The Novel Approach

Turkey in the Snow by Amy Lane

What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out? – Alfred Hitchcock

Most of the time, Amy Lane’s books make me feel like my stomach and my heart are being pinched into a tiny little fluttering mass of anxiety that then makes my brain wonder if it should engage the failsafe stop-the-madness-drama-mama kill switch before it’s too late and I develop a permanent tic and a bad drinking habit. It’s pretty much what I live for, that feeling.

Well, Turkey in the Snow didn’t make me feel that way at all. It did make me feel fluttery, though, and a little punch-drunk happy, because it’s a Christmas story and that’s what Christmas stories are supposed to do; they’re supposed to be goodness and light, and they’re supposed to remind us of all the small gifts we see every day but that seem to just shine a wee bit brighter when we see them through the hopeful eyes of earthbound miracles.

Hank Calder’s life is a rich one, composed of all the acts that are part and parcel to the human play. But like so many of us who have a hard time seeing our small miracles for what they are when we’re buried deep in the drama of family and relationships, not to mention instant fatherhood, Hank just needed a little faith and trust, and to be on the receiving end of kindness and a smile that begins to feel a lot like the pole star that his entire sky moves around. And that star is called Justin, and he is not the twinkling star Hank wants to orbit, but Justin becomes the one who marks Hank’s way through the dramas the man so desperately tries to steer clear of, even though Justin himself is a little bit of drama all by his onesies.

Turkey in the Snow is fairy lights and a fire on the hearth and a cup of yuletide warmth, Amy Lane style. It came without ribbons; it came without tags; it came without packages, boxes, or bags, but my heart may very well have grown three sizes in the reading of it. It’s the story of a man who will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. And with his North Star pointing the way, he will dream each day to its fullest, all the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between.

Buy Turkey in the Snow from Dreamspinner Press.

A Knitter in His Natural Habitat: A Knitting Novella by Amy Lane

The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one minute to the next. – Mignon McLaughlin

I don’t know the first thing about knitting other than I’m a fan of my sweaters. I don’t know the first thing about writing other than I’m a fan of my books. What I do know is that knitting and writing seem to have a lot in common, because if an author doesn’t have the finesse and the patience and the dexterity to unravel a skein of words and stitch them together into something that doesn’t make your brain itchy, then that story is about as useful as a sweater with three arms and no neck hole.

Amy Lane knows how to knit like nobody’s business, darn it. She doesn’t make my brain itchy. She makes my heart twitchy and I looooove this series like a bunny loves to fu… loves carrots. I was going to say something naughty there, but I decided to keep this a family friendly review. Or not, because next comes more sex.

So what do you do with a guy who has settled for Mr. Whatever his entire life? How do you reform a guy who thinks special sex is the kind of quicky he had with Craw in the bathroom of the store he works in because it’s cleaner than the one-offs he had with strangers in private rooms at night clubs. Here’s what you do: you have a delivery guy walk into that store and you make that guy prove that he’s no Mr. Whatever. That guy proves he’s Mr. Everything, and you have Stanley Shulze wag his fluffy little tail, and you have Johnny Russo grab that fluffy little tail and love it till neither man can see straight. Then, if you’re Amy Lane, you throw in an ass-load of trouble called the mob—yeah, that mob!—just to keep things interesting and to keep you on that invisible thin line between “Awwww” and “God, I may vomit from the anxiety”. Dontcha just love it?! I do.

Then what do you throw in? Stanley’s people. Not his family, his flock, the people he loves and, lo and behold, who love him in return. And what do you do with them if you’re Amy Lane? You make them freaking awesome people you wish were your own family because they’re accepting and loving and they don’t throw you away just because your new boyfriend may or may not have an Etch-a-Sketchy past he’s trying to shake even though someone keeps turning those knobs and has drawn a dangerous line straight to him.

Then what? Well, then Jeremy, that sweet, gentle Jeremy, who is a bunny with the heart of a lion…well, he thinks he has a debt to pay to the cosmic deities; you know, the ones that keep the checks and balances in the ledger of guilty conscience and personal accountability, the ones that keep you from going spiritually bankrupt. Yeah, them. Jeremy feels he owes them a sacrifice for what Johnny did for him years before, so the least he can do to pay off that debt is to keep Stanley safe for Johnny, even if it means gutting Aiden in the process and forcing Aiden to go all whoop-ass in a totally righteous way. And lo, it was good.

But here’s the thing, and I love this quote because it fits:

It is not possible to make a guilty man innocent by suffering in his place. – Carl Lofmark

No, it’s not, so Stanley did what he had to do, and Jeremy did what he had to do, and now Johnny has to go and do the right thing, to reset the checks and balances in his own moral ledger so he can be the man Stanley needs him to be—the man who’s there and who loves him and who has taught him the difference between making love and having sex.

And then what? Well, if you’re Amy Lane, you get on with the business of putting those final few stitches into the word weft, tie it up and pronounce it happiness. And then we get to stand back and look at what she has made, with a critical eye, and see the hue and the shade, the strength and the fiber and the precision with which she has laid every stitch.

And if you’re me, you curl up in it and wrap it around you and call it good.

Buy A Knitter in His Natural Habitat here:

How to Raise an Honest Rabbit: A Knitting Novella by Amy Lane

“Running away will never make you free.” – Kenny Loggins

Maybe all it takes to make yourself free is just being honest about why it’s your instinct to run away.

Sometimes, when there’s nothing but wordsandwordsandwords that feel like all you’re doing is conning yourself and everyone else who might become important to you, saying everything and revealing nothing, the right words are the ones that are the hardest to find—the words that say all you want is for someone to touch you and then hold you tight to his chest and make you feel safe right where you are. The problem is convincing yourself you’re worth the effort, and convincing yourself you’re worthy of the gifts you’ve been given because every single one of them feels like a priceless and irreplaceable treasure, a piece of the giver that you’re not sure you deserve—or that you’re brave or capable enough to protect.

So, when you want to run, you make yourself be still because being still means becoming something to someone. When you want to con, you make yourself be honest because being honest means you can’t hide anymore. When you find that kindness is all you have to give, you are kind because you want the people who’ve become like family to be kind to you in return. And suddenly you find that all you want is to be what one very significant person in your life needs—for you to be the kind of guy who stays even when you feel like making tracks.

Jeremy no-last-name can’t be nameless if he’s going to become someone, but Jeremy Stillson’s the only guy he’s ever been, so that has to be good enough even if the last name carries the burden of the man he’s trying very hard not to be anymore. Beneath the polished and practiced veneer of the artful dodger, is plain-spoken Jeremy Stillson, a guy who, when the façade finally wears thin, just wants to become something to Aiden, but he’s also afraid of that want because the one very significant something that Aiden has to give isn’t something Jeremy can throw into a sack and rabbit off with when he gets scared of being himself. So Jeremy has to dig deep and find the courage. The courage to be…better, to have faith, to live simply and love openly and sincerely so the one he loves isn’t afraid to love him back, so that the one he loves doesn’t have to be afraid of waking up one day and finding that every shred of hope has disappeared and left a Jeremy-shaped hole in its place, as though it never existed at all.

How to Raise an Honest Rabbit is the story of a man whose second chance at life is born at the moment of his father’s death, and whose redemption is found in a place of simplicity and friendship and longing. He is a man whose bravery shows up when his past comes knocking on the door of his new life, just in time for him to realize that where he is, who he has become, and what Aiden has come to mean to him are all he could possibly ever dream of, because they all mean he is home, and home means freedom.

All this from a bunny tale, and the promise of a sequel too? What more could Amy Lane’s fans possibly ask for?

Available in all formats here: