Just Like Me, . . .

They long to be
Close to You! (The Carpenters)

I started this book with the intention of reading it in tandem with a memoir. Oops. I finished this book instead of reading on the memoir. Oh well, tomorrow is another day, but even that comes from a different book! I'm getting kind of silly here, so I'll just get down to the review.

Allison Shire works for a company giving Lord of the Rings tours in New Zealand. Her latest group includes Ethel and Mavis, twin octogenarians; Louis Duff and his assistant, Jackson; Elroy and his daughter, Esther, a tweenager with sticky fingers; Hans and Sophia, newlyweds on their honeymoon. The only downside to Allie's job is that she has to dress as a hobbit with size 13 feet. Allie has her hands full with this group, but Jackson keeps getting paired up with her throughout the journeys through the hobbit kingdom. His "boss," Louis, who is really his great uncle, feels he is quite the matchmaker, setting them up as often as he can to see if they could, in fact, make a couple. Among the adventures is an orienteering test, in which Jackson and Allie get lost for about six hours. Jackson tells Allie of his business failure due to his ex-girlfriend's duplicity. Allie has secrets of her own that she keeps trying to tell Jackson about, but circumstances conspire against her getting the words out of her mouth. The fact is Allie is "married" to a bigamist--Derek--who has buffaloed her whole family into thinking he is falsely accused and has garnered their support into convincing her to take him back. When her mother shows up during the tour and takes her to dinner, Jackson overhears her tearing into Allie with a verbal assault that would annihilate a lesser person. Jackson cannot stand the barrage and takes on Allie's mother in a way she'd never been taken on before. Later he comes by with some food for Allie and brings it to her room, and as Allie is about to tell him about Derek, her roommate, Kat, comes in.

Kara Isaac has written a cute, funny, hard-to-put-down book that keeps the reader invovled just to find out what happens next. While she does use the romance writer's formula*, this book is in no way formulaic. She has made faith the background of this book--showing what happens when we take things into our own hands instead of letting God direct our lives.

This is a five star book, two thumbs up, and a trip to the shire to see Frodo.

My thanks to Howard Books for allowing me to read and review this book.

*The formula:
Boy meets girl
Boy likes girl
Girl likes boy
Boy gets girl
Boy loses girl
Boy and girl get back together