Jonah Sweet of Delancey Street

by Ryan Field

In this 60,000 word full length novel, Jonah Sweet has a secret need to be dominated and punished, with whips and chains and leather cuffs. He also has a degree in puppetry from a good university, but can’t find a job and is still with his mom and dad in Queens. So he signs up for cooking school, hoping to learn a trade. But it’s nothing like he thought it would be and he winds up flunking everything from cutlery to hard-boiled eggs. The only other skill Jonah has is the ability to read other people's thoughts, which he knows isn’t going to get him very far. On the day of an important cooking exam, Jonah meets David Abernathy, the owner of the cooking school and a billionaire who owns restaurant chains, casinos, and real estate. The harder Jonah tries to impress David the worse it gets. But handsome David Abernathy sees something in Jonah. With no explanation at all, David sets Jonah up in an office, buys him a brand new wardrobe, and brings him into his unusual home on Delancey Street. Though Jonah is stunned by all this, he’s even more stunned by the fact that he can’t read David Abernathy’s thoughts. But Jonah is in no position to turn any offers down. He takes the job in spite of David’s rude, nasty disposition and his erratic rants. From there they enter into an unusual relationship filled with light bondage and discipline and more love than either one of them could ever have imagined. When David introduces Jonah to a little boy in a wheel chair and explains his past, Jonah only falls deeper in love with David. He discovers a gentle side of David no one knows about. But will intense love and exotic sex be enough to compensate for David’s complicated personality and his vicious need to control everything? And will Jonah be able to put up with David’s public outbursts and his violent moods?

Genres: M M Romance, BDSM

181 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 13, 2012

About the author

Ryan @ryanfield Hybrid author of over 100 published modern romance novels and stories, including AN OFFICER AND HIS GENTLEMAN, FANGSTERS, and THE RAINBOW DETECTIVE AGENCY. He is a Lambda Award-winner with a short story and he's always more than thankful for reader reviews. In fact, he cherishes reviews from real readers, and that means good or bad reviews.

Reviews

[Urbanista · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally get to use "meh" in a review.

Meh.

Strange, choppy, full of typos. Reads like a second draft. I tried and tried to understand the cover, but I can't.

A BDSM story with an abusive, borderline psychotic Dom, David, who is rather repugnant, and also bipolar. The sweet natured sub, Jonah, is willing to take and witness unseemly amounts of abuse, his continued loyalty makes him complicit,

And WHY OH WHY were the MCs both psychic? Why could they both read the thoughts of everyone but each other? Not really paranormal, but a bizarre and inexplicable plot device that served no purpose and made.

Absolutely.

No.

Sense.

I would never finish a book worth less than three stars, unless it was unintentionally funny. This one is often hilarious. Jonah is wretchedly incompetent at cooking school, but at least he has his Masters' in Puppetry to fall back on. Excuse me, what?? So Being John Malkovich like!! The, ahem, outfits both wear in their BDSM scenes had me giggling. What is this, 1978? Finally, David's Tourette's like verbal abuse was often funny, as were the foul thoughts that these two mind readers yanked from their victims.

There was--I can't do this!--a subplot about a tragic and heroic child in a wheelchair. I kid you not.

Weirdly undisciplined and self-indulgent, like this review. This level of weirdness always earns an extra half star. Meh!

[Madison Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dear Jonah,
You are a perplexing but lovable combination of sweet and edgy. I want to hug you and spank you at the same time. Bless you for putting up with David and for understanding that sometimes the ones who are hardest to love are the ones who need love the most. You are an angel. A very kinky angel. With puppets.
Love,
Madison

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not like the writing or the story - seemed like an adolescent fantasy.

[Sucajo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jonah needs a job so that he can move out of his parents' house and get a job so he has enrolled in cooking school. Unfortunately, he is not very good at it and things are looking bad until he wins the opportunity to be David's assistant. David and Jonah are like chalk and cheese. Jonah is incredibly sweet and generous and slightly naive while David is a bit of a bastard. They connect sexually and Jonah starts to fall in love but David keeps treating other people like crap and Jonah is finding it harder and harder to put up with. David is pretty unlikeable for most of the book except for the times he is with Bobby, a young boy who was injured in a car accident caused by David's drunk driving and who now is unable to walk but we do see slight changes in the way he treats other people. The ending was a little abrupt for me and I wish there would have been more communication at the hospital between the MCs as Jonah's change of mind was just a little quick.

[Nancy Carbajal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish we had half ratings, I would have rated this a 3 1/2 as oppose to just 3 stars. Jonah is so funny and sweet, just like his last name. Able to read minds, but still manages to forgive people for some of their thoughts...even his parents. David on the other hand takes on a different attitude in that he treats people how he reads them, never thinking that he is intruding on private thoughts and has a temper. They cant read each others minds though and that makes for some interesting scenarios where each of them are at a disadvantage on how each tries to figure out the other. They both fall easily into their roles as Dominate/Submissive and I had some trouble with the fact that in their rough play, David will punch and kick Jonah with permission, but thats their preferances as a fictional couple and who am I to judge. :)