Taming Dante

Dante's Infernal, Book 1

De: Joel Abernathy

Narrado por: Iggy Toma, Cooper North

Keeping up the rock star image ain’t easy, but someone’s gotta show these fakers how it’s done.

Hotel-room-trashing tantrums? Check. Daddy issues galore? Check. Glitz, glamour and general debauchery? I wrote the f**king book.

I’m a textbook bad boy rockstar cliche, and I’ve never claimed to be anything else. Hell, I own it. At least, I did, until he came along: Mr. Self-Righteous who acts more like a priest than a drummer. Now he’s my bodyguard and the guy in charge of making sure I don’t OD before the tour ends.

Oh, right. I also have a crazy stalker who’s been obsessed with me since I was a kid. So that’s fun.

It doesn’t take long to figure out Cash is more of a danger than any freak with a shrine of me in his closet, and he’s way harder to shake. He’s managed to convince our band manager (AKA, the crappiest father ever) that he’s the only one who can protect me from my stalker and my own vices. Cash thinks I’m stuck with him while he forces me to get clean, but what starts out as a daddy/boy role play meant to freak him out turns into so much more than a game. For the first time ever, I don’t know who’s going to win, but I’m not going down without a fight.

My new job is a nightmare.

The name of that nightmare? Dante Jung, lead singer of the world-famous band Dante’s Infernal, living train wreck, and all-around brat. His manager hired me to be the new drummer for Dante’s Infernal... and his undercover bodyguard, since the singer has run everyone else off. The only problem is, I’m pretty sure Dante is more of a threat to himself than even his obsessed stalker. He drinks hard, parties harder, and he’s never turned down a lovesick groupie.

And there are a lot of those.

Dante is a brash, selfish, narcissistic douchebag. And he’s also a brilliant, devoted and passionate musician who can be unexpectedly vulnerable at times.

When he asks me to be his “daddy” for the month we’re stuck together, I’m shocked, but not for the reasons he thinks. Taming Dante is going to be one hell of a challenge, but he will break before I ever back down, no matter how undisciplined he is now. He doesn’t know what he’s in for, but he’s about to learn.

©2020 Joel Abernathy (P)2021 Podium Audio

It’s ok .....

Not a true BDSM story I was looking for but I love the Iggy toma and Cooper north narration it helped me finish the book.

Oops. Make sure you're good to listen to the genre before downloading

Writing was good. Performance was great. Content not in my comfort range and I had to give up less than half way in. I'm not a fan of romance books so this one was was not enjoyable for me - being also about two men. Whoops.

Very good mm daddy roleplay erotica

The premise is mostly a setup for the roleplay kink relationship, which is good because a hard rock band being treated like pop idols by the mainstream is hard to imagine in the early 2020s. It's definitely not for everyone, but I thought the book made the roleplay really sexy and it always felt like both characters were safe. I was rooting for them and their relationship. The performance was the worst part tbh, I pretty much had to tune it out.

just ok

I love iggy and cooper isn't my favorite. the story was ok. glad it was free.

I like the fact that Dante found someone who not only respects him but supports him as well

It was inspiring . The journey of Dante from childhood to his adulthood hood and finding someone who sincerely cares for him it’s quite interesting

Loved the narration, but the story? Eh.

This was a re-read for me. I’ve already read the whole series as ebooks. I was surprised that the narrators for this book were Iggy Toma and Cooper North. I’ve listened to them separately with other audiobooks before so this was the first time listening to them narrate a book together. As with an narration where narrators read their own chapters for the characters, the voices for the characters change between chapters. But it’s not TOO noticeable. I really liked Iggy Toma voicing Dante and Cooper North as Cash.

I’m looking forward to listening to Breaking Drake especially on audio because Drake (Dante’s father) has a British accent. I really enjoyed listening to this book as an audiobook and can’t wait for the others to come out in audio too!!

***The rest of this review is from my first impressions of the story through e-book***

This started out really strong, but I got bored about halfway through? I do think you need to read this book before reading the second book. And I loved the second book, so just push through this is my recommendation if you feel like you’re not loving this one.

Trigger warnings for drug addiction, mentions of self-harm, mentions of alcoholism, withdrawal, a kidnapping scare, bomb threat, stalker, receiving threats, a shooting, and mentions of suicidal ideation.

It is baffling to me that this book has zero warnings in front of it to let readers know what they’re getting into. I am aware the author writes darker romances and I’ve read their previous works under this penname but it seems incredible irresponsible to not include them for this book either in the book, on GR, or even their own website. The start of this book is very rough going because of its content.

The main character, Dante, is the lead singer and songwriter for a rock band after his name called Dante’s Infernal. He’s addicted to oxy and with the way he’s carrying on, even HE believes he won’t live to see 30. His dad, Drake, is the band’s manager and has a conservatorship on Dante and comes across as crass, uncaring, and only in it for the money. The band needs a drummer and Dante, while a drugged up prodigy is not accepting of just anyone coming into the band, and keeps running everyone off. This leads to Drake in hiring a more seasoned drummer for the tour, someone who can act as Dante’s bodyguard for the stalker, and someone who can have a firm hand to keep Dante from OD’ing. This is how we meet Cash.

Cash is caring for his younger sister and just trying to make money to see his 17-year-old sister, Bonnie, off to college. When Drake offers Cash enough money he can’t refuse, he takes off with the band on tour while Bonnie conveniently goes on a vacation with a friend and her family in Europe. The whole sister angle is kind of weird. We hear how overprotective Cash is of his sister and then off she goes to Europe and we never really hear from her again until the epilogue. It’s weird.

I read this series all out of order because what really grabbed my eye was book 2 about the other band mates in Dante’s Infernal - Chaz and Rafael. They’re two of Dante’s best friends since high school and they started the band together. They weren’t particularly interesting in this book to me, but I adore them in the next book. I think it was just hard to get a good grasp on all the characters and the kind of people they are when we’re dealing with a lot of things in this book.

I think there was just too much happening when we have to contend with a storyline that deals with drug addiction, the recovery, falling into BDSM, just a whole rock band tour piece of it, daddy issues, AND a whole stalker situation. It just felt like the story didn’t have room to breathe and made the Dd/lb and age regression scenes all feel rushed and a bit forced to me.

At the end, what was the stalker’s game even? It seems so weird and that he’s been following Dante for YEARS and then at the end there, it was like, an abrupt and clean ending that meant nothing really. And the whole deal with Drake? Don’t care for him at all here. And like I said in my review for book 2, I didn’t even like Drake until the middle to end of that book when he starts coming across as more caring and more human?

I feel like I never really had a chance to know or like Dante here. And Cash seems to be an enigma still. He just falls head over heels for Dante and becomes his Daddy all of a sudden when Dante is going through withdrawals. And I don’t love that? The BDSM and how it comes across in this series is pretty sketchy. I can actually relate to Drake in this area because it would absolutely seem like Cash was taking advantage of Dante at a vulnerable state.

So, yeah. Didn’t love this book but you need to read it before reading the read of the series; otherwise, you feel like you’re missing out on a piece of the story. But, I really enjoyed book two and I’m excited for book three. I think this series just gets better as it goes, but definitely had an unfortunate over ambitious start that didn’t deliver.

Great listen

Band romance
body guard
stalker mystery.
really good start to a new series.
Iggy Toma and Cooper North are a great narrating team.
easy to listen to and some Daddy play thrown in for good measure. Bring on book two.
well worth the credit and your time to listen.

Not a bad listen

Interesting listen. Narration was accurate to characters. Did feel like characters fell in love a bit quickly with limited interaction. It was startling.

Good first story for this series.

I read this series first and enjoyed it a lot. I was looking forward to listening to them. It has been a great listening to but feel that the narrators should have been reversed. Iggy feels like he should have read Scott chapters. Cooper had the voice that would have fit better for Dante. I did enjoy it though. Looking forward to the book.

A little more action

I enjoyed the book I just wish it was more to the stalker. But overall it was very good