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Review of Cherish (Faith, Love & Devotion #4) by Tere Michaels

Rating: 4.5 stars

It has taken several years, 5 to be exact, for New York City Vice Detective Evan Cerelli, his four children, and former Homicide Detective Matt Haight to come together as a couple and as a family.  And for the most part they have made it without the emotional fireworks and mental turmoil that marked the first year of their relationship.

Now Even is going to be promoted to Captain of his precinct, the first out gay captain on the force, Matt is a successful security advisor when he is not a wonderful house husband to the two kids, twins Danny and Elizabeth, still at home.  Katie and Miranda are off at college, and their friends seem happy.  Life is good.

But Thanksgiving is coming and bringing with it the family explosions they thought they had left in the past. When Evan accidentally learns his oldest daughter, Miranda, is thinking of getting married to her boyfriend of less than 3 months, he flies off in a rage and is met with equal anger from Miranda who still has problems accepting her father’s relationship with Matt. A temporary truce between them sees Evan inviting Miranda’s new boyfriend and his parents to Evan and Matt’s house for Thanksgiving.  Also coming for Thanksgiving is Helena, Evan’s partner on the force and her boyfriend, Shane, and second oldest daughter, Katie, who “wouldn’t miss the fireworks for anything.”

And before the turkey is even on the table,  emotional explosions are going off and everyone is included.  Matt and Evan first have to survive Thanksgiving with their family and friends, and each minute more is making that unlikely.

This is the fourth book in the Faith, Love & Devotion series by Tere Michaels and it is a series close to my heart.  We first met  Matt and Evan in the first book Faith & Fidelity, at the angst ridden beginnings of their relationship.  Then Evan was mourning the loss of his beloved wife and first and only person he has ever slept with.  In addition to his grief, he was trying to do his job as a police officer and fill in the void for his four kids left behind when his wife died.  Evan is full of pain, grief and overburdened by stress and doubts about his ability to  be a good father and step up to the plate.  Matt is a complete mess when the reader and Evan first encounter him.  Forced to resign from the police force he loves over behavior issues, he has become a bitter, disillusioned drunk, getting by as a security cop and on anonymous sex with women. But a conversation in a bar and the exchange of personal confidences leads to an unlikely friendship that eventually turns into a shattering love affair that forces each man to rethink his sexuality and  their acceptance of the fact that they love each other.  It is a tough road for Evan and Matt, especially Evan, who has the reactions of his children, former inlaws and police force to think about.

One of the things I cherish about this series is that Tere Michaels lets us in on the emotional fallout and oscillating feelings, including bouts of denial, that come with identity earthquakes. By that I mean the paradigm shifts that occur within a person when the most basic self knowledge is proven wrong.  And being gay or bisexual is a major shift for them both.  The author lets their relationship play out, not over one book but four stories, including this one.  The Evan/Matt relationship here is the strongest it has ever been (and that’s saying something) but even here it has its shaky moments, most of which come from the stress brought on by Miranda. Let me tell you, there are many times that I am as frustrated with Miranda as everyone else in her family.  I don’t like her behavior and think that Evan needs to get a grip when dealing with her.  But does that sound like I think of them as characters?  No it does not.  And that’s the beauty of these stories and these amazing characters, they might make you gnash your teeth and pull some hair, but they are never anything less than believable.

Michaels also takes into account how much alike fathers and their daughters can be as Evan and Miranda’s behavior is often a reflection of each other.  Matt too has aged and grown into his role as caregiver/second father to at least 3 of the kids, and his growth is as realistic and wry as can be.  Tere Michaels has a wonderful grip on relationship dynamics, not only between romantic partners but familial relationships too.  Siblings squabbles,  family arguments, and the small joys of an established bond are all found here in this latest addition to the series.

I also loved that it takes place over Thanksgiving and includes the family of Miranda’s boyfriend, which adds that unknown element so often present at Thanksgiving when multiple family groups, including strangers, are brought together and forced to engage each other on the most intimate of  American celebrations, the Thanksgiving dinner.  Expectations are perhaps unreasonably high for what we think this holiday with its traditions of being grateful and giving thanks will bring.  And that stress alone has blown up more turkeys than any fryer on the market. I will tell you that all ends well, at least temporarily for this wonderful family I have become so fond of.  If you are familiar with this story, you will love Cherish as I did.  If this series is new to you,  don’t start here.  Go back to the beginning to where it all started.  It makes the place they are at now all the more precious and rewarding.

And Tere Michaels?  I need more of another favorite couple here, that would be Jim and Griffon from Love & Loyalty (Faith, Love & Devotion #2).  Pretty please?  That would be a great Christmas gift for us all.

Here are the books in the series in the order they were written and should be read to understand the history and couples involved:

Faith & Fidelity (Faith, Love, & Devotion, #1)

Love & Loyalty (Faith, Love, & Devotion, #2)

Duty & Devotion (Faith, Love, & Devotion, #3)

Cherish (Faith, Love, & Devotion, #4)

Cover art by Croco Designs.  The covers for this series are just average.  They really don’t relate to the stories within nor do they make any real attempt to have models that look like the characters. Grade C

Books available at Loose id, Amazon, and All Romance.

Review: A Slice of Love (Taste of Love #4) by Andrew Grey

Rating: 4.5 stars

Coming from a military family with a General for a father, Marcus Wilson was the only child who marched to a different drummer.  Not only is Marcus gay but instead of following his siblings into service, Marcus opened his own bakery, A Slice of Heaven.  Owning his own bakery is his dream but going it alone without support is getting harder to hold onto it all.  Marcus has two wonderful helpers but in order to survive, he needs to expand his business.  And he’s so exhausted from working 24/7 that he doesn’t know how to make that happen.  All he knows is that he needs help and soon to save everything he has worked for.

Gregory Southland is finally back on his  feet and working again.  After being  diagnosed with HIV, he become too ill to work and support himself.  After his parents rejected him for being gay and his HIV status, he was saved by his ex-boyfriend and his partner who nursed him back to health. But Gregory’s current paycheck is not enough and he needs a second part-time job to help him pay his bills and starting building up his savings again. Then his ex-boyfriend Sebastian has a suggestion.  The baker across the street from Sebastian and Robert’s restaurant needs help with his bookkeeping and it just might be the perfect solution for them both.

When Gregory starts to work for Marcus, something wonderful starts to happen.  The instant attraction each felt for the other starts to deepen into something stronger, something that starts to feel a lot like love. And the bakery blossoms along with their relationship. When they help out a engaged couple in distress, their wedding cake business booms.  Even the distance between Marcus and his family starts to dwindle when Marcus’ stepmother needs a cake (and their involvement) to help out a young boy being discriminated against.  But for every two steps forward, something or someone appears to impede their progress.  Gregory’s past returns to threaten his new happiness and Marcus’ support for his stepmother’s cause imperiles his bakery’s newfound success.  Marcus and Gregory must believe in each other to help Marcus’ dream and their future come true.

What a wonderful, heartwarming story, perfect reading when you want that book that will fill you with happiness and hope.  In A Slice of Love, Andrew Grey gives us that and more.  The author gives us families built around the people closest to us, people not necessarily related by blood.  Grey then manages to bring together into the mixture families long estranged from each other and reunites them with their loved ones.  And what we end up with is a community of people connected by family, respect and love.

This is the fourth book in the Taste of Love series and the focus this time is on Marcus Wilson and Gregory Southland.  The lives of both men have been changed by contact with  HIV/AIDS.  For Marcus, he lost his best friend and business partner to the disease and now carries their dream forward by himself.  For Gregory, the impact is greater still as he is HIV positive now, a result of a bad decision.  But instead of highlighting the negative aspects of life lived with AIDS, Andrew Grey shows us that life does not stop with a diagnoses.  Gregory, once he is healthy again, has a romantic life and good career.  And just as realistically, the author includes Gregory’s drug regimen, as well as the care he takes to protect himself and others from casual transmission by body fluids.  Putting a face to HIV status is a wonderful way to help inform as well as promote the idea that an HIV positive person is not someone to treat as an outcast but rather someone who should be embraced for who they are and not the illness they carry.  And he did that here not just through the character of Gregory but through that of a little boy as well.

There are multiple relationships to be resolved here  and Andrew Grey manages it with a gentle hand and considerable skill.  It doesn’t matter whether it is the father/son bond that needs to be reestablished, or a shallow connection between stepmother and stepson that becomes strong through communication and generous gestures.  All manner of family ties and friendship are explored here along with that of  romantic love.  It also doesn’t hurt that it all revolves around a bakery and some sinfully delectable pastries and cakes.  I wanted to reach out and grab a piece of that carrot cake or snag a cinnamon rolls as it came out of the oven, the descriptions were so mouth watering good.

A Slide of Love is a wonderfully endearing addition to a heartwarming series you will return to time and again.  Tis the season for family, joy and love.  Pick this up and lose yourself in all three.

A Taste of Love series in the order they were written and the characters introduced:

A Taste of Love (Darryl Hansen and Billy Weaver)

A Serving of Love (Sebastian Franklin and Robert Fortier)

A  Helping of Love (Peter Christopoulos and Russ Baker)

A Slide of Love (Marcus Wilson and Gregory Southland)

Thanksgiving is Over, a Leftover Turkey Recipe and the Week Ahead in Reviews

Thanksgiving is over, the leftovers have been divvied out to family and friends, and the thought of cooking at the moment leaves me a little numb. On top of everything, I ended up the next day in an emergency care after hours clinic for a fever, sore throat and massive ear aches. So yeah, there’s that too that seems to go with the holidays.

Still the memories of family and good times are warm even if the leftover turkey isn’t and it leaves me plenty of time to read, review and knit a scarf or two as presents for the nieces.  The cold weather here in Maryland is bitter, the bird feeders stocked to the brim, and the terriers are snug in their (meaning my) bed.  If you need some books to fill your eStockings, here are some I definitely recommend:

Monday 11/26:                                Mourning Heaven by Amy Lane

Tuesday 11/27:                                A Slice of Love (Taste of Love #4) by Andrew Grey

Wednesday 1128:                           Cherish (Faith, Love, & Devotion, #4) by Tere Michaels

Thursday 11/29:                              Spice ‘n’ Solice by KC Burn

Friday 11/30:                                   Black Magic by Megan Derr

Saturday 12/1                                   Holiday Stories

Dad’s Leftover Turkey Pot Pie (from allrecipes.com)

Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Cook Time: 50 Minutes
Ready In: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Servings: 12

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups frozen peas and carrots
2 cups frozen green beans
1 cup sliced celery
2/3 cup butter
2/3 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1 1/3 cups milk
4 cups cubed cooked turkey meat – light
and dark meat mixed
4 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. Place the peas and carrots, green beans, and celery into a saucepan; cover with water, bring to a boil, and simmer over medium-low heat until the celery is tender, about 8 minutes. Drain the vegetables in a colander set in the sink, and set aside.
3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, and cook the onion until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in 2/3 cup of flour, salt, black pepper, celery seed, onion powder, and Italian seasoning; slowly whisk in the chicken broth and milk until the mixture comes to a simmer and thickens. Remove from heat; stir the cooked vegetables and turkey meat into the filling until well combined.
4. Fit 2 pie crusts into the bottom of 2 9-inch pie dishes. Spoon half the filling into each pie crust, then top each pie with another crust. Pinch and roll the top and bottom crusts together at the edge of each pie to seal, and cut several small slits into the top of the pies with a sharp knife to release steam.
5. Bake in the preheated oven until the crusts are golden brown and the filling is bubbly, 30 to 35 minutes. If the crusts are browning too quickly, cover the pies with aluminum foil after about 15 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

When It Comes to Understanding People or Characters Is Music the Key? Thoughts on Novels and Playlists

When you are reading a story and the characters within are people you can relate to or commiserate with, do you ever stop to wonder why these fictional people seem so authentic?  How has the author made them so real to you that you cry over their pain and  or laugh in shared joy when they do? For me an author accomplishes this goal by giving their creations the same mental and emotional makeup (for the most part) that every person is born with. The fictional characters must come complete with a backstory as well as the same emotions, thoughts and behavior that we would be able to relate to as well as understand.  If they lose someone or fall in love with someone, it should be in a manner that we not only recognize and empathize with. Another way is with descriptions of  the items the character keeps around them.  It might be many things such as clothing, cars or even pets but I think music is a huge component. Music is a shortcut to helping a reader understand who this character is in much the same manner as it would when looking through a collection of CD’s of someone we just met.

There you are with someone new in your life and you are at their place for the first time. You are checking them out either as a potential friend or romantic partner.  Do you remember what the first, ok second thing, you looked at?  Either surreptitiously or blatantly?  For most people, it’s their music (and then maybe their movies).  Maybe you take a sneak peak and flip through their albums as they are pouring some wine,  or scope out their cassettes (don’t give me that look) when they are warming up the fondue? Who hasn’t quickly perused someone’s CDs on the sly?  Yep, done all those and more.  Perhaps you casually ask if you can put some music on while the appetizers/dinner/breakfast (you slut!) is being prepared and ask where they keep their music?  Another popular and subtle approach.

It didn’t matter what method you employed, the goal was the same.  Checking out the songs they liked and the bands they followed to see if you meshed with each others tastes. It was and remains an instant glimpse into what makes a person tick.  And god forbid you find that Tiny Tim album, Chumbawumba, or more recently Whip My Hair by Willow Smith.  Because, once found, never forgotten.  And that chance of romance? Dead and gone.  Because while you might forgive a friend’s lapse in judgement, the same can’t be said when first contemplating a romp in bed with someone who has questionable taste in music, for god’s sake. I mean what other secrets are they hiding? Clown shoes?

It was so much easier in the past to excuse that odd Tiny Bubbles cassette or Leonard Nimoy’s sings Bilbo Baggins album.  They could always say a past roommate or old boyfriend/girlfriend left it when they moved out or even the dreaded “it was given to me as a gift” workhorse.  There was always the possibility that it might be true and you could, maybe, give them the benefit of the doubt until later.  Didn’t matter whether it was albums, 8 tracks, cassettes or CD’s, those excuses were valid.  These days how do you explain away the fact they exist on your iPod or MP3 player? Hmmm, yeah, that’s what I thought. Can’t.

So I was thrilled/intrigued to find some of the books I was reading this year had playlists attached to them.  And the more I investigated and the more I listened to the songs and bands the authors included, the brighter the wattage of the light bulb that clicked on above my head.  What a wonderful (and underused) avenue to flesh out your characters, to give them a human dimension or layer that would otherwise be missing!

One of your characters is lost in memory as he listens to a Bach Violin Sonata 2 in A minor and it brings him to tears (Shira Anthony’s Blue Notes).  How much richer is that scene if the music is available to the reader to listen to as the scene unfolds?  Then the meaning behind the described emotions jumps into clarity, and truly you are literally in tune with the person on the page.  Or maybe, if you are like me, when I started reading  Andrea Speed’s Infected series, I was clueless as to who These Arms Are Snakes were and what they sounded like.  How could I possibly get a grip on an important part of Roan’s internal makeup if I don’t understand his music? And boy is his music a definitive facet of who he is.  The chance of Hootie and the Blowfish on his iPod? Zero. Because that is not Roan. Whether Roan was listening to Ritualz’ Baba Vanga or The Twilight Sad’s A Million Ignorants, if I know the songs, the bands and the lyrics, then I can access more of the character’s thoughts and headspace, in this case Roan’s. Both Andrea Speed and Shira Anthony produce playlists for their novels, but so does Katey Hawthorne (Riot Boy, By The River among others) and Josh Lanyon (Fair Game, etc) to name a few.

To be sappy about it, music is the rhythm of our lives. We access important memories by it, people and places are associated with songs as are significant milestones in our lives. Feeling sad? We have go to songs for that.  Want to dance about the kitchen as you bake brownies or making a roadtrip to the beach?  We have songs for that too.  They leap to mind with all the familiarity of old friends and lovers, and yes, we have music we associate with them as well.  I know just reading this has brought some of yours out before you realized it. So why not the same for the characters they write about in stories we love to read?  In Sarah Black’s latest story The Legend of the Apache Kid, Johnny asks Raine McGrath if  “You know anybody who sings like a bird with broken wings?”  And Raine replies “Gram Parsons….You can hear his heart weeping in his voice.” Then you listen to Gram Parsons’ singing Wild Horses and you understand, not just the reference but also the men in the story (and author) who appreciates it.

And that brings me to my final point about music, playlists and characters, the authors and their appreciation of the music they use to enrich their characters.  The authors I have referenced here all have a deep connectivity to the music in their stories that reaches beyond their characters.  While I don’t know most of these authors personally, I can tell you that Shira Anthony comes from a musical family and background as a opera singer from reading her blog and author notes.  Andrea Speed often tweets the bands she is listening to with links so we can hear the new indie group that has snared her attention. Music is all over Josh Lanyon’s website and Katey Hawthorne sent me a CD of the music that snarled like a sentient ribbon through Riot Boy.  And Sarah Black? Well, just read a paragraph or two and you can feel the love of old cowboys, the dry heat of the American Southwest and the refrains of old country songs to be heard from pickups as they head down the highway.  And without ever having met them, I can tell you how central to their lives is the music that sings to them and through their stories, to us as well.

All of us have a soundtrack of our lives, a list that is perpetually being added to.  From the earliest of childhood lullabies to a song we may have listened to and connected with as late as five minutes ago.  So why not have your characters have the same, feel the same way as we do about our music?  How much more relatable or realistic is Roan, or Johnny or Jules when we can hear the music that accompanies their actions and thoughts?  How much easier is it to empathize with them if we can understand their songs? To me it’s the difference between Technicolor and watercolor.  There is a rhythm, a song to everything we do and are.  The crucial beat of our hearts or the frivolous flip flopping of sandals hitting the sidewalk, that’s us. So let us hear the soundtracks of the characters we love and love to read about.  We are richer for sharing their music and they are more memorable for having it.

Do you have favorite novels and characters who have music associated with them?   Drop me a comment, or link.  I am compiling a list and am sure I am missing authors and titles.

To listen to some of my favorite playlists by authors, see below:

Shira Anthony’s website.  Look under books extras for the playlists for each novel (and Youtubes links)

Andrea Speed’s Playlists for all of her novels, not just Infected series.

Andrea Speed Infected:Lesser Evils

Katey Hawthorne’s Superpowered Love website. Link for By The River playlist.

Josh Lanyon’s Fair Game  playlist,  Dead Run playlist

Review: The City War by Sam Starbuck

Rating: 4.25 stars

Senator Marcus Brutus is finding it perilous times to be a Senator in Rome, especially one not lined up behind Caesar.  Caesar is making moves to get rid of the Republic and crown himself Emperor of Rome and that is something Marcus Brutus just  cannot abide.  Brutus has devoted his life as has his family to the Republic of Rome and to see it demolished under Caesar sickens him. When he retreats to his country estate with his brother-in-law and lover, Cassius, he knows that there are hard decisions to be made and soon if the Republic is to be saved.

Cassius has pulled his long time lover, Marcus, out of Rome for a purpose. There is a mutiny brewing in Rome and he is part of it.  Even his sister agrees that something must be done about Caesar and soon if the Republic is to survive.  Now to make Marcus Brutus understand how necessary is the course of action Cassius and others have planned, as well as the major role Brutus is to play. And he hopes their love is strong enough to survive what he intends to throw before it.

Tiresias claims to be an orphaned boy when he meets Brutus on the road to his country estate.  But looks can be deceiving especially when the boy looks as delectable as Tiresias.  Tiersias appears before Brutus on a gorgeous animal and states that all the horses that Brutus owns should look as good.  And of course, Marcus Brutus is hooked, hiring the young man and sending him on ahead to the estate.  In one move, Brutus has captured Tiresias’ heart and loyalty as Tiresias has captured his.

All three men will face the toughest decisions of their lives as Caesar’s ambitions start to cause even the sanest of Senators to think the unthinkable. Cassius will ask everything of the man he has loved since childhood.  Tiresias will follow Marcus Brutus back to Rome and perhaps his death.  And Marcus Brutus?  He faces the loss of everything he loves. The Republic of Rome, his lover Cassius, the young boy who idolizes him and even the man who protected him when others would have put him to death – Caesar himself.

If you love history, especially the era of ancient Rome, this is the book for you.  Sam Starbuck takes a well known historical fact, the assassination of Caesar and the well known “Et tu, Brutus?” and makes it all so relatable as well as the human actions that set it in motion.  This is the assassination as seen from Marcus Brutus’ anguished perspective and a needed reminder that there are always more than one way to look at history.  Sam Starbuck has done, as he relates in his blog, his research and it certainly shows.  He makes Rome and its countryside come alive again as well as the incidents some might know only from the dusty tomes of history.

Into the tale of deceit and conspiracy, Starbuck weaves the story of the romance between Cassius and Brutus, a long established affair that is even given support by their wives.  This is really not a far fetched idea as a well known quote about Caesar (from one of his many enemies) was that Caesar was a “husband to every wife and a wife to  every husband”, which meant that Caesar himself entertained men as well as women sexually.  Here homosexuality had not yet been demonized by Christianity and the taking of male lovers was almost a given, albeit with some strict behavioral guidelines.  And this includes the mentor/young man sexual relationship which is mentioned here with regard to two couples.  The first is Aristus, former tutor and publican, now old friend of Marcus Brutus the younger.  They have an established sexual relationship in which Aristus mentored  Brutus in the ways of homosexual love, which ended when Brutus was no longer his student (in every respect).  The second  relationship of a similar manner is that between Marcus Brutus and Tierisias. While certainly a deeper relationship emotionally, at least on Tiresias’ side, it is still in keeping with the older man benefactor/young student or recipient bond.  I never felt that their connection was deeper than that, at least on Brustus’ part.

And really that is the heart of my quibbles with this wonderful in every other respect story.  I loved The City War as an intimate look into the events leading up to the assassination of Caesar from the POV of the main conspirator.  But as a m/m romance, that is a much harder sell.  The long standing sexual affair between Cassius and Brutus has all the elements of two men who know each other intimately inside and out.  They have been through war campaigns together and lasted through their marriages, even to the sister of one of them. So I kept waiting to feel a equally intimate connection between them, one born of romantic love and not that of brothers in arms.  And I never felt it.  Or bought into it.  And I think that is perhaps far more realistic a take on their relationship than that of two men deeply in love with one another.

And that carries over to the relationship between Brutus and Tiresias. That is a relationship of unequals, as it has to be.  Roman society as well as Roman thought would not allow it to be anything else.  There is an equally surprising factor about Tiresias that I felt the author handled beautifully and with great respect.  This was so well done that I want to give Sam Starbuck a little extra kudos for the character and Tiresias’ back history.  Really, Tiresias is one of the most interesting characters you will meet between these pages.  Really, he is a lovely surprise that gives this already fascinating story a added dimension.

At 123 pages, The City War is a quick yet well researched look into one of history’s most infamous moments.  I thought Sam Starbuck did a wonderful job here and look forward to his next story.  This is part of the Warriors of Rome series from Riptide Publishing.  So if history, gladiators, Rome and everything in between is your thing, run out and pick this one up.  Continue on to the rest of the series and settle down for a great trip back in time to the golden age of Rome.

Review of Knitter in His Natural Habitat (Knitting #4) by Amy Lane

Rating: 4.75 stars

Stanley loves his job as floor designer and store manager of Ewe’ll Love This yarn store, he loves his condo and his cats. And at 35, by following his strict regimen of diet, exercise and new hair plugs, he’s looking pretty darn amazing. So why is he feeling sort of hollow?  Ever since Craw dumped him for Ben and true love, not even going to the clubs for a quickie is appealing any more.  In fact, just watching  Craw and Ben together highlights to Stanley just what he wants in his own life but he’s not sure how to get it or if its even possible at his age.  So instead of looking for love, Stanley finally decides its time to learn how to knit to fill the void in his life.  Then a funny things starts to happen,  As his knitting progresses, so does his life start to knit together.  He finds a family in the people around him, from Craw, Ben and Ariadne to the store owner and her daughter. And then the new delivery man walks into the store and into Stanley’s life. Johnny is unlike any man Stanley has gone out with.  Huge, older with an air of the city and East Coast about him.  He likes opera, the theatre and Stanley.

Johnny is just settling into his new life in Boulder and his new job.  But he has plenty of secrets and a dark past that only one person in Granby knows about.  Just when Johnny and Stanley realizes the depth of their feelings for each other, Johnny’s past arrives in town to threaten them both and everyone around them.

A Knitter in His Natural Habitat is the fourth book in the wonderfully endearing Knitting series and each book just keeps getting better and better. We started off the series with Craw and Ben in The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters (Knitting, # 1).  It was cute and as adorable as the critter on the cover. And as much as I loved Craw and Ben, it was the ancillary characters that really captured my attention. In How to Raise An Honest Rabbit, it was Aiden and Jeremy, who took possession of my heart, especially Jeremy, our broken little bunny of a man.  They are all back of course as well as some splendid new characters unforgettable in their own right.  Especially look out for Jeremy who figures large in this new story but more than that I can’t tell you unless I want to head into spoiler territory.

With this fourth installment, Amy Lane turns her attention to Stanley, someone we meet in the very first book.  Stanley was Craw’s bed buddy to use the mildest of terms.  To Craw, Stanley meant someone he could count on for casual sex without complications with someone he saw only when he was delivering his yarn to the shop.  Unfortunately, Stanley’s feelings were a little more engaged than Craw realized and Stanley was very hurt to find himself dumped not only for a younger man but someone Craw was deeply in love with.  One of the marvels of Amy Lane’s characters is that they are so very real in every aspect.  Stanley is meant to come across as a superficial, flirty little queen on first impression and he does. But just as quickly we see the loneliness and pain underneath the artifice he has constructed to fool others.  Again, the author flips the perspective and we see Stanley and Craw’s “relationship” from Stanley’s POV and what a difference that makes.   I love the details the author gives us that adds up to a complete portrait of a man who has reached the age of 35 without having one meaningful relationship and now realizes it.  From his tan, his egg-white omelets and this rainbow  painted condo, each personal detail is perfection.  Layer upon layer piles up until Stanley and her other characters breath, flirt and knit their way across the pages, larger than life.

This of course, includes Johnny who we met briefly in How To Raise An Honest Rabbit.  Johnny and Jeremy come from the same dark past and Johnny played a huge part in Jeremy’s survival.  And much like a East Coast fish out of water, he is so different from every other character in the story and that makes him perfect for Stanley.  I loved his courtly manner towards Stanley.  In Stanley’s world, Johnny’s small gestures and gentlemanly behavior is just what is needed to win him over.  I immediately got how and why they meshed so quickly.  As I have said before, Amy Lane understands relationship dynamics and uses that to create realistic romances for her characters, an aspect of her stories I also love.

But it’s not just the romantic angle of Amy Lane’s stories I look forward to, it’s the family of characters she creates and brings together that enriches her stories and embed themselves into our hearts and memories.  Here it is the group of people that gather around Ariadne in her hospital room as she awaits the birth of her first child.  The doctor has put her on extended bed rest due to complications with her pregnancy and you fear for her  and the unborn child’s safety even as person after person comes to knit, gossip, and tend to her emotional wellbeing.  I wanted to climb into their midst and settle in with my knitting as well. There’s Stanley working the stitches on his first scarf, and Alice who bonded instantly with Ariadne, and of course, Jeremy and Aiden whose sex life speculation enliven each knitting session.  It’s the author’s ability to make them all so real that when she causes them pain, we feel the impact as intensely as the characters.

I know that Amy Lane considers some of her stories light and others dark in nature but I just don’t see that.  Even her “lighter” efforts have  dark threads running through them, and such a thing is necessary if her characters are to be truly human. One of the aspects of the Knitting series is that each person has a “true color” that represents them.  Jeremy sees Aiden’s true color, not as Sunny Sky Blue as Craw sees him but the blue of a sky streaked with the dark shades of purple and black  This is the darkest, most angst filled of the series so far.  In fact, at one point, I felt that I could have smacked the author silly with a hank of heavy worsted because of  the pain she caused one beloved character.Deep breath. And that is also the reason that it didn’t get 5 stars.  I needed the ending to be more complete, the characters more settled after the traumatic events towards the end of the story.  This series isn’t over yet so I feel that is coming, which is great.  Because as much as I have come to love these people, I need it to see them happy.  I trust Amy Lane to deliver that too.

So don’t dawdle, run, jump and skip over to the next eBook store and pick this one and all the rest up.  You will love them as much as I do.

Cover:  Catt Ford’s covers for this series continue to delight and enduce  smiles.  How can you not love this cover?

Note: Along with great covers, I love the titles of each chapter.  Here is chapter two  “Sometimes a Perfectly Placid Knitter Will Startle”. Love this series for so many reasons.

Here are the books in the series in the order they were written and should be read:

The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters (Knitting #1) read my review here.

Super Sock Man (Knitting #2)

How To Raise An Honest Rabbit (Knitting #3) – review here.

Knitter in His Natural Habitat (Knitting #4)

Review of Velvet by Xavier Axelson

Rating: 4 stars

Virago is the son of the Royal Tailor and his best friend growing up is Duir, the heir apparent to the throne of King Killian.  When Virago’s father dies in an accident, King Killian appoints Virago to take his father’s place as the Royal Tailor, a  position which will exalt him into near royalty status, making friends with others close to the crown prince. This leaves his blind brother Sylvain to spend his time alone with his animals in their father’s house.  When King Killian is killed in battle, Duir goes about a personality change and becomes a cruel and capricious ruler.  But Virago continues to support Duir no matter the atrocities he commits until he meets a musician and his world turns upside down in the most dangerous  manner.

Seton wants nothing more than to play his lyre for the King’s coronation and he knows that the Royal Tailor has the ear of the future King. He manages a meeting with Virago in order to play for him so he can hear for himself how fine a musician he is. And while he accomplishes his goal, he also finds true love as soon as he lays eyes on Virago.  But  homosexuality is considered a high crime and brings the penalty of death with it.  And Virago does not want to accept the fact that he is falling in love with a man.  As Duir becomes more unstable, he asks Virago to make a coronation outfit unlike any ever seen and a mysterious package containing a material worth a kings ransom appears at Virago’s shop.  These events help catapult Virago’s normally reserved, careful manner into flights of obsessive behavior about the material called velvet that seems to whisper strange things in his head and the musician he can’t get out of his mind.

As the coronation draws near, a malignancy is in the air, bringing with it an edge of madness. His brother warns Virago of a coming plague and tells him that Duir is violent and mad, the kingdom corrupt. So Virago must decide where his loyalties and future lie, with his friend and future King or with his brother and the prospect of forbidden love with Seton the musician.

I always look forward to a new story from Xavier Axelson.  The author’s lyrical language, beautiful imagery and intriguing metaphors contained within Axelson’s tales have been hallmarks of this author’s writing.   All those elements are present in Velvet and are the strength of this unusual story. Axelson always seems to include a mystical component or two within his stories, and the material velvet with its sumptuous qualities  is a perfect vehicle to use to upset a tailor’s mien.  Virago is a complacent, overly amiable sort of a man, one easily self deluded.  He has been that way all his life, blinded to the truth of the man who will be king and the corruption that is the kingdom where he and his brother live.  Virago blithely disregards both his brother’s warnings and the manner in which his “friends” have abused his blind brother all his life.  So  it must take someting momentus to dislodge Virago from his complacency.  First, it comes in the form of Seton, a young lyre player seeking to play for the King to be.  Seton makes Virago think “depraved” thoughts of homosexual passion, and while he tries to suppress his feelings towards the musician, they keep coming back every time he is in Seton’s presence.  The second thing to ignite his passion is a strange, never before seen material that was delivered to his father but the package never opened until now.  The wondrous material calls to him, the sensuality of the cloth and the vibrancy of the colors overwhelm his senses, including common sense.   Both the velvet and Seton become obsessions in Virago’s mind and heart, a wonderful detail by Axelson to mingle the two together for a tailor deeply involved in his craft.

And I can always count in birds and bird imagery to figure large in any Axelson story.  Here is a sample:

“Would I never know peace? Or would memories chase me like the gulls chase one another, endlessly hungry and insistent?”

Or this one,

“Behind my eyes, I saw white peacocks, heard their shrieks, and felt the crawl of disease.”

All powerful images that linger after the book is done.  This is one of the reasons I look forward to each new story from this author.  There is a magic in his touch with his narrative and the flow of his language.

I also admire the way he builds a foreboding feeling of awful events to come.  There is a subplot that swirls around a whore/theatre player  named Therese.  The fact that I figured out early on what her intentions were in no way negates the power of anticipation that builds the closer it gets to the coronation, and yes, there are peacocks involved.  In fact there are so many fine qualities to this story that I wished the main character was worthy of them.  Unfortunately, Virago is not.

In fact I found Virago unworthy of just about everything that occurs.  It would have made more sense if his hubris, his self deception lead to his downfall instead of a voyage to freedom. No spoilers here as this is the opening paragraph and the story is being related from the deck of a ship.  I actually found him to be a despicable person.  Virago let others abuse his brother, ignoring his brother’s torment at the hands of his friends.  He hears and sees the cruel actions of Duir, the murders and the torture and dismisses them as the acts of a grief stricken son even as others tell him that this is Duir’s true nature.  Not until he himself is the victim of a member of the court, does “everything become clear”.  And even then it is not due to the victimization of others but of himself.  To my complete amazement, he continues with bouts of self delusion right to the end, weeping when action is needed, wanting to warn Duir who no longer deserves it and as it imperils his brother and lover.  One happenstance after another just demonstrates what a clod Virago is, instead of the hero he is needed to be. If there is a hero, it is Seton to rises to do what’s necessary when they are threatened or his brother Sylvain, who has lived as the object of scorn and bullying his entire life and yet still has made a life for himself and cares for the animals that he rescues.  I would have preferred this story to be about Sylvain instead of the less appealing brother, the narrator.

And of course, there is the instantaneous love Virago feels for Seton and that Seton returns.  In a story of obsession, where the feelings he has for both Seton and Velvet are comparable, it would have felt more realistic or authentic to leave it as an obsession instead of true love.  I never really understood that Virago was capable of such feelings.  Sexual obsession yes, love not really.

Ruth Marcus stated in her article “Hubris meets high tech“* that “classic tragedy, indeed classic literature, hinges on imperfect knowledge.” and that “ego tends to trump intelligence when sex is involved”.  That describes Virago beautifully as his ignorance and his ego blinded him for years right up until the very end. Had Velvet turned out to be the cautionary tale of Virago’s downfall rather than his successful flight from the disease ridden kingdom, it would have rated 5 stars.  But as a romance between two ill suited lovers? That is one illusion I cannot make myself believe.

*The Washington Post, Nov. 13, 2012

Cover:  Very simple yet elegant.