cock as a "dongle". The night before I read this line, my teenage daughter walked into the room and ask me, "Mom, have you seen my dongle?" It's that little antennae piece that allows iPhone users to plug their headphones into their charging port. Apple literally calls it a dongle. So when I read the line where he calls his dick a dongle, I shoved my Fire away from me and burst out laughing. I lost it! I was also completely GROSSED OUT, because now I'm reminded of my teenage daughter looking for her dongle while I'm reading about a guy on a bed and his dick.
Seriously! It's a dick. Not a dongle. We are adults. Do we really need to resort to grade school names for genitalia? At this point, I'm pretty much done. Between the dongle, and the "I know I love you after just meeting you and want to have a relationship with you", and the shallow models, I don't know which characters I like less. I didn't care which character Jason ended up with because I never grew to like him and didn't grow to like any of the other characters.
I hate giving unpleasant reviews. I'm sure others will read this and enjoy it, and I hope they do. This one just wasn't my cuppa.
Jason Gelardi drops out of college and starts a photography business called Tribal Culture Studio, or TCS for short, in San Diego. He hires hot guys to model for him, but his ulterior motive is to find a boyfriend. He hires Noel, an engineering grad student and is immediately in love with him and within two weeks takes him to Las Vegas to meet his go-go dancer cousin Tyler, because while there, he wants to start a relationship with Noel. Things don't go so well, and Ty, or Ty as he's called, decides that he's tired of supporting Jason as he's been doing all these years. Now he want's Jason to pay him back by a certain date, which means Jason either needs to get a job, or start making a lot of money with his photography. Jason starts hiring more guys, and Ty helps him draft a contract for his models. The rest of the story focuses on the interaction of Jason and his photo shoots with his models and and all of their interactions together. It was a really long book.
So why did I give it two stars? Because it was just okay. I really had to push myself through it, and I'm being generous with my stars. I don't want to convince others to skip it, but I don't want to lie either. These are, of course, my opinions.
One thing that turned me off is a particular pet peeve of mine: calling a cock/dick/penis by oddball names. Here is a prime reason you don't call a cock by a funny name or a food name, or other strange word that authors sometimes seem so keen to do, aside from the fact that it's one of the top things that readers hate the most. Jason refers to his cock as a "dongle". The night before I read this line, my teenage daughter walked into the room and ask me, "Mom, have you seen my dongle?" It's that little antennae piece that allows iPhone users to plug their headphones into their charging port. Apple literally calls it a dongle. So when I read the line where he calls his dick a dongle, I shoved my Fire away from me and burst out laughing. I lost it! I was also completely GROSSED OUT, because now I'm reminded of my teenage daughter looking for her dongle while I'm reading about a guy on a bed and his dick.
Seriously! It's a dick. Not a dongle. We are adults. Do we really need to resort to grade school names for genitalia? At this point, I'm pretty much done. Between the dongle, and the "I know I love you after just meeting you and want to have a relationship with you", and the shallow models, I don't know which characters I like less. I didn't care which character Jason ended up with because I never grew to like him and didn't grow to like any of the other characters.
I hate giving unpleasant reviews. I'm sure others will read this and enjoy it, and I hope they do. This one just wasn't my cuppa.
October 17, 2018
TCS: The Studio had all the potential to be a wonderful story about finding love, exploring that love and coming into yourself. However, the dialogue and lack of connection to each character made it very difficult to believe any of them. Noel and Ryker, the two models hired by Jason, sounded so much alike even though their motives were different, and Jason, depending on whose POV it was, either sounded like a snot-nosed brat who knew nothing OR a whiny little boy with grandiose illusions of what his life should be. Except for when it was his own POV, then he sounded like a punk. The inconsistencies from one POV to the other, for the other characters, (eg: Ryker’s POV and Jason talking versus Jason’s POV and talking himself) was a turn-off for me, as was the dialogue itself.
Jason’s cousin, for example, used such vulgar language, I’m not talking about crass and simply derogatory, but greeting someone by saying “don’t f*cking touch me” or using an onslaught of slurs with every line was enough for me to instantly dislike him, and set my standards pretty low for how the other characters dealt with it. There were times when the plot shone brightly, learning about the different motives behind each character’s actions but they were clouded by the jumpy and incongruent dialogue, to me, making little sense based on what was going on. Example: walking down a pathway and stopping in the middle to sit on the ground and discuss something completely irrelevant.
I had hopes of this story being so much more, and at times it felt like I was pushing myself to ignore the conversation and the repetitive internal dialogue (it felt like Ryker and Noel thought, spoke, postured, and acted like the same person at times even though at others they were at opposite ends of the spectrum) to find the gems buried beneath it all. If each character had been given his own voice, with his own dialogue that was consistent between POV changes, I could have given this book 4 stars. As it stands, 2.5 is where it stands because I had such a hard time getting into it.
I received an ARC of this book from the author but a review wasn’t required.
Jason’s cousin, for example, used such vulgar language, I’m not talking about crass and simply derogatory, but greeting someone by saying “don’t f*cking touch me” or using an onslaught of slurs with every line was enough for me to instantly dislike him, and set my standards pretty low for how the other characters dealt with it. There were times when the plot shone brightly, learning about the different motives behind each character’s actions but they were clouded by the jumpy and incongruent dialogue, to me, making little sense based on what was going on. Example: walking down a pathway and stopping in the middle to sit on the ground and discuss something completely irrelevant.
I had hopes of this story being so much more, and at times it felt like I was pushing myself to ignore the conversation and the repetitive internal dialogue (it felt like Ryker and Noel thought, spoke, postured, and acted like the same person at times even though at others they were at opposite ends of the spectrum) to find the gems buried beneath it all. If each character had been given his own voice, with his own dialogue that was consistent between POV changes, I could have given this book 4 stars. As it stands, 2.5 is where it stands because I had such a hard time getting into it.
I received an ARC of this book from the author but a review wasn’t required.
November 2, 2018
This book is a good four star read, I enjoyed it very much.
This is not a book for everyone, there is not a lot of emotional outbursts or emotional hooks. It is a book about a gay collage student who starts a photography company, not planing on doing anything with it except get dates and get laid.
Jason is a collage drop out, he is young and socially awkward. But he wants to get laid, and he has the perfect guy in mind for it. So he borrows money from his older cousin, Tyler, to buy some nice camera equipment. He’d always like photography. He decided to ask cute guys to pose for him, and maybe he’d get lucky and one of them, maybe more?, would have sex with him.
This is story of growing up, paying your debts, meeting people, and learning that what started out as lark could be really big. Jason managed to make his photography studio pay off, made some real money and in the process one of his models that he innocently got involved with, turned on him and tried to take his studio away from him. The danger became real, the enemy’s grew bolder and more plentiful.
I enjoyed this first book by this author. Hot collage guys in Speedos as they played water polo, and posed for pictures that others bought off the website like candy, a young man learning to handle himself, relationships and his unexpected success all combined to create a book of steamy sex, rainbow auras and enough abs to keep you busy for while.
If you are looking for a deep emotional book, this is not the one you are looking for. If you are looking for a HEA, nope not here either, but if you are willing to go on a journey with Jason, and to have a laugh or two, you is something you need to pick up and take the time to read. Have fun, dream of some hot guys, and enjoy.
This is not a book for everyone, there is not a lot of emotional outbursts or emotional hooks. It is a book about a gay collage student who starts a photography company, not planing on doing anything with it except get dates and get laid.
Jason is a collage drop out, he is young and socially awkward. But he wants to get laid, and he has the perfect guy in mind for it. So he borrows money from his older cousin, Tyler, to buy some nice camera equipment. He’d always like photography. He decided to ask cute guys to pose for him, and maybe he’d get lucky and one of them, maybe more?, would have sex with him.
This is story of growing up, paying your debts, meeting people, and learning that what started out as lark could be really big. Jason managed to make his photography studio pay off, made some real money and in the process one of his models that he innocently got involved with, turned on him and tried to take his studio away from him. The danger became real, the enemy’s grew bolder and more plentiful.
I enjoyed this first book by this author. Hot collage guys in Speedos as they played water polo, and posed for pictures that others bought off the website like candy, a young man learning to handle himself, relationships and his unexpected success all combined to create a book of steamy sex, rainbow auras and enough abs to keep you busy for while.
If you are looking for a deep emotional book, this is not the one you are looking for. If you are looking for a HEA, nope not here either, but if you are willing to go on a journey with Jason, and to have a laugh or two, you is something you need to pick up and take the time to read. Have fun, dream of some hot guys, and enjoy.
October 16, 2018
This book was provided by the author via IndiGo Marketing & Design in exchange for an honest review.
I had a hard time getting into this book. I volunteered to review it, and then it took me a really long time to actually complete it. I think the problem is that I just really didn't like Jason. I found him infuriating. He was self-centered, and lazy, and expected things when he didn't work for them.
I thought the story itself was really interesting and if Jason took a bit more time for self-reflection, I would have given it more stars.
I had a hard time getting into this book. I volunteered to review it, and then it took me a really long time to actually complete it. I think the problem is that I just really didn't like Jason. I found him infuriating. He was self-centered, and lazy, and expected things when he didn't work for them.
I thought the story itself was really interesting and if Jason took a bit more time for self-reflection, I would have given it more stars.
February 2, 2019
This was an interesting read, but not my usual type. I prefer my characters to have a deeper emotional connection and - yeah - I am big on the HEA. I didn't get either of those things here. Sometimes the characters seemed rather superficial, but then again sometimes people are that way in real life, so maybe that was intentional. There is some betrayal and unexpected consequences as Jason pursues his photography business. Interesting, but I don't know if I will continue on with the series.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
October 10, 2018
He was a dropout who wanted the prefect life and prefect boyfriend. He opens up a studio and takes pictures. He takes many of different men. Could be find the prefect boyfriend? Who will he pick? Will he be successful? See if he can
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews