Reviewed by: Guest Reviewer LenaLena

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Daron’s Guitar Chronicles: Volumes 4 & 5

Series: Daron’s Guitar Chronicles

Publisher: Cecilia Tan Publishing

Length : 324 pages

Blurb:

Volume 4

In Daron’s life, it’s 1989, his band Moondog Three is starting to take off, and although the closet door is open now, he’s barely got one toe out. He’s told his closest friends and bandmates that he’s gay, and he’s sworn off sleeping with Ziggy. But just because they’re not sleeping together doesn’t mean a guitarist and a lead singer don’t have a relationship… Daron and the band return from their road trip to prepare for a major cross-country tour. The itinerary will take them from California eastward, with all four band members, tech crew, and management sharing a tour bus. That won’t be awkward or stress-inducing at all, will it?

 

Volume 5

The pressure cooker that is the tour bus has been affecting everyone, but will it ultimately fuse the band together or crack them apart? The final leg of the Moondog Three 1989 tour approaches, with Toronto, the Midwest, and New York City still to come. Daron and Ziggy have learned a lot about each other, and about what it takes to stay sane on the road… but have the lessons come too late?

 

REVIEW:

Yesterday I reviewed the first Daron’s Guitar Chronicles Omnibus (eBook volumes 1-3) and if you missed that you may want to catch up first. Today I am going to talk about the second DGC Omnibus-to-be which covers volume 4 and 5 of the eBooks. There is currently a Kickstarter going on to make this Omnibus a reality, you can find more details at the end of this review.

 

So we left Daron at the end of volume 3 in a place of relative peace. Things weren’t perfect, but they were starting to look up at least. In volume 4 and 5 we are embarking on some real character growth. Daron is making peace with his sexuality, he starts to open up more to other people, his boundaries get clearer, he has other, less destructive relationships.  All this against the back drop of rehearsing, touring, playing music, asshole opening bands, press meetings, parties, accidents, drug problems, family issues, etc. There is a small saggy bit in the middle of volume 4, when, ironically everything seems to go well, but soon enough things start going to shit again and the rest reads like a rollercoaster. And slowly but surely, Daron and Ziggy find a way to work together.

 

And Ziggy took it as a warm up, just breezing through the lyrics without too much effort, at least for the first two verses. I started to noodle a little, playing a countermelody without really thinking about it, echoing off the last few notes of each line. When we reached the bridge, I had thought we might break off since I didn’t intend to play a solo, but he answered me right back, picking out pieces of the lyrics and sort of scatting them back at me, more melodic than a rap but less wordy. Chris and Bart just kept chugging along and letting us fly. And at some point we changed from me answering his vocal riffs note for note to unison, and I couldn’t have told you which one of us was leading that improvised melody.

When the song came to a close, the silence of the small theater seemed loud. So did my heart and breath. We were standing face to face, maybe a foot apart. Yeah, I missed you, too. Oh fuck. 

 

They start to rebuild their personal relationship as well. Tan is phenomenal at building that tension slowly and almost behind the scenes. She fully utilizes the fact that after following Daron’s story for this long the readers know him so well that he doesn’t have to spell things out.

 

The obvious solution was to jerk off. When I started, I even did the corny thing of pretending it was Jonathan’s hand. But then my mind wandered, and I went sort of in and out of a dream, and the next thing I knew I was biting the edge of the comforter to keep from crying out someone’s name, possibly the wrong someone. We’ll never know for sure, though, because I kept my fucking mouth shut. 

 

Daron is a very unreliable narrator and the way he sees things, Ziggy in particular, are often skewed at best and very much tainted by his own hang ups. As the story progresses though and we get more familiar with Daron’s issues we start to see the things around him sharper. Much of significance is shown through Daron’s reactions, not his thoughts on a subject. What he chooses not to say becomes glaringly obvious. Whenever he changes the subject, that is important too. We know when he’s bullshitting us. Tan uses all this and more to ratchet up the tension about the way Daron and Ziggy slowly fit some of their jagged edges together, almost without Daron noticing. There is more he is not noticing, unfortunately….

 

Part of me wondered how he could feel that way about me, when there was no way I was worthy of such devotion: whether it was love or obsession didn’t matter. That level of devotion should be reserved for those… like him, who inspire that kind of thing 

 

When the wave crests at the end of book 5 the payoff for the reader is immense. Like forgetting to breathe type of intense. Like “stupid, overwhelming, someone-is-stitching-their-name-into-the-flesh-of-my-heart-with-a-rusted-needle painful, love”. The kind of intensity that you just can’t get in an 80K regular romance novel, because there is just no space for enough build up.

 

So at the end of book 5 things are both better and worse than they have ever been and you’ll probably be glad to know that volume 6 has already been posted online at http://daron.ceciliatan.com/, and will be out in eBook in the near future.

 

In the meantime, you can help make the paperback of this second Omnibus book happen by contributing to the Kickstarter here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ceciliatan/darons-guitar-chronicles-second-omnibus-paperback. It’s an excellent way to get your hands on the eBooks, one or both paperbacks and the adult-only bonus stories that aren’t in the books. Or a cool t-shirt.

 

As I lay in bed that night, though, still slightly buzzed, all I could think about was how his lips would have been cold from touching the edge of the beer bottle if I’d kissed him, and how his tongue would have been hot behind that.  Fine. I jotted it down to use in a song. “Infernal Medicine.” My obsessions had to be good for something. 

 

 

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Cecilia Tan

Amazon ( volume 4)

Amazon ( volume 5)

 

Make Sure to check back in tomorrow for the fantastic interview that LenaLena did with author Cecilia Tan and to enter the amazing giveaway on all of her 5 books!!