From botched mugging to unlikely love.A boxset of the first three books of the Wine & Song series:Songs You Know by HeartWhen David was younger, he spent a lot of Saturday nights on his knees: in alleys, in men’s rooms, occasionally behind a hedge in Central Park. He liked it rough and he still does, but he tries to be safer about his choice of partners and locations these days.He didn’t … safer about his choice of partners and locations these days.
He didn’t expect an attempted mugging to be the cause of his relapse. The guy shoves him up against a tree and puts a knife to his throat, and something in his voice makes David want to offer him anything – so he does.
It was a stupid idea – David’s had a million of them – but he got it out of his system. When his mugger shows up at his door in the rain like a lost puppy, it’s hard to say who is more surprised when David invites him to come inside.
Music in a Dry Country
David wanted a nice trip to the Argentine wine country with his new boyfriend, Jazz. He wanted some new contracts for his import business, maybe a good tan, and a lot of kinky sex.
Instead, he gets an uncomfortable reminder of the difference in their ages, a stiff dose of irrational jealousy, and the realization that his feelings for Jazz are much stronger than he thought they were.
He tries to keep it all to himself and let Jazz enjoy the trip, but his withdrawal, founded on old insecurities and the memory of loss, is the real threat to their new relationship.
Singing in the Wilderness
David’s taste for rough sex has landed him in trouble before, but never like this. Until recently, capital-R Relationships were things that happened to other people, and he liked it that way. Now he’s living with his new boyfriend–or at least he was, until Jazz left to tour with his band. Suddenly, David’s finding it hard to sleep alone and wondering what he’ll do if Jazz doesn’t come back.
Added to that is his slow fall into real submission for the first time in his life. Jazz is more willing to push him over the phone but, despite David’s promises, they still haven’t had that little chat about limits and safewords. Jazz is afraid of going too far, and David’s afraid he won’t go far enough.
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This is a review for the whole 5-novella series, since it pulled me in to where I bought one after the other without stopping, reading until 2 AM. I no longer remember individual installments, but the series as a whole was engaging, with distinct characters whom I cared about, so I’m giving it 5 stars despite any improbabilities and flaws. Each installment ends on a resting point, not a cliffhanger, but the HFNs are thin and I think it does need to be read as a whole.
David is a guy in his late thirties who needs his sex with an edge of danger and pain, humiliation and submission. When he was younger, he sought that in BDSM clubs and in bars and alleyways, knowing that he was risking his safety, unable to find satisfaction in tamer ways. One evening, walking home from a costume party, he’s grabbed from behind by a young man who holds a knife to his neck and demands his money. He isn’t carrying any, and as the would-be mugger gets frustrated, David finds himself turned on by the encounter, and offering his services instead. The mugger sends him on his way, but a week later David finds himself heading through the same park and gets jumped by the same guy and that encounter goes much more in the direction of his fantasies.
The improbable start to this relationship is made to seem somehow plausible by David’s needs, his ennui, his taste for reckless danger with his sex, and his underlying desperation that he can never get exactly what he craves elsewhere. His satisfaction with his wealthy life is at such a low ebb that it becomes just barely plausible he would endanger it with the choices he makes towards a young stranger. The very unlikeliness of it was oddly appealing.
Jasper/Jazz turns out to be a broke 21-year-old musician, living rough, desperate for just enough cash to land a piano playing job, and far from a hardened criminal. As they dance around the edges of each other’s lives for a while, they find that Jazz’s natural bent toward domination fits David’s need to subjugate himself to someone else. Jazz has never been with a man before, and his willingness to accept his bisexuality, D/s, and the bits of exhibitionist kink, seems a bit smooth, given his small town working class background. On the other hand, he is a musician with an artist’s openness to experiences.
This is a fast-sex, slow-romance series. Jazz has never even thought about a relationship with a man, and David has always assumed he wasn’t the relationship type. Jazz is prickly about finances, seventeen years younger, and still figuring out his future. There’s a lot of working through on both the emotional and physical sides of things. And as David begins to include Jazz in various parts of his life, they will encounter people who have known David a long time, who have preconceptions, affections, grudges, and jealousies that can derail a determined but fairly naive young man.
As improbable as the beginning was, this still felt real, as these two very different men forge their obstacle-laden way forward. David mostly fights his own fears and habitual ways of thinking, and his perception of their age difference as an inevitable ending, with his awareness of how little Jazz has yet seen and decided about the shape of his future. Jazz deals with the wealth difference, his jealousies, and his musical ambitions set against his life with David. Both men have some family baggage that tinges their lives. The series is emotional, but not angsty, hot but not gratuitously so as each encounter plays a part in their developing relationship. The BDSM is far more D/s than SM. (In fact, my one real quibble was the degree to which David’s needs and desires for sharper play seemed to soften when with Jazz.) I finished the series satisfied, and yet would read more of these two any time. Added to my favorites.