A Knitter in His Natural Habitat

Title: A Knitter in His Natural Habitat (Granby Knitting #3)
Author: Amy Lane and Philip Alces (Narrator)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press LLC
Release Date: December 4th 2014
Genre(s): M/M Contemporary Romance
Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
Reviewed by: Belen
Heat Level: 3 flames out of 5
Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5

Blurb:

Stanley’s life took a left turn at a knitting shop and hit a dead end. The closest thing he’s had to a relationship breaks things off to date a “nice boy,” and none of the pretty young things in Boulder’s limited gay scene do it for Stanley. He needs to reevaluate whether working as a floor designer for a series of craft stores is really where he wants to be.

Then Stanley does a peculiar thing: he starts to live the life he fell into. Stitch by stitch, he knits his life into something meaningful. Just when he does, Johnny, the store’s new delivery boy, walks in.

Johnny is like no one Stanley has ever met: he doesn’t believe in quickies in the bathroom and has a soft spot for theater and opera. There has to be a catch. When Johnny’s dark past comes back to haunt them, Stanley realizes how much he loves his cushy life in the yarn store—but he’ll give it all up to keep the man who makes his ordinary life extraordinary.

Philip Alces does a fantastic job with the narration. Between his character voices and overall performance it’s a real treat to listen to him with this series so far, and this installment is no different. I loved his Stanley!

Alces brilliantly conveys Stanley’s snarky, bitchy, vulnerability. I loved Stanley as a character, his humor is right up my alley. I cracked up so many times at the things he thought and what flew out of his mouth. When Stanley, who is tired at 35 of the club life, decides to give both knitting and being a “nice boy” a shot, the results, and snarkiness, is hysterical. When Johnny, who we met at the end of How to Raise an Honest Rabbit, makes a delivery to Stanley’s yarn store it’s instant love at first sight for both of them.

I’ll admit I had to suspend my disbelief more than once in this one, with the insta-love, the confession of Johnny’s past to Stanley and the others, the mob finding Johnny and Stanley, Stanley’s flight, and finally Jeremy’s stand.

Spoiler

I mean, I’m sorry, but why the hell would Stanley leave Boulder, practically a Metropolis compared to Granby, and flee to Granby, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere with possible issues of even making it there with the hairpin turns and snowed in passes, when someone is obviously following him? Why not call, or go directly to, the police? Hell, why not drive straight to the U.S. Marshal’s office? The car was only following, it wasn’t like Stanley was being forced off the road. I mean I was incredulous that he would go directly to Craw’s and then once there not try to run, or look for a weapon, something? Instead he relies on Jeremy to put himself in danger? I mean, come on? What?

Kevin-Hart-What

But I let all of that go, because ultimately the writing is fun, flows brilliantly and Amy Lane knows how to tear out my heart and piece it back together like a patchwork quilt, somehow making it stronger than when I started.

As far as characters in this series go, I loved Craw and Ben, then Aiden and Jeremy, and now Stanley and Johnny. They are so real to me, I just want to wrap them up in a thick quilt an insulate them from further harm. It makes me sad that I’ve lost the happy fluffiness of the first book, I mean, a little darkness crept in for How to Raise an Honest Rabbit, but A Knitter in His Natural Habitat took a full turn to the oh my god! dark side. It makes me wary and worried about what will befall my boys in the final installment. Though I know, in my heart, Amy Lane will not let me down and will, eventually, give me a happy ending.