The Case of the Voracious Vintner by Tara Lain

Where Bo Marchand comes from, gay men are just confirmed bachelors who never found the right girl. But now Bo’s a successful winemaker on the central coast of California, supporting his whole damned Georgia family, and all he really wants is the beautiful, slightly mysterious Jeremy Aames.

Jeremy’s vineyard is under threat from Ernest Ottersen, the voracious winemaker who seems to know all Jeremy’s blending secrets and manages to grab all his customers. Bo tries to help Jeremy and even provides a phony alibi for Jeremy when Ottersen turns up dead in Jeremy’s tasting room. But it’s clear Jeremy isn’t who he claims, and Bo must decide if it’s worth tossing over his established life for a man who doesn’t seem to trust anyone. When Jeremy gets kidnapped, some of the conservative winemakers turn out to be kinky sex fiends, and the list of murderers keeps dwindling down to Jeremy. Bo has to choose between hopping on his white horse or climbing back in his peach-pie-lined closet.

Book 2
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Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Sarah – ☆☆☆☆
This is a fabulous adventure. A story about industrial espionage in the wine industry. I loved the glorious, gossipy wine society drama almost as much as I loved the irreverent humour and Bo Marchand’s silver-tongued charm. The plot quickly spirals towards the absurd as Bo and Jeremy get closer to finding their villain. The story is fun, sexy, and by the end, it is deliciously farcical.

Bo Marchand is a Southern gentleman turned California winemaker. He talks like an eighteenth century plantation owner and his mother is the pantomime dame version of Blanche DuBois. He might be the only closeted gay in California, but Bo is truly swoon worthy and his crusade to save Jeremy’s vineyard only makes his halo shine brighter. Jeremy lacks a little of Bo’s confidence and we know from the start that there are secrets lurking in his past. He’s a little less entertaining than Bo at first, but his resemblance to a young Brad Pitt caught my attention and the constant descriptions of his hair were more than a little bit distracting.

This book continuously reminded me of the Jilly Cooper novels I fell in love with as a teenager. There’s one particularly comical/kinky scene near the end that feels like it was pulled straight out of one of her books. Anyone who ever fell in love with Rupert Campbell Black will thoroughly enjoy the more ludicrous characters in this story and will forgive the rambling and somewhat disjointed plot and enjoy the entertainment. As much as I enjoyed this, I will admit to rolling my eyes a few times as the story grew increasingly farfetched at the end.

TARA LAIN writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her best-selling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Erotic Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, and Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. Readers often call her books “sweet,” even with all that hawt sex, because Tara believes in love and her books deliver on happily-ever-after. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm. Her love of creating book titles comes from years of manifesting ad headlines for everything from analytical instruments to semiconductors. She does workshops on both author promotion and writing craft. She lives with her soulmate husband and her soulmate dog (who’s a little jealous of all those cat pictures Tara posts on FB) in Laguna Niguel, California, near the seaside towns where she sets a lot of her books. Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says that on her tombstone, it will say “Yes!”

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of The Case of the Voracious Vintner (The Middlemark Mysteries #2) by Tara Lain to read and review.