Audiobook Review: Love’s Academic #1

The Ornithologists Field Guide to Love by India Holton

Read by Elizabeth Knowelden

Publication Date: July 23, 2024

Summary from Goodreads:

Rival ornithologists hunt through England for a rare magical bird in this historical-fantasy rom-com reminiscent of Indiana Jones but with manners, tea, and helicopter parasols.

Beth Pickering is on the verge of finally capturing the rare deathwhistler bird when Professor Devon Lockley swoops in, capturing both her bird and her imagination like a villain. Albeit a handsome and charming villain, but that’s beside the point. As someone highly educated in the ruthless discipline of ornithology, Beth knows trouble when she sees it, and she is determined to keep her distance from Devon.

For his part, Devon has never been more smitten than when he first set eyes on Professor Beth Pickering. She’s so pretty, so polite, so capable of bringing down a fiery, deadly bird using only her wits. In other words, an angel. Devon understands he must not get close to her, however, since they’re professional rivals.

When a competition to become Birder of the Year by capturing an endangered caladrius bird is announced, Beth and Devon are forced to team up to have any chance of winning. Now keeping their distance becomes a question of one bed or two. But they must take the risk, because fowl play is afoot, and they can’t trust anyone else—for all may be fair in love and war, but this is ornithology.

Confession:

“All may be fair in love and war, but this is ornithology. Cheating is practically one of our scientific principles. “

When I first heard about this book I had an inkling that I would enjoy it, so I am not sure what took me so long to read it. I just adored this story and I had a lot of fun listening to it. The characters were great, the writing was wonderful, and even though the plot was a little on the light side, I still really enjoyed it.

Elizabeth Knowelden did such a great job of bringing this story to life. I loved her voices for the different characters, and she did a great job bringing across the dry, yet witty and sarcastic humor that the author wrote throughout the story. I think she has narrated the other books by this author and I look forward to listening to those sometime in the future.

He lifted his gaze, and as their eyes met again, it felt like coming home. Which was ridiculous, Beth told herself. She’d only known the man a short while. He was the opposite of home. He was an unmapped horizon, or a bar chart without category names along the x-axis. She’d been right to leave him in Canterbury, and thank God here he was—er, so she could leave him again, that is! She would push him away this very instant and march off down the corridor!

Beth and Devon were delightful together and I just loved watching the two of them fall in love. They had such great and witty banter that had me giggling and smiling the whole time I was listening. I also quite enjoyed Beth’s inner dialogue about Devon. She kept trying to talk herself out of falling in love with him, but just couldn’t convince herself. Devon fell first and harder I think. But he was such a wonderful gentleman and you could tell that he would do anything for her.

Beth was the first person he’d met who truly spoke his language. Her presence made the world finally slide into place for him. She was beautiful, unconsciously sexy, and he was drawn to that, of course, but it was only a minor part of how he felt. His attraction to her was so intensely intellectual, it affected his very brain function.

I adored the way the author wrote this story. I really loved the play with language and with how she almost, but not quite broke that third wall. Her commentary on the social norms of this sort of Victorian world were also priceless. I do hesitate to call this a fantasy though, because that was a very small part of the story. In fact the only magic had to do with the birds as far as I could tell. But the romance was great, with lots of the ‘only one of’ tropes, one bed, one horse etc! I also very much loved the plot of the press agents urging their romance on. Those two agents were hilarious and I would love to see them again in the next book.

If you are looking for a fun and funny historical romance that is also a light fantasy than this is one you want to have on your TBR. I have the ARC for the next book which features Gabriel, Devon’s cousin, who we meet in this book, and I am really looking forward to getting to that one soon. Then I will be checking out the back list of this author.