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    The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters
    The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters
    The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters

    By Amy Lane

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A Granby Knitting Novella

    Rance Crawford is an alpaca rancher, fiber mill owner, and self-proclaimed grumpy bastard. When sweet, charming tenderfoot Ben McCutcheon moves onto Crawford’s rural road, Rance is very aware that Ben makes it a grand total of two gay men in their tiny town, and even though he is instantly, painfully smitten, any move he makes could be simply chalked up to being hard up. Using his best weapon and favorite skill, Crawford launches an awkward, wordless effort to make sure Ben is kept warm during the cold Colorado winter, every last piece of him—especially his heart.

    A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2011 Advent Calendar package "I'll Be Home for Christmas."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamspinner Press
    Release dateDec 1, 2011
    ISBN9781613723074
    The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters
    Author

    Amy Lane

    Award winning author Amy Lane lives in a crumbling crapmansion with a couple of teenagers, a passel of furbabies, and a bemused spouse. She has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action-adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes contemporary romance, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and romantic suspense, teaches the occasional writing class, and likes to pretend her very simple life is as exciting as the lives of the people who live in her head. She’ll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write. Website: www.greenshill.com Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com Email: amylane@greenshill.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167 Twitter: @amymaclane

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    Reviews for The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters

    4/5

    60 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      so sweet and cute, and so very satisfying at the end. not a knitter, so it didn't all register with me, but the cozy was a scream.
    • 4/5
      Laugh out loud funny.
    • 5/5
      This was so sweet! It is a short novella about an Alpaca-farmer with serious knitting skills and an IT-nerd who happen to find themselves as neighbours on the verge of winter on the countryside.
      Rance, the knitter, is the silent and rough around the edges guy who has problems speaking out loud what he wants to say. He falls for Ben, the pretty, young guy moving into the farmhouse next to his. He shows that he cares in a unique, non-verbal way and it is a slow build-up to the very comfy HEA.
    • 4/5
      This was a very sweet and cute story. I loved all the knitting stuff, and the wooing with knitted garments. It was adorable. There wasn't much of a plot, just the romance, but that was okay. I didn't find it dragging at all.

      The one thing that did irritate me is that there is a significant age difference and there is absolutly no reason for it. The older guy is in his late thirties which is perfect. The other guy is in his mid-twenties, which is completely unnecessary. The story would have worked fine if he'd been even 30. The age difference isn't even acknowledged in the book. At least the younger guy wasn't still in his teens.

      I just hate the romanticizing of relationships with significant age differences in this genre. Yes, those relationships can work and be healthy, but I've seen so many that aren't healthy at all, where the people aren't equal, the older person is clearly in control, the younger person doesn't have time to enjoy being young or the older person acts younger than their age. I think for a relationship to be successful, you need to be in the same place in life. Yes, that can happen when you're fifteen years apart but I think it's rare.

      Okay, off my soapbox/milk crate. If you know nothing about yarn and how it's made or knitting, you'll learn a lot and as far as I know from my moderate experience it was accurate. I hadn't heard of sweeps before but it's a very cool concept.

      My other problem with the book is that everything made, all the yarn and knitwear, is some combination of seafoam or turquoise and rust. Ick. The hat is described as having a little bit of rust at the crown and the "roll-up brim" as also being rush, the rest seafoam. Not only does that sounds godawful ugly, but it sounds really girly.

      He was a very fast knitter. He whipped up the hat in seed stitch in one evening. I can make a hat in a couple of hours in stockinette, but as the guy says, decreasing in seed stitch is a bitch, plus the stitch itself is very time-consuming as you have to keep flipping the yarn back and forth between stitches. He must be incredibly fast to knit something like that so quickly. It's believable, I do know people who could do it, I'm just impressed.

      The ending was rushed. They move in together a few days after they first kiss. I thought only lesbians did that. ;)

      3.5 stars rounded up to four because of all the really cool knitting knowledge.
    • 5/5
      Truthfully...I picked up this book because 1. I loved the cover (bad reason to choose a book I know...but... and 2. I needed the story setting for...yes...another challenge. (sigh) Actually I became engrossed in the story and Rance's efforts...that most of the time went completely over Ben's head. I know little and care nothing at all about yarn or knitting even though I come from along line of knitters. Now the animals were a different story...give me animals that are cared for and loved in any story...any day. I loved the characters. The grumpy Rance Crawford who hoped to win Ben's heart by knitting him countless warm gifts. Ben who was just a "fish out of water."..but lovable and sometimes clueless. I also liked how Rance said what he meant and made no apologies for who he was. It was a nice to see that they became friends before they became lovers.
    • 4/5
      I just loved this story; it has humor, a great love story and some intricate patterns and layers that make it very similar to the topic, which is knitting. But not just knitting as in using the wool; since Rance raises alpacas and is a mill owner, the whole process of wool and yarn-making is included as well. This, for me, added to the fascination of the whole setup and I loved learning about the bigger picture.

      Rance is so wonderfully grumpy, I loved him from the very beginning. He is not very socially adept, but he manages to get hos point across to Ben. Rance is also very considerate of Ben's feelings, which he'd never admit, of course.

      Ben is wonderful, sweet and totally open to Rance's advances. I loved that he looked under the grumpy surface and saw the real man, not just the grumpy persona. Ben doesn't share any of Rance's concerns about the two of them becoming a couple, but he understands when Rance finally explains.

      The other thing I really enjoyed was the secondary characters, who need to get their own story at some point, as far as I am concerned. If you like humor in your stories, if like learning more about wool, knitting and living in the kind of cold climate that makes warm clothing necessary, you will probably love this story as much as I did.




      NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Queer Magazine Online

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    The Winter Courtship Rituals of Fur-Bearing Critters - Amy Lane

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