Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: You Had Me at Merlot
SERIES: Destination Daddies Season Two
AUTHOR: G. R. Lyons
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 317 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 13, 2022
BLURB:
Two best friends. One wounded boy. When chance brings them all together, will they open themselves up to love?
When Laurie Scott and Griff Mitchell both face being laid off, Laurie springs for a wine country vacation to cheer up his devastated best friend. But when they arrive at the week-long gay retreat, they’re both bowled over by a gorgeous boy with a wounded soul.
Nicky Parker had his heart broken by a manipulative ex. When he wins a ticket to a gay getaway, he uses it as an opportunity to get back out there and practice meeting guys again. But two of the men take him completely by surprise. He wants them both, but can he really trust his heart to anyone?
Laurie tries to help bring Griff and Nicky together, but struggles to resist the young man himself. Will Laurie and Griff’s friendship survive the mutual attraction? Or will they find out there may also be something more between them?
You Had Me at Merlot is part of the Destination Daddies Season Two multi-author series. It features a laid-back guy just discovering his inner daddy, the man who might be more than just his best friend, and the beautiful trans boy who brings them all together. Each book can be read as a standalone, but there are so many destinations and Daddies to discover, why not grab them all?
REVIEW:
I finally have the last of the Destination Daddies Season Two books! What a wild and exciting ride it has been. Going all over the world with different authors as they shared their different kinds of daddies and their boys. Each book has been as different as the authors themselves. Some have connected us with characters we have met before to catch us up as we went on their vacations together with them. This particular book has one of my favorite themes…ménage/polyamory.
Laurie and Griff have been best friends since their early teens. They went off to college together and even wound up at the same university as professors. They have been roommates off and on and always had each other’s backs. Now that the university they teach at has been bought out and both their positions have been cut Griff is in a state. Laurie had listened to this brother’s investment ideas and is sitting more than comfortably but Griff, who is a planner and a daddy at heart, can’t find a job and is a mess. Laurie decides that they need to go to the Cuffd Daddy and Boys event up in the wine country in Paso Robles at the Living in Zin B&B his friends own near his brother’s vineyard so he booked them both for the event even though Laurie isn’t a daddy. Nicky isn’t have a good time of it. He finally got away from his controlling ex but owes the man a mountain of debt for his transitioning surgeries. Now he is barely scraping by doing delivery services because there are no jobs in sight. His one bright spot in life is that he won the Cuffd event at his friend Dakota and his three men’s B&B Living in Zin. His life must be turning a bit because the two daddies, one of his biggest secret fantasies, seem to be as into him as he is them. But what happens when the week ends and the bubble pops?
I had a bit of mixed reactions to this story. I could easily see Griff and Nicky making a match. Griff is bisexual and a daddy so Nicky having not completed his transitioning and also deciding against doing a vaginectomy would have not been a problem for Griff but getting up close and personal with parts of Nicky’s body. But that would have been completely foreign and a shock to the totally gay Laurie. I did appreciated that both Griff and Laurie saw Nicky as the boy he is and not defined by the body he was born in. However, I felt that Laurie doing a complete 180 on who he was and what he was kinda felt a bit forced by Griff. And then pushing him to be a daddy, even though he demonstrated caring tendencies that some daddies possess it wasn’t who he identified as ever. It just seemed easier for the two but they needed to add Laurie as a third even though there was all that college mess weighing on them too.
The one thing this book truly lacked was communication. Yes, consent was always checked on. However this was all new and there seemed to be a miss of talking out what would happen in this budding relationship. Then the week ends and it all falls apart in the spectacular crash that was sure to happen when you don’t communicate your thoughts and needs with your partner(s). Especially with the overhanging drama between Griff and Laurie. At that point I hurt for Nicky because he was an innocent party that literally had no idea of what was happening behind his back. And he was the one that stood to lose so much because he was just beginning to open himself up again.
The part that I enjoyed the most was the friends relationship that developed between Nicky and Ryder. I know that Nicky was extremely jealous of Ryder and how much attention he got from his three men, Dakota, Beau and Maverick. But watching how that friendship grew was great.
So the bottom line is that I really liked the book but found myself questioning it along the way. Trans men do not have an easy time. It’s a given fact. Their surgeries are harder and much more costly. I loved that both Griff and Laurie immediately accepted Nicky as the boy he is. But I still had a hard time accepting Laurie’s immediate acceptance and changes from who he was. If that makes sense. So all in all, loved the story, and thankful for the outcome and my much needed HEA but wish more open communication had happened.
RATING: 
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