C-
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Inspirational, Romance
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Hope. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Best First Book, Romance with Spiritual or Religious Elements category.
The summary:
A disgraced scholar running from her past and an entrepreneur chasing his future find themselves thrown together—and fall in love—on a Tolkien tour of New Zealand.
Allison Shire (yes, like where the Hobbits live) is a disgraced academic who is done with love. Her belief in “happily ever after” ended the day she discovered her husband was still married to a wife she knew nothing about. She finally finds a use for her English degree by guiding tours through the famous sites featured in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. By living life on the road and traveling New Zealand as a luxury tour guide, Allison manages to outrun the pain of her past she can’t face.
Jackson Gregory was on the cusp of making it big. Then suddenly his girlfriend left him—for his biggest business competitor—and took his most guarded commercial secrets with her. To make matters worse, the Iowa farm that has been in his family for generations is facing foreclosure. Determined to save his parents from financial ruin, he’ll do whatever it takes to convince his wealthy great-uncle to invest in his next scheme, which means accompanying him to the bottom of the world to spend three weeks pretending to be a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan, even though he knows nothing about the stories. The one thing that stands between him and his goal is a know-it-all tour guide who can’t stand him and pegged him as a fake the moment he walked off the plane.
When Allison leads the group through the famous sites of the Tolkien movies, she and Jackson start to see each other differently, and as they keep getting thrown together on the tour, they find themselves drawn to each other. Neither expected to fall in love again, but can they find a way beyond their regrets to take a chance on the one thing they’re not looking for?
Here is Hope's review:
“A disgraced scholar running from her past and an entrepreneur chasing his future find themselves thrown together—and fall in love—on a Tolkien tour of New Zealand.”
I jumped into this book with enthusiasm because I am a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan and when one of my coworkers went on a LOTR tour of New Zealand last year I thought it sounded amazing. My enthusiasm was dampened rather quickly, though, after the first chapter when I discovered that our hero and heroine are both actively hostile about the fact that they are on this trip.
When the story opens, both Dr. Allison Shire and Jackson Gregory are in a bad place in their lives. A really bad, sad, angry, flat-busted and broken-hearted place. I did not find this book to be the laugh riot that a lot of Goodreads commenters did. Seriously, these people are pretty bitter.
Allison has spent the last two years entrenched in a legal battle with the bigamist she impulsively married. Plus, her family is AWFUL. Her conversations with her mother and sister had me clenching my teeth.
Jackson’s relationship with the woman he was living with ended in betrayal and bankruptcy. Not only his personal and professional bankruptcy, but also that of people he cared about who trusted him when they invested in him.
I don’t recall anything that really explained how Allison’s personal problems led to her professional downfall. She was a literature professor with an encyclopedic knowledge of Tolkien’s works and now she is a tour guide for a company providing plush Tolkien tours in her native New Zealand to rich LOTR fans. Why? Not sure, but the experience has put her right off Tolkien.
Jackson has never had an interest in Tolkien, but he is desperate for money to start a new business so he can repay his debts and regain his posh lifestyle. His great-uncle – whom he barely knows – has plenty of money and a love for Tolkien so Jackson feigns a love for it, too, to tag along on his uncle’s trip to convince him to give Jackson the cash he needs.
Allison begins the book resentful, and Jackson begins it angry. They express their bad feelings in snarky and rude internal criticism of everything and everyone around them, and also in being mean to each other.
This book has the problem that a lot of enemies-to-lovers stories has; when the turnaround comes it happens too suddenly and for reasons that are not adequately explained. So she has beautiful eyes and he has nice hair, so what? So they have been together through several “wacky” adventures, so what? Did they really learn all that much about each other? Are they coming to respect and admire each other as people? I didn’t see it.
Where the book succeeded, though, is winning me over as a reader. Even though I didn’t see them show each other their goodness and their vulnerabilities, I started to see it in their inner lives. It kept me in the story rooting for them – especially Allison. I really wanted to see her win the battle with her ex and I was hoping for a moment where her selfish family stopped filing away at her self-worth.
The HEA when it comes is pretty satisfying. I will mention that at about 75% the story takes a wholly unexpected turn and Allison’s response to it was so unbelievable and rage-inducing that I almost threw my reading device against the wall. Thankfully, it was resolved without drawing it out too long and without too much damage done.
Since this book is listed as a book with religious or spiritual elements, I feel like I should mention something about that. The religion in this instance is Christianity, and for most of the book it pops up rarely. When it does come out full force, it is mostly in the form of “just believe and everything will work out right.” That seems rather facile to me but it does work for them – all their problems pretty much evaporate and even Allison’s sister magically becomes nicer.
I also want to say, as a LOTR fan, there are a lot of little bits sprinkled throughout to enjoy from that perspective. I especially liked the parts focused on New Zealand and how the movie affected the locals and is still affecting them.
In the end, this is a take it or leave it book for me — so a C grade, but it dips to a C- for frequent bouts of mean-spiritedness, particularly from Jackson. I think his snide remarks about the people and places around him are supposed to be funny, but they are not.
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Thanks!
Thanks for the review, Hope. I would have jumped on the LOTR bait as well.
For those who like the idea of fiction set around a Lord of the Rings New Zealand tour, may I suggest the somewhat idiosyncratic but fun New Zealand police procedural series “Brokenwood.” Series 3 Episode 1 (“The Black Widower”) is set around precisely that. (A tour operator is found dead of a spider bite in the site of the “giant spiders.”) It’s mystery, not romance, but not too gory, and quite fun.
Not sure why being the victim of a bigamist would make you “a disgraced academic.” Paul de Man married one of his grad students without bothering to get a divorce from his first wife, and he had a stellar career. Granted, there’s sexist double standard, but still, tangled private lives are pretty much the norm for academia.
I’m not the target audience for inspys, but it seems a shame the author squandered a chance to use the MANY morally and theologically complex and interesting issues in the Lord of the Rings itself to inform any religious moments in her own book. But it’s pretty hard to squeeze one of the serious theological scholars of the twentieth century into “just believe and everything will work out.” One of the terrifying and moving parts of the Lord of the Rings – and what makes it more serious than cheap sentimentality – is that things do NOT always work out right, at least not for those who most deserve it. But what the hey, why raise questions of existential despair when you could check out that pretty New Zealand scenery.
As a New Zealand-based romance reader, I’m another one who’s grateful for the review, and saddened by the Wellington-based author’s take on this promising theme.
I checked out the author’s web site and…TBH she seems to be an expat who’s homesick for another country. I can see that reflecting in the tone and characters you describe. Here’s hoping she gets happier here in NZ.
A contemporary hero that hasn’t read/watched LOTR? Dealbreaker, right there.
I already don’t believe in the hero. He wants to convince his great uncle to invest in him and is feigning a love of LOTR to do it and he can’t be arsed to read the books or at the very least spend a single day watching the movies? You probably don’t deserve a large financial investment if you’re not willing to do even the bare minimum to earn it.
Maybe the “disgraced academic” plagiarized the paper she wrote about being a bigamist’s victim and that’s why she’s disgraced? I mean, that’s the only way it makes sense.
Thanks for reading this book. I probably would have leaped on it for the same reasons. But now I won’t.
Here’s another book with a hero named Jackson. There was another book mentioned with the same first name just the other day. Or maybe yesterday. LOL
I think the first time I ever read “Jackson” as a hero’s first name was in Savor the Danger by Lori Foster a few years ago. Now I come across it frequently.
I too would like to know how getting unhitched from a bigamist cost her a professorial position. Wouldn’t think the one would have any impact on the other.
The other thing I would really like to know is this: How does a near Bankrupt Jackson afford plane fare to NZ and the cost of what is probably a very pricey tour? Or did the uncle pay for it? And Jackson really couldn’t be bothered to at the very least watch the movies, if not read the books?
@Gloriamarie – his uncle paid for it. In fact, somehow he – Jackson – is supposed to be working for his uncle as his personal assistant but her never really seems to do anything to assist him.
The only thing I can really remember being said about Allison’s “disgrace” is that she discovered her husband was already married when his previous wife stormed into her lecture and went off on her. So it’s possible her disgrace is self-imposed.
Also, I agree. I can’t think of anything in modern times that would be easier to learn about than LOTR. One day to watch the movies and one day of wandering around Wikipedia and you’d pass muster pretty easily.
@Hope, thank you for answering my questions.
Another comment just occurred to me. The cover seems to have nothing to do with the story. The woman’s attire seems that of a much younger person than someone who managed to get a Ph.D.
OTOH, what do I know? Those sorts of stockings (how do they stay up?) have not been popular where I live and the only time I ever saw a young woman wearing them was on Glee and she was in high school.