Book blurb
Sequel to The Devil's Trill Sonata
Although
their relationship has been repaired since the disaster that was
Cambridge, Darren has not. His depression has worsened over the years
until it is no longer an option to watch the illness play out its
patterns. Treatment is a must.
Treatment is also a difficult
disaster. When the second attempt at medication goes as badly wrong as
the first, and Darren is forced through a rapid deterioration of mood
swings, insomnia, nausea and increasingly dangerous thought patterns,
his partner Jayden begins to fear that the only end to this disease will
also be the end of Darren himself.
Apart from a single glimmer
of hope: when Darren's best friend asks Darren to play at his wedding,
Darren begins to slowly return to the half-forgotten piano. As he slowly
sinks back into the music that he deserted seven years earlier, the
shadows -- finally -- begin to fade.
Buy
Link
http://www.jms-books.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=29&products_id=1146
My Review
Book gifted from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Cover :- 3 stars
Sex/steaminess :- N/A
Story line :- 4 stars
Characters :- 4 stars
Overall rating :- 3.666 stars
Personal rating :- 4 stars
Book Pairing:- M/M
Did it give me a book hangover :- No but it did leave me a little emotionally drained.
Is this a review book or personal read :- Review read
Why I chose this book?
I got asked to join the blog tour.
What I liked about this book.
* Emotional.
* The story flowed well from the first two.
* Lots of tough issues address through out the series.
What I didn't like about this book.
I hate to say it but Jayden did annoy me in this book. I can't pin point why but I did want to slap him once at least.
Would I read more from this author?
Yes
Would I recommend this book?
Yes
About
Matthew J. Metzger
Matthew
is the front for a twenty-three-year-old British author currently
living and working in the Bristol area. Matthew primarily writes
romance and young adult novels, with a tendency towards intense
topics and a writing style favouring the gritty, messy and imperfect
parts of modern life. Although Matthew writes LGBT fiction, he rarely
writes about issues that are exclusive to LGBT people – instead,
Matthew’s characters are usually incidentally
gay
and dealing with issues common to people of any sexuality.
Matthew
entered the industry with debut novel Our
Last Summer in
January 2013, and has published five novels to date, with a sixth
scheduled for publication later this year with Breathless Press. He
has so far written primarily gay and bisexual main characters,
although upcoming projects are steadily branching out into the other
letters in the alphabet soup.
Outside
of writing, Matthew works full-time as a data analyst and - when not
working either job - likes to pretend he has the money to travel, see
the world, and send home a lot of tacky postcards about it. Sometimes
he takes a break from daydreaming, writing and number-crunching to
socialise, but social situations are terrifying, so that's not very
often.
Matthew
is most active at his Facebook
and Twitter
accounts and maintains a Wordpress
blog
for the more detailed updates, including snippets, excerpts,
manuscript outlines, and (of course) publication news. He can also be
contacted at mattmetzger@hotmail.co.uk, although he is admittedly
somewhat flaky at remembering email is a thing.
Rhapsody
Excerpt
It
was like suffocation.
It was like ... like Darren was fifteen
again, and drugged up to the eyeballs in a hospital bed after being
stabbed, with the world drunkenly drifting without him and even the
slightest movement resulting in a dizzying whirl around his eyes.
Like his brain had been scooped out of his head, wrapped in cotton
wool, and put back in to ensure that nothing -- nothing --
would get through. An insulating layer, to keep him in and the
universe out.
It was far worse than any of his bad days had
ever been, because not only was nothing getting through, Darren felt
though he were actively sliding away. He slept purely to avoid the
feeling of slipping, the feeling that when he lay in bed, his
consciousness was slowly working its way loose of his body. A balloon
on a fraying tether. What happened when it freed itself?
He
was paralysed with the fear of that coming loose effect, the
terror drowning the rational part of him that said there was no such
thing as a soul and no way that he could actually float out of
his own skin. Rationality had no place at the table. He was afraid,
afraid of the numbness and the distance and the deadening of every
sense he had, and he was furious with himself for being afraid at
all.
At least, he was in the academic sense. In the pure, raw,
emotional sense ... he wasn't even irritated. He was nothing at all.
The cotton wool -- the fluoxetine -- crowded out even feeling, until
there was nothing but a void in his head. Darren would have hated it
if he'd been capable of dredging up the feeling at all. Perhaps that
was the trick of it. How were you meant to feel sad, if you couldn't
feel at all?
But that, to Darren, was even worse. This was an
episode, but at an extreme, like he'd succeeded and was an inch from
death and simply waiting now, and he was terrified. Trapped in
himself, he was absolutely terrified. This was unabating, with no
come-and-go like the usual shadows. This was a blacked-out room, with
no doors and windows and no way of creating light.
And he was
trapped here too. Between Jayden and the doctor, he couldn't stop
taking the pills, couldn't shake off the cloying decay, couldn't
punch through it, physically or otherwise. He was too exhausted to
box, and when he tried, nothing happened. He was being smothered in
clingfilm, and there was nothing that could be done to break through
it, no way out. There were nights he lay awake just trying to
breathe, just trying to feel the way his lungs expanded and
collapsed, and had to assume he breathed because he hadn't died.
Nights he wanted to scream just to get some of the air in his lungs
out, to get sound out, to get out.
This was worse. This
was so much worse than the bad days, and he wanted to lash
out, to break through it, to something, to ... to die, even,
if that would let him out. To die, if it would break the film that
had settled over him.
When the saucer smashed on the kitchen
floor, Darren snapped.
