GUEST POST - LIBBY MERCER

Nerd Love

Guest Post by Libby Mercer

Derek Whitley, the love interest in my recently released novel, Unmasking Maya, is a technological whiz. He started writing computer programs as a small child, he’s running a hot new tech company, and his closet is full of tee shirts with cryptic scientific formulas printed on them. He’s a hottie, of course, but personality-wise, he’s a serious science geek. Maya, my heroine, is totally okay with this. She says:

“In my experience, nerdy people are more honest and have the most integrity. It’s the cool people – the charmers of this world – that you have to watch out for.”

While Maya is a bit jaded, I generally agree with the point she makes here. I’ve always felt a tad more comfortable around people who were slightly off-center. And truth be told, I’ve always had a kind of a thing for dorky guys.

With this in mind, I decided to blog about some geeky hotties you may or may not know about.

Just a quick disclaimer: in some instances, I’m celebrating an actor and in some cases, I’m celebrating a character. And in some cases, both! I do recognize the difference between fact and fiction, but the lines will be a bit blurry in this post.

And away we go!

1. Dr. Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds)/Matthew Gray Gubler

Spencer Reid is definitely my favorite nerdy television character, and I’ve got a total TV crush on him – even if he does have a stupid hairdo in most of the shows. A super genius with three PhDs and an IQ of 187, he struggles a bit when it comes to human interaction. It’s so endearing, though, how clueless he is about “normal” things. As far as I can tell, Matthew Gray Gubler, the actor who plays Spencer Reid, is not a nerd in real life.

2. Chuck Bartowski (Chuck)/Zachary Levi

Geeks all across the land fell in love with the star of Chuck, the cult hit show. Fans tuned in each week to watch Chuck complete a top-secret mission with the help of “flashes” from the CIA’s supercomputer that had been implanted in his brain. In real life, Zachary Levi, the actor who played Chuck, embraces his nerdy persona, flying the flag for geeks everywhere. He’s into Comic-Con and sci-fi stuff, big time.

3. Laurence Fishburne

This may seem like an odd choice because he doesn’t seem like a typical dork, but you can’t overlook his choice in film roles. Matrix, anyone? And Othello? Apologies to fans of the Bard (sorry, Tracie) but any actor who stars in a Shakespeare film is a drama geek at heart. Laurence Fishburne has just finished filming his role as Perry White in Man of Steel, the latest in the Superman franchise. Need I say more?

4. Seth Cohen (The OC)/Adam Brody

As the resident geek on The OC, he’s been credited with making dorky cool, but the jury’s still out on whether or not Adam Brody is a geek in real life. Before it got scrapped, he had signed on to play The Flash in a film version of Justice League (based on characters published by DC Comics) so I’m thinking even if he’s not a real-life nerd, he’s pulling a Laurence Fishburne here.

5. Stephen Malkmus

I wanted to feature a musician as my final nerdy hottie, and oh my goodness, the possibilities were just about endless. This is going to age me but… I thought back to the late 90s, when I was more informed about pop culture than I am now, and back then, the music scene positively was overrun with awkward alterna-nerds. In the end, I decided to go with Stephen Malkmus from Pavement because he’s apparently a huge fantasy basketball geek and bangs on about it to everyone who will listen. Seriously. Googling “Stephen Malkmus” and “Fantasy Basketball” brings up over 10,000 results.

And there you have it. I hope you enjoyed reading my post about dorky hotties. If you’ve got a soft spot for gorgeous geeks, be sure to download a copy of Unmasking Maya where dorky Derek Whitley awaits.

Author Bio:

Born and raised in the Midwest, Libby Mercer’s adventurous spirit kicked in after graduating from high school, and she’s since lived in Boston, NYC and London. San Francisco is the city she currently calls home. For several years, Libby worked in fashion – first as a journalist and then as a shopkeeper. She also dabbled in design for a while. Even through the crazy fashion years, Libby never let go of her dream of being a published author, and has since developed her signature writing style, crafting quirky chick lit/romance hybrids. Fashioning a Romance was her first published novel, and Unmasking Maya will be her second. Libby has a third novel, The Karmic Connection, scheduled for release in 2013.

Book Blurb:

Defamed, Disgraced and Displaced...

Fresh from a career-killing scandal, New York fashion girl, Maya Kirkwood, arrives in San Francisco to reinvent herself as a fine artist. She's offered the opportunity to create an installation at the Silicon Valley headquarters of a hot new tech company. Fabulous, right?

Not so much.

She can't stand Derek Whitley - wunderkind software genius and CEO of the company. Hot as he may be on the outside, inside the man is a cold, unemotional, robotic type. Way too left-brained for her right-brained self.

As Maya and Derek get to know each other, however, their facades begin to crack. She catches her first glimpse of the man behind the superhuman tech prodigy, and he starts to see her as the woman she used to be. But is this a good thing? Once that last secret is revealed, will it bring them closer together or will it tear them apart?

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