Reviews

Singing in the Wilderness by Eleanor Kos

marlobo's review

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3.0

3.5 stars

becka6131's review

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5.0

I love this series so much!!! It murdered me. Nothing is easily resolved or swept under the carpet, Jazz and David really have to work for their relationship. IT'S SO GOOD. I LOVE DAVID. Jerks who don't know how to express their feelings falling in love with balls of sunshine, I could eat that three meals a day. EVERYONE READ THIS.

frogy927's review

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5.0

This book was so good for me.

mugsandpugs's review

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5.0

I want to talk about how much I LOVE these books, and the author's careful wordbuilding! This has been my favorite of the series so far! I love everything about it-- the band and all its memorable members; Jazz's kind side; Jazz's darker side that he's just now beginning to investigate.
How none of the characters are 2-dimensional; not even Ian, who could by all rights fit the "jealous ex" stereotype.
I like how David's starting to open up-- not just to Jazz, but to his friends as well. How admitting his feelings is even more frightening for him than his dangerous hobbies.
And as far as the erotica-- this hit my buttons a lot more than it didn't, and that's saying a lot because I'm weird and fickle when it comes to stuff like that. I love how they dealt with sub-drop and an alternative to safe words in particular.

kaje_harper's review

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5.0

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.

caroline_reads's review

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5.0

So happy with the length of this! Built on and improved the brevity of the previous two installments of the Wine & Song series.
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