Dolce Con Brio

by Val Athey

Dolce - musical term, meaning "sweetly"
Con Brio - musical term, meaning "with vigor"

Alec is a shy, middle-aged high school band director, who leads a quiet and lonely life. He enjoys his job, which provides him with steady income, as long as he keeps his sexuality quiet. Still, he secretly longs for something more in his life, something different, though he doesn't know exactly what that could be.

Rhys is an energetic man in his mid-twenties who feels something missing in his personal life. He too longs for something more, something special, with someone who wouldn't be scared off by his tendency to feel too much too quickly. And who is preferably a cat person.

Thanks to a feline escape artist, their paths cross...

***

A May-December M/M love story with no cheating and a HEA. Includes nosy family members, fangirling students, sweet and fluffy romance interspersed with steamy scenes and light BDSM, and one very spoiled cat. 100,000+ words with nearly 10,000 words of bonus content.

Genres: M M Romance, BDSM, LGBT

347 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 12, 2020

About the author

Val Athey lives in Ontario, which is quite a change from her native North Carolina. Up there she is a wife, mom, and jack-of-all-trades who is known to those close to her to have at least a half-dozen projects of various kinds going at once, from literary to artistic to home improvement.

One day she finally decided to start moving the various stories out of her head and into print, with Dolce con Brio being the first, and plans to continue doing so despite the best efforts of her small offspring as well as two aggressively nosy and affectionate cats. After all, she is a hopeless romantic and feels adding a bit more love to the world is never a bad thing.

Reviews

[Barbara➰]

This was really sweet and I was enjoying it even though I don’t particularly care for bdsm. I will not rate this because of my own personal triggers. But a Heads up to others who may be bothered by this.


First this is a reverse age gap where the Dom is younger and the sub is almost 20 years older.

Second, There is a scene later in the book where the sub mc has sex with another sub while the Dom’s watch at the club. It’s very late in the book. 🤬🤬🤬

[Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this story. Alec, Skye, and of course you can't forgot about Gus are all my babies 🖤 I loved everything about this story to be honest, and it's one of my favorites actually.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so beautiful and amazing. I loved the romance, the BDSM, and I adore both of the main characters so much. specially Alec, he’s my soft, kinky baby. It was just Golden❤️❤️❤️

[Champagne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really did love the elements to this book and I cannot express how much of a diamond in the rough this book is (especially since people try and fail To bring justice to the key elements in this book in their own). The relationship itself progresses kind of fast but the author just makes forget that such a short amount of time for the characters has passed for them to be in such a relationship. It gives you that risk factor as well as the main internal conflict (other than the normal relationship conflicts, I'm trying not to spoil anything😂) plus a some spice with the BDSM shown in the book. It's a lot more mature book than I'm sure a lot of people don't give it enough credit for, especially with how the external conflicts are handled. There's no emotional storm off of doubts in trust that makes the whole relationship fall but there are still those situations that hold you at the end of your seat with anxiety on what's gonna happen sometimes, how the characters might take it. Plus there are foil characters and who doesn't love that. A get off your butt with all the drama and come over to read this book, you won't waste a second of time ❤️.

[Breelynd Huntley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfectly fine read. Do heed the warnings at the beginning of the book if you have triggers. I fell like there was a lot of writing, but at times, it felt like there wasn't much being said. I liked the characters and the plot, it just felt too wordy at times.

[Drfoolish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid book overall, with pleasant surprises here and there. I would have loved to give it four stars, but throughout the book I developed a dislike for the narrative voice. While the writing style worked for Alec, I didnt think it suited Rhys at all, so it became quite tedious to get through the book about halfway through. It wasn't badly written by any means, it just felt almost stilted in a way that made me take frequent breaks. Either the book could've been shorter, or Rhys' POV could've been more laidback.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing story... very well written, witty, sparks intrigue, and characters have genuine connections. Includes POVs from both characters and others which I love, so creative!! Both main characters have thorough back stories and distinct personalities, which I usually find very difficult to see in other books. It brings their story to life. They aren’t just like everyone else, they’re different but complete each other and it’s beautiful.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really for me.

[...]

DNF at 42% ... got bored.

[Jenni · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were elements of this book that I loved and elements that were a hard no!! I knew about the bdsm before reading it. But I really sorry couldn’t get on board with what Rhys did to Alec because he was jealous. And then lol quite happily pushes him into sleeping with a former pupil becomes he’s calling the shots. Just completely stupid and it read more like a mills and boon in places with the odd whipping here and there.