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Catching a Second Wind
When Dakota lost Mike he thought he was done for when it came to love. Heck, after losing a lifetime partner, he figures it’s even affecting his ability to do his job as a veterinarian. Which is why he lets his friends convince him to see a psychologist. Ben is understanding, sympathetic, and a good listener. He’s also the most attractive thing Dakota has seen in a long time. Before they know it, Dakota and Ben are moving from being in a doctor patient relationship to something a lot more interesting, and that presents a whole new set of problems. Can these two put aside the past and build a new life together, one that is uniquely theirs?
280 pages, Paperback
Published June 16, 2008
2 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Sean Michael
652 books1,209 followersOften referred to as "Space Cowboy" and "Gangsta of Love" while still striving for the moniker of "Maurice," Sean Michael spends his days surfing, smutting, organizing his immense gourd collection and fantasizing about one day retiring on a small secluded island peopled entirely by horseshoe crabs. While collecting vast amounts of vintage gay pulp novels and mood rings, Sean whiles away the hours between dropping the f-bomb and persuing the kama sutra by channeling the long lost spirit of John Wayne and singing along with the soundtrack to "Chicago."
A long-time writer of complicated haiku, currently Sean is attempting to learn the advanced arts of plate spinning and soap carving sex toys.
Barring any of that? He'll stick with writing his stories, thanks, and rubbing pretty bodies together to see if they spark.
A long-time writer of complicated haiku, currently Sean is attempting to learn the advanced arts of plate spinning and soap carving sex toys.
Barring any of that? He'll stick with writing his stories, thanks, and rubbing pretty bodies together to see if they spark.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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May 5, 2011Catching 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.amazon.com/dp/1934166928/?...
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.amazon.com/dp/1934166928/?...
April 28, 2015
Another great book by Sean...Dakota and Ben just made to be together.....Dakota is getting over losing his partner Mike and Ben is there to help him as his therapist but he helps him better by becoming his new partner....Not my favourite but certainly worth a read seeing as I bought it in paperback too x
June 19, 2015
Pretty sure this was my first time with this author. Liked the story. Not quite as "gritty" as I like my reads to be. The fact that Kota ia a veterinarian made it more engaging, though. Everyone is so nice in this story (except the memory of Mike; seems like he was a bit of a dominating prick when he was still on this plane of existence). Plan to try other stories by this author.
January 24, 2014
This book nicely illustrates the concept of too much of a good thing.
Reading it feels like sinking into a huge couch padded with impossibly thick velvet that just swallows you up. It’s all soft and sensual and immersive.
The story (such as it is) simply oozes along. There’s next to no conflict, just lots and lots and lots of sex.
It starts out great.
The hurt/comfort theme is done in a lovely way that does not infantilize the comfortee. (Which would be okay too, but this feels fully like two adults, and I haven’t seen that in way too long. That’s my own fault, of course, but there you go.) From start to finish it’s handling the aspect of a deceased life partner very well.
And you can’t go wrong with a bunch of cuddly animals.
However, once the sex begins it seems as though it is taking over the entire story. Sex really fills the bulk of those pages and while it is an appealing kind of sex, there’s nothing new in it after the first few times.
Also maybe, just maybe, they talk a bit much during. I don’t really mind but it seems excessive to comment on every tiny little thing.
And, heh. They really keep going and going and going, blowing realism entirely out of the water.
As such, after a while it became frustrating; every scene seemed to be there purely for the sex. Even the ones that conveyed a tiny bit of plot development.
I guess for someone in the mood for a feast of cuddly sex this is ideal.
In my case, I often had to stop reading and do something else for a bit, which is why this took me so long to finish. I’m not really complaining. Just… too much of a good thing to the point of being repetitive.
The ending has just the tiniest hint of bitter-sweet (it actually made me tear up for a moment or two), but not in a bad way. And I suppose it fits the theme of the story, if not exactly the majority of the scenes as such.
Reading this gave me a nostalgic feeling.
The writing style is just like in the first actual m/m book I read. (I mean genre book. Erotica, as most of them are. Back then even more so than these days.) It was more than likely by the same author, too, under one of her myriad pseudonyms that I can’t keep straight.
Reading it feels like sinking into a huge couch padded with impossibly thick velvet that just swallows you up. It’s all soft and sensual and immersive.
The story (such as it is) simply oozes along. There’s next to no conflict, just lots and lots and lots of sex.
It starts out great.
The hurt/comfort theme is done in a lovely way that does not infantilize the comfortee. (Which would be okay too, but this feels fully like two adults, and I haven’t seen that in way too long. That’s my own fault, of course, but there you go.) From start to finish it’s handling the aspect of a deceased life partner very well.
And you can’t go wrong with a bunch of cuddly animals.
However, once the sex begins it seems as though it is taking over the entire story. Sex really fills the bulk of those pages and while it is an appealing kind of sex, there’s nothing new in it after the first few times.
Also maybe, just maybe, they talk a bit much during. I don’t really mind but it seems excessive to comment on every tiny little thing.
And, heh. They really keep going and going and going, blowing realism entirely out of the water.
As such, after a while it became frustrating; every scene seemed to be there purely for the sex. Even the ones that conveyed a tiny bit of plot development.
I guess for someone in the mood for a feast of cuddly sex this is ideal.
In my case, I often had to stop reading and do something else for a bit, which is why this took me so long to finish. I’m not really complaining. Just… too much of a good thing to the point of being repetitive.
The ending has just the tiniest hint of bitter-sweet (it actually made me tear up for a moment or two), but not in a bad way. And I suppose it fits the theme of the story, if not exactly the majority of the scenes as such.
Reading this gave me a nostalgic feeling.
The writing style is just like in the first actual m/m book I read. (I mean genre book. Erotica, as most of them are. Back then even more so than these days.) It was more than likely by the same author, too, under one of her myriad pseudonyms that I can’t keep straight.
November 11, 2023
The story would have been good if it wasn't for the amount of sex scenes it had. Do n0t get me wrong: I love a good sex scene, and Sean Michael is very good at writting them. But in this case, when the main characters started going at it? They just didn't stop. Around 70% of the book is pure sex scenes and that's just not right. There was one regular paragraph of story and next a few pages of sex, over and over again. It just got so repetitive that ended up boring me and I actually skipped quite a few of them just to get on with the story.
Anyway, it started really well and I would have given it a couple more stars if it just would have been shorter and more to the point.
No hate, just my take on it.
Anyway, it started really well and I would have given it a couple more stars if it just would have been shorter and more to the point.
No hate, just my take on it.
October 17, 2010
This m/m romance about a vet who visits an appealing young psychologist as part of trying to get over the unexpected death of his long-term lover was so sweet and angst free that I confess to being bored... Ok, yeah, there was a titch of near-angst - but seriously, nothing that wasn't resolved within a page or two.
December 24, 2010
Очень красивая и трогательная история.
December 12, 2012
3.5 stars
December 18, 2019
I love Sean Michael books. This was a very sweet romance with great sex scenes, interesting characters and a strong story.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews