The Geographer's Map to Romance: Love's Academic - Book 2 focuses on two specialists in "Exigent Thaumaturgic Geographic Dynamics," or to put it more simply, when magical minerals and "fey lines" go crazy and cause disasters. The pair in question are Elodie Tarrant and her estranged husband, Gabriel Tarrant. The pair met when they both started their master's degrees at Oxford at the young age of 18, and both ended up being seen as brilliant practitioners of magical geography. Gabriel rose through the academic ranks in the "usual" manner through his bachelor's degree, while Elodie grew up as the daughter of two geographers and learned through the simple application of experience.
In everything but their academic prowess, Elodie and Gabriel couldn't be further apart. Where Elodie is adventurous, Gabriel is straight-laced and by-the-book. Those opposite natures lead to conflicts early on as classmates, and as a result, they have a very skewed perspective of how the other feels about them.
Soon after both have established themselves as professors at Oxford's geography department, Elodie overhears Gabriel trying to rent a room, but the landlady will only rent to married couples. Elodie's offhand comment about marrying the man, as purely a marriage of convenience of course, leads to a rather hasty exchanging of vows. For Gabriel, he could move to a quieter place, and for Elodie, no longer being a young unwed woman in the sciences means she should finally get some respect from her colleagues.
Unfortunately for the recently wedded Tarrants, the deal with the landlady fell through, and given that they did indeed have one passionate night together following their wedding, they can't actually get their marriage annulled. So, the pair part ways believing that the marriage was only that of convenience, and that the other doesn't actually have any feelings for them. This is of course wrong, and Elodie is actually infatuated with her husband and Gabriel feels the same way for his wife. It's just too bad the two spend the next year avoiding each other to keep the awkwardness as low as possible.
Of course, this is all an absurd set-up. It's a silly situation that doesn't really feel plausible, but given the overall tone of this book (and the series), it's very fitting. The desire to remain prim and proper trumps all activity, and it takes a literal magical disaster to force the two Tarrants to face each other and begin a real courtship.
When a magical disaster in the Welsh town of Dolylleaud hits, the "home office" sends a message to Oxford to have Professor Tarrant investigate. As you might expect, the fact that there are two Professor Tarrants with the exact same specialty means that both Elodie and Gabriel get called into the investigation. Now, suddenly, and without any preparation, the pair are going to be forced to spend several days together in close confines and, often, a room with a single bed. As the pair travel down the magical line that runs from London to the town of Dolylleaud, they will do everything in their power to make sure their feelings aren't known to their spouse, because the last thing they want is to make it clear they would love for their marriage of convenience to be a real one.
Along the way, Elodie and Gabriel will meet an eclectic group of characters, and given the strange magical energies flying around the small town, those oddities are only going to multiply. The question is, is the cause of this magical disturbance natural, or is someone causing it to happen? And regardless of why it's happening, can the Tarrants figure out a way to diffuse it before the wild magical energies travel all the way back from Dolylleaud, through Oxford and to London?
While the book focuses on Elodie and Garbriel, much like the last book, the narration also ends up being a character in The Geographer's Map to Romance. I continue to love the fact that the narration will edit itself with strikethroughs in order to change the way a character claims to think or feel in order to be more "proper" or to fight the ever growing feelings these characters have for each other. While I don't believe this particular style was done as much here as it was in the previous book, it was still a fun and amusing component that I enjoyed each time. Quirks like this just make Love's Academic stand out.
I will admit, if you asked me a few years ago about the romantasy subgenre, I would probably have given a bit of a condescending sneer. I'm a "you like what you like and I'll like what I like," kind of person, so I won't look down at someone for liking romance, but I've long held that it just isn't "my thing." These days though, I've read quite a few sci-fi and fantasy books that have leaned heavily on the romance side of the story and I am changing my tune. I'm thankful for that, because otherwise I would never have given a series like Love's Academic a second thought, and I really am enjoying this series.
