Strong Wine, the third instalment of A.J. Demas’ wonderful alt-ancient-world-set Sword Dance trilogy, begins around a month after the end of Saffron Alley. At the end of that book, former soldier Damiskos Temnon decided he wasn’t going to return to Pheme at the end of his week in Boukos; instead, he’s officially resigned his post with the Quartermaster’s office and has moved in with his lover, Varazda, and his rag-taggle found family. When Strong Wine opens, Damiskos is feeling a Iittle rudderless; he’s been officially unemployed for two weeks now, and the ease with which his military career has come to an end kind of bothers him. It’s as if he’s lost an important part of his identity and isn’t sure how he feels about it.

Also bothering him is the fact that, while he and Varazda are now a committed couple and declarations have been made, Dami still doesn’t quite know where he stands. Is it appropriate for him to ask Varazda if he can stay a while longer? Or forever? Which is what he really wants. He knows he’ll have to go back to Pheme at some point, to tie up some loose ends – sort out his pension, his apartment and work out what to do with his faithful horse – and visit his parents; perhaps he’ll ask when he’s ready to do that.

As it turns out, Varazda is pondering the same question – should he ask Damiskos to stay forever, or is it too soon for that? His friends Yazata and Ariston are very much in favour – they don’t want Damiskos to leave – but the decision is pre-empted when Dami receives a letter from his parents – who are selfish, profligate and forever borrowing money from him that they never, ever repay – asking him to come to Pheme to see them. Reluctantly, Dami makes arrangements to leave.

Things just keep going downhill from there. Arrived in Pheme, Dami’s first stop is at the stable where he keeps his horse, Xanthe – where he discovers that the money he has sent for her upkeep has never been paid, and that she has been sold. On his way home, he’s accosted by Helenos Kontiades, former student of the philosopher Eurydemos and agitator for a war between Zash and Pheme (Sword Dance). He clearly holds Damiskos responsible for the fact that he’s fallen on hard times; Dami tries to ignore him, but when Helenos insults Varazda, Dami loses his temper and lashes out. Then, realising just how drunk the other man is, Dami helps him to his lodging and suggests he sleep it off.

The next day, Dami makes for his parents’ home in a rather run-down part of the city. He’s surprised to find their small accommodations also housing some old friends and their widowed daughter – who happens to be the woman – Ino – to whom Dami was once engaged to be married. The engagement was broken by her parents, who decided they wanted more than a mere solider for her, but now she’s a widow, they want her to marry Dami so she can inherit her late husband’s business and fortune. Dami tells them he’s not in a position to marry, but his protests fall on deal ears. As if that weren’t bad enough, when Dami is out with his younger brother later that night, the watch arrives with news that Helenos Kontiades is dead and that Dami is suspected of his murder.

Back on Boukos, Varazda is… not worried exactly, but a bit hurt that Damiskos hasn’t responded to any of his letters. He tries not to let it show, but doesn’t take much persuading when his friends suggest that maybe he should follow his lover to Pheme. Needless to say, arriving to find that Dami has been arrested on suspicion of murder does not precipitate the joyful reunion Varazda had hoped for.

Just as Saffron Alley had a very different feel and themes from Sword Dance, so does Strong Wine differ from its predecessor. Sword Dance – told from Damiskos’ PoV – introduced the characters and set up their relationship through a plotline of intrigue and mystery; Saffron Alley – told from Varazda’s perspective – was very much a ‘getting to know you better’ story that focused on Varazda’s home life and allowed him and Dami to start to build their relationship, and although there is a mystery element to the story, it’s fairly low-key. Strong Wine is dual PoV, and the main focus is the whodunit and preventing Dami’s being exexuted for murder, so the stakes are high – and Varazda gets to be a badass while he also gets to see and understand Dami’s dysfunctional family life. Dami spends probably over half the book locked up with and being driven nuts by his parents, but Varazda isn’t giving up anything without a fight and I loved how he’s so completely and unapologetically himself when he faces down Dami’s family. Well, to be fair, Dami’s mother doesn’t bat an eyelid, but his father and Ino’s parents are outright rude, as much because Varazda is a man as as because he’s Zashian – and the lawyer they’ve hired for Dami is as bigoted as they come, insisting that Dami’s foreign, strangely dressed “bizarre girlfriend” is a liability and will damage his chances of winning the case.

So Strong Wine is mostly about the external obstacles faced by the couple – the murder charge, the awful parents and the pressure being exerted on Dami to marry Ino (who, incidentally, is a great character – so often in m/m romances, female characters are demonised or underdeveloped so it’s refreshing when they’re neither) – so the romance is perhaps less prominent, but what we do get is Dami and Varazda working out what they want from each other and how to make a future together. Theirs is a wonderfully healthy and supportive relationship; they have their misunderstandings and moments of miscommunication, but they care enough about each other to be able to address them and come out stronger on the other side.

There is, however, one thing that really didn’t work for me and for which I’ve had to lower my overall grade a bit. When Dami is told by his parents that they want him to marry Ino, his first thought isn’t ‘hell, no!’ – it’s ‘oh, well, I suppose a life with Varazda was just a dream and it was never going to last anyway’. Er – what? He resigned his post and has given up the lease on his rented apartment, just so he can move to Boukos to live with Varazda, and just before he left to come to Pheme, was thinking about how to ask Varazda if he could stay forever. I couldn’t believe he would so casually throw away all his plans, and it felt completely out of character. Maybe the author was trying to show how bad the influence of his parents could be – they’ve been a drag on his finances and his mental state for years – and I can understand how a certain degree of falling-back-into-old-patterns might have been at play here. But it’s hard to swallow, given Dami is a highly respected and decorated (former) soldier of thirty-three with a life of his own, not an inexperienced kid. Once Varazda has arrived, Dami starts to show some backbone, but even then, I’m not completely sure he’d have been as prepared to assert himself if Varazda had stayed in Boukos. It’s really odd and I honestly don’t know what the author was trying to do there.

That’s my only real reservation, however. I know it’s a fairly big one, but it doesn’t go on for long and once Varazda is back on the scene, Dami snaps himself out of whatever funk he was in and their relationship is back on course and stronger than ever.

Funny, poignant, warm and tender, with wonderfully detailed world-building and superbly drawn characters, Strong Wine brings the Sword Dance trilogy to a triumphant close as Varazda and Damiskos get their hard won HEA and head off into their new life together. The whole trilogy is strongly recommended and definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for an historical romance with a difference.