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.
Comment: I became interested in this book because of the cover, I confess. It really appealed to me. I was aware of the author too, even though I had not tried anything by her before this book, there was something about the blurbs that didn't really grab me, but this time I decided to jump in and was quite eager to read a good story.
Beth Pickering and Devon Lockley are ornithologists from Oxford and Cambridge respectively and both are looking for to become the winner of the prize Birder of the Year, which means capturing a rare bird. While dealing with obstacles, friends and foes and their continuous attraction despite the fact they are supposed to be enemies, they need to think if their goal is all that achievable and if the price to pay is worth it or too much. Will they be able to succeed at the same time a relationship between them feels more important than anything else?
As soon as I started reading, I became very confused. I thought this book would be an historical romance with an enemies to lovers trope, with protagonists in a field not often seen in romance novels. However, the story also had magical elements and it took me a while to get used to this. Historical elements with magical/fantasy ones isn't a bad deal, I've read other books in this mix of genres before, but something about this one wasn't really grabbing me.
This is fine, but then it's a style I find too busy and superficial and I don't think I'll purposely look for other books by the author. It is what it is. In regards to this particular story I also feel a little sad I didn't like it more because there were elements hidden among all the clutter that I was looking for to see developed better.
I liked the romance as a whole. Beth and Devon should be enemies, have had opposed views and actions in previous endeavors and field work, and they come from universities which are in constant odds when it comes to academic prestige and such. We also see them with other people in their field and the idea they are enemies is very strong at first but that doesn't last long and, obviously, they are more than attracted to one another. This new mission forces them to wok together, which had obvious results.
I wish we had more on them as individuals because the short conversations they have weren't enough to help me have a better idea about them. Some of the details they share also didn't warm them up to me much... we are told they respect and like one another but this didn't seem to be something we could see... thus, the "show" part of the narrative felt rather weak to me. I think the why of this is simple... the author was too busy coming up with silly scenes and ridiculous plot devices to propel them into action. From the start, the story became a little farcical to me, to be honest.
The ornithology content was interesting enough but with the magical aspects, things were confusing to follow. Added the rest related to the characters' actions and I was left a bit lost. I confess I've kind of skimmed a few pages where the characters seemingly were dealing with frustrating situations - I suppose they were meant to be funny - which only felt annoying considering how long it took for them to be over.