I am sure India Holton will forgive me for saying I preferred her first book in this series about magic and academics. Previously we got to pursue magical and deathly birds around a few countries, made the acquaintance of many interesting characters, and thwarted an attempt to rig a scholarly contest. THE GEOGRAPHER’S MAP TO ROMANCE covers some similar ground to The Ornithologist’s Field Guide To Love. But there’s one major lack; no birds. I understand that these characters study a different discipline. But that doesn’t explain why they never see any magic birds as they trundle around the Welsh and English countryside in 1890.

Professor Elodie Tarrant and Professor Gabriel Tarrant, both geographers at Oxford, share a surname because they are married. We’re told that they needed to wed to take better domestic premises, but actually, they each secretly adored the other. Apparently, they never got around to saying so, because when they found out a few days later that the house was already let, the marriage fell apart. A year later, they avoid each other in the corridors and are sniggered about by the teaching staff. 

A Welsh village is the site of a thaumaturgical explosion. Other fantasies might involve a Welsh dragon, but the geographers who are summoned to prevent disaster assure us it has to do with ley lines, and something similar to a volcano of energy. They head off on the train, to find enterprising locals selling tickets to tourists. Life is about to get dangerous.

I enjoyed the story when life did get dangerous. This occurs now and again, but Elodie and Gabriel take two chapters to argue over who should sleep in the single bed at the inn, kiss and spend two pages apologising, and so on. I got the picture – they realised in close proximity how attractive their legal spouse was, and were determined to do nothing about it, for no reason other than pride, which is arrogance and selfishness. I wanted them to get on with the plot, not keep telling us the same thoughts.

Elodie has of course overcome a lot of barriers to study at Oxford and be allowed to graduate, not to mention making it to a professorship – I am assuming she is only allowed to teach female students, who in reality had to bring chaperones if they attended a lecture by a man, but I might be wrong. I would have enjoyed learning more about the bluestockings, and maybe they will feature in another novel in the Love’s Academic series. THE GEOGRAPHER’S MAP TO ROMANCE is brimming with repressed energy, of one sort or another.