Catching a Second Wind by Sean Michael: elisa_rolle

Catching a Second Wind is a re-release of a 2004 novel by Sean Michael, so basically this is one of the first books coming out when the M/M romance was gaining more and more fans each day. Probably for this reason, I was expecting for it to be a little less “modern”, meaning that, at the time, the M/M romance was more focused on the erotica than the romance. And Sean Michael is also quite notorious for writing romances full of sex. Now it’s not that Catching a Second Wind is chaste, not at all, but indeed the romance is quite sweet, probably due also to all the puppies and critters filling this story.

Dakota “Kota” is a veterinarian, recently widower; his partner of 16 years died of heart attack just 10 month before and he is only now having a breakdown, probably since he filled to capacity the months soon after the tragic event and only now he is arrived to the moment when he has nothing to do if not thinking to his loss. His colleagues direct him to Ben, a therapist specialized in dealing with the aftermath of the death of a dear one.

Truth be told, Kota is not a desperate case, more or less he needs only to talk and let it out his pain; thank to few appointments with Ben and one another tragic event in his life (even if not so tragic like losing his partner), Kota will be able to overcome the pain and be ready to “catching a second wind” with Ben. Now I know that the “purists” will be all against the idea of a therapist having a relationship with a client, but you have to consider what I said before, actually Kota was already on the right way to heal, and meeting with Ben only helped him to arrive to that point faster than alone.

I also liked how the author approached the issue of Kota actually being still in mourning. The relationship of Kota with Mike was on the “dependency” side: Mike was older than Kota, 46 against 37, and the age difference was not only what made Mike the dominant; Mike was also a very imposing man, he was able to impose his ideas on Kota without neither the same Kota realizing it. Sure, Kota was happy with Mike, and if nothing had happened, Kota and Mike would have been a perfect happily life together; but Mike died and now Kota is facing a new chance relationship with Ben.

Not only Ben is younger than Mike, he is younger than Kota too, more or less 25 years old. And while Mike and Kota were happy together even if they had different interests, Ben and Kota have basically the same interests; for Mike and Kota the old motto “opposites attract” was true, Kota and Ben instead represent more the “two halves of the same apple” motto.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=443

Amazon: Catching a Second Wind
Amazon Kindle: Catching a Second Wind
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Torquere Press (June 16, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1934166928
ISBN-13: 978-1934166925

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