[Book Review] Knit Tight By Annabeth Albert & Philz Coffee Tantalizing Turkish

Title: Knit Tight
Series/Universe: Portland Heat #4
Author: Annabeth Albert
Publisher: Lyrical Shine/Kensington Books
Publication date: April 12th 2016
Page Count: 112 pages
Age Rating: Adult (Explicit sexual scenes, language, biphobia)
How I got my hot little hands on it: Received a copy to review
Publisher’s page: Knit Tight

It’s no secret that Portland, Oregon, has some of best restaurants, shops, and cafés in the country. But it’s the hard-working men who serve it all up that keep us coming back for more…

One of Portland’s hottest young baristas, Brady is famous for his java-topping flair, turning a regular cup of joe into a work of art. Every Wednesday—aka “Knit Night”—hordes of women and their needles descend on the coffeehouse, and Brady’s feeling the heat. Into the fray walks a tall, dark, and distractingly handsome stranger from New York. His name is Evren, and he’s the sexy nephew of Brady’s sweetest customer, the owner of the yarn shop down the street. He’s also got a killer smile, confident air, and masculine charm that’s tying Brady’s stomach in knots. The smitten barista can’t wait to see him at the next week’s gathering. But when he tries to ask Evren out, his plans unravel faster than an unfinished edge. If Brady hopes to warm up more than Evren’s coffee, he’ll have to find a way to untangle their feelings, get out of the friend zone, and form a close-knit bond that’s bound to last a lifetime…

My Review

Knit Tight is an emotional romance following two very different men finding love and comfort with one another while going through difficult, seemingly hopeless situations in their personal lives.

Brady is a twenty-three-year-old bearded, long-haired Portland barista working himself ragged trying to support his four younger sibling and keep the family together after the death of their parents. Evren is an elegantly masculine twenty-eight-year-old knitwear designer and blogger of Turkish descent who’s recently left New York and returned home to help his ailing aunt in her battle with cancer.

Despite how outwardly different the two appear, Brady and Evren share an attraction from the moment Evren walks into the door for Knit Night at People’s Cup. Sadly the timing isn’t right as neither really have time for romantic entanglements, and then when Evren finds out Brady is bisexual, he tries to put a kibosh on the whole thing (some bad experiences have left him with an aversion to dating bi guys). It’s a bit of a mess all around, but eventually they both need somebody to lean on in the midst of their individually difficult situations and a friendship develops and then something more.

This book is too short to say it’s a slow burn, and it’s not really, but there are a few false starts for these two where I thought “ok, now they’re going to be together for real”, and then they weren’t. However, although it takes a while for them to get “together” together, the two share plenty of sexy phone calls and stolen moments along the way.

The fading health of Mira, Evren’s aunt, plays a pivotal role in the plot, leading to much shared heartache, not only among Evren and the knitting community, but Brady and his family as well since she’s one of the only people in their neighborhood who knows about his family situation and went out of her way to be kind to them, even knitting ornaments for the kids during the holidays.

All in all, Knit Tight was a semi-short read, that didn’t feel short at all, packed with emotional feels that had me rooting for the main character to find some much needed happiness in each other the whole way through. I loved the coffee shop setting (of course), loved the characters, and loved the writing. Knit Tight read as a standalone, but I enjoyed it so much I absolutely plan on picking up the rest of the books in the Portland Heat series.

Evren and Brady have more than a few bumps in the road on their way to HEA. It’s after the first of such bumps that the two reconnect over a cup of Turkish coffee and cake, both prepared by Ev. Now, Turkish coffee is a method of making coffee, not an actual blend or type of coffee itself, but if you want a coffee with similar characteristics to Turkish coffee, and that very much reminds me of the elegantly masculine Ev himself, I recommend Philz Coffee Tantalizing Turkish – a very rich, very dark roast coffee heady with the masculine aromas of cardamom and tobacco.