400 years in the future, men are few and women rule the world.Except for the area formerly known as Canada and Alaska, which is inhabited by the Men of the Northlands, a group of strong men, who refuse to be ruled by women.Christina Sanders, an archeologist and professor in history, is fascinated with the past. As a modern woman of year 2437 she knows that women are better off without men, but … are better off without men, but longing for an adventure, she makes a spontaneous decision and volunteers for a job no one else wants. Now she’s going to lead an archeological excavation in the Northlands, the most secluded place on earth where the mythical males live who are rumored to be as brutal and dangerous as the men Christina has read about in her history books.
What will happen when Christina crosses into the men’s territory? Will they allow her to do her job and is there any way they’ll let her leave again – unharmed?
The Protector is the first book in Elin Peer’s new romantic drama series Men of the North.
Don’t pick up this book unless you’re prepared to be sucked in and forget about time and place. In her last two series, Elin has proven that she is a master of bringing her characters to life with strong dialogue and plot twists that will have you turning pages all night.
Get The Protector and get transported to the future in this exciting new series today!
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This talented writer had me hooked from the beginning of the story. This book is set in the future but don’t be misled by that. Elin did a wonderful job building the world and introducing her characters. Christina, an archeologist is fascinated by history. She lives in the part of the world run by women and everything is calm and serene. Christina volunteers to go to the land ruled by the Men of the North where it is definitely not calm or serene. And the story continues…. Enjoy.
Look out here we go again!! This author has once again taken us where no sane woman would willingly go. To the wild side with the Nmen (Men of the North) is where Christina finds herself and it is nothing like she was told or ever dreamed of. This author skillfully takes us on a journey and teaches us the ways of the future world and what it has become. We see the savage beauty and fierce devotion, pride and kinship. There is so much beneath the surface and Christina and Boulder just may be the two to bring down the bias and deception that keep these two worlds apart. Nothing is what it seems in Christine’s pristine and perfect world and now. . . well now it gets interesting.
Welcome to the new world being introduced to us by this author. It is like nothing we have ever explored or dreamed of but that doesn’t make it fantasy. Step onboard you won’t be bored or disappointed as she brings you to her place and makes you forget.
2.5 stars
I’ve had this one on my TBR list for a little while and my buddy and I finally decided to take the plunge. I’m torn over writing this review because I was immediately sucked in to this story by the blurb, the premise has so much potential to be an epic read, but for me it fell a little short.
400 years in to the future after another devastating world war and the complexion of society is vastly different. Women are in charge…see, potential. Instead, I felt like I was in the middle of a feminist’s political soap box, where the woman in society are just brainwashed. I’d like to believe that we could evolve into a more loving and equal society, but not at the expense of free thinking and free will. And if the intent is really more love and equality, then why label all men in the Northlands as barbarians and rapists. Why instill fear? Why teach prejudice?
I had an extremely difficult time connecting to the heroine as well, she’s an archaeologist and therefore you would assume she’s a seeker of truth and has a tendency toward adventure, but instead she’s painted as rigid and indoctrinated. Emotionally as well…I just couldn’t reconcile the two contradicting aspects of her personality.
With all said and done, I thought the book was ok, as I said I thought the premise had potential, but the story ended up being more light romance than epic dystopian, so if dystopian is your goal this is probably not the read for you. Romance lovers will enjoy it. I was looking for both.
I very much enjoyed some of the side characters and with 6 books so far in the series, my guess is the author intends to tell us their story. Will I pick up the next in the series? Probably, but these will end up my bridge reads, when I’m looking for something a little lighter.
This has to be The BEST futuristic book I’ve ever read. Elin Peer has the inate ability to weave a tale that will have you
automatically following along spellbound!
In the year 2437 Unlike most teachers or professors, Professor Christina Sanders held old school classes in the auditorium
rather than having virtual reality classes. She was a historian and archeologist who taught Modern History, which included
the Toxic War (also known as World War III). Large areas had become uninhabitable because of radiation and pollution from
chemical weapons. Population was reduced from eight billion to one point five billion with women outnumbering men 26 to 1.
It was thought male pride was the trigger for the near distruction of the planet so strict laws are in place making sure
greedy and power-hungry men can never rule again. There are now five things that have changed since the war: 1. No killing
(including animals for food) 2. No greed 3. No borders 4. No pollution 5. Equality for all.
All these changes were in place for everyone except the Nmen in the Northlands. These men were not to be spoken of in
public. They are considered adversaries from the descendants of original men who opposed the protective laws of banning men
from positions of power. Many of them thinking women were inferior opposed a women only rule on the council and disagreed
with the monetary system being replaced with the fairness system. Plus, the Nmen still hunted for their own food. This
group eventually moved North to what was previously known as Canada and Alaska and after 13 years of discord and trouble
it was decided the Nmen could live as they please, with one exception. A wall was built to seperate the Northland and The
Motherlands. Because there were so few women, the Nmen would kidnap women from The Motherlands until the first peace treaty
put a stop to it. Women are not allowed to travel to the Northlands and only men are allowed to trade unless an older
woman gets a special permit to do so. Their current ruler is Khan Aurelius, who came into power 3 years ago when his father
died. Between father and son, these two men have held power, prospered and kept peace for 30 years.
Readable books have been found in the Northlands. They’ve requested an archeologist come to investigate the area for more
of the library underground. Unfortunately, no man in the Motherlands wants to volunteer and no one can be forced to go.
When Christina hears this, it’s just the adventure she’s been waiting for and volunteers to go. The council does not want
to send a young woman into the Northlands, but this is a great opportunity.
Alexander Boulder has grown up with this best friend Khan Aurelius and both were competitive. So when Khan Aurelius
challeges Alexander to a fight and Alexander not only wins but gives Khan a black eye, Khan informs him that since he is
such a strong fighter it will be his privledge to guard and protect the archeologist that will be arriving. Unfortunately,
the transmission was garbled and they were expecting a man.
In total Elin Peer style, she has taken characters with flawed and real personalities and interwoven a storyline that will
keep you riveted through the conclusion.
Ah, the battle of the sexes…
Elin Peer has created a dystopian world where the divide between social mores and sexual roles is pretty much literal.
Christina is born into a world where everything is controlled. There is a decided lack of free speech. Social interaction is…. Ew. I kept thinking milktoast! Everyone is perfectly groomed, speaks in perfectly controlled ways with perfect manners and perfect hair. There’s no dirt or muscle to be found on a man… anywhere. And she likes it that way?? She’s an archaeologist?? Where’s her brain?
Boulder is a product of men behaving badly in the North. He has no filter on his language. He loves his toys and would never dream on letting a machine do all his work for him. And women are to be cherished and protected. Men rule. Of course they do. No problem, right?
Of course he’s assigned to protect her while she is on an archaelogical expedition in the North. Of course they can’t stand each other. But wait! Maybe I could be wrong here… Oh, my! Boulder’s hot and Christina’s melting… melting…
Here comes trouble.
They won’t change the world. Can they find a place for each other?
I thought there were moments in this book that were brilliant. But I was also very often frustrated with both of the main characters, and the plot line. The world building was good–considering the complexities of the story, and that this is the first book in a series.
Bottom line: It held my attention well enough to lead me into the next book to see what happens next. 4 stars.
Let’s just say that I loved this book so much I couldn’t wait for some guests to leave our house so that I could get back to the story. It really was a book I just didn’t want to put down.
Christina is an adventurous soul and rashly decides to head out to the Northlands where men are men and women are rare and prized possessions. There she is placed under the protection of Boulder, a sexy beast of a man who challenges all her thoughts about sex, relationships and what makes a man. They both have very stereotypical views of the others culture and society, and both have to adapt their ways in order to keep Christina safe.
The story has some thought provoking parts, some humorous scenes (particularly between Khan and Pearl) and plenty of steamy, hot chemistry. The book is extremely well written with a story that is engaging and draws you in so that you live and feel along with the characters. The plot moves along at a good pace, the characters are both interesting and likeable and the style of writing is smooth, flowing and very easy to read.
I can’t wait to see where Ms Peer takes these books and will now be waiting with baited breath for book 2.
Elin Peer has done it again. She has created a world with characters that somehow manage to weave their way into your heart and mind. Some I just love and some I love to hate. And I find that I’m always a little bit sad when finishing a book that she has written because I feel like I’m leaving behind friends. Any author who has the ability to do that even once I consider to be talented. I can honestly say I have felt that way after every book I have read of hers and I’ve read them all!
This new series starts us off with Boulder and Christina. I’m just smiling as I recall their adventure in my mind. They are so very different, but complement each other perfectly. I started reading it and couldn’t put it down. I totally ignored everything I should have been doing and did what I wanted to be doing, which was find out what was happening in Boulder and Christina’s world. I really can’t wait for Kahn and Pearl’s story and just know it will be my favorite with those two minds going at each other (much like Green in the Clashing Colors series).
This is a great introduction to the new series and I have to say that I loved it! It has its own HEA as all of her books do. There is also no cliffhanger although you are introduced to other characters that will follow with their own story so it’s best to read them in order. Also, her stories are all complete stories…you never feel cheated with just all of a sudden everything wrapping up and you end up just scratching your head thinking, “what just happened?” You definitely get your money’s worth! If you have read any of her books you know what I’m talking about. If not, do because you won’t regret it.
Opposites In Every Way
I enjoy stories where opposites attract. Christina and Boulder were from completely different, yet dependent worlds. One world was brash and frequently brutal. The other was pacifistic. The characters themselves weren’t very interesting, but reading about their different views in a futuristic setting was.
I needed something sweet and swoony after my last read and found a book on my kindle that sounded interesting and unique.
Yes, I don’t really know what’s on my kindle anymore
Is this cover nicht beautiful and incredible sexy?
This book describes a very unique version of post-apocalyptic world.
I was curious and intrigued
I mean, what does a normal curious woman when she reads the following description:
“400 years in the future, men are few and women rule the world.”
This book starts slowly and with a lot of descriptions, but the longer you read the more it all makes sense. You need the details to understand the dynamic of the new strange world.
This book is exactly what I needed. It’s funny, entertaining and after a lot of dramatic events sweet, swoony, of course steamy and romantic.
This is the first book in the series and I’ll definitely read more
The Protector (Men of the North Book 1) Kindle Edition
by Elin Peer
I really tried to finish this book. I really wanted to like this book. The premise was fascinating and I have a thing for Dystopian Romances. I also love when those books make a point.
Unfortunately, this book failed me on all three points.
It started with a fun statement about why Christina became an archaeologist. The author does spend some time in setting up how humans have gotten to the point of dystopia, and included how both societies work. The book started to fall apart when the characters fall into stereotypes- the mysterious elder, the angry men and the structured women’s society. And it continued with why the two sides trade. This bit feels like a completer rip off of Sherrie S. Tepper’s The Gate to Woman’s county. It is exactly the same reason. But where Tepper was able to give both sides equal time, but still show how the old ways were bad and the new way are so much better.
Where the book isn’t a near copy of Tepper’s work, the Author did not do what Tepper and other writers of dystopia stories – particularly Post-apocalyptic stories. She failed to pick a side or at least provide something other than angry or cold sex.
There also seems to be a bit of borrowing from other well known Sci-Fi romances and in Post-apocalyptic fiction – sexbots, metro-sexual men (who seemed to be mocked) and Nmen seem to just bulldoze through everything until chided by someone
The story is simple. Chistina, an archaeologist, volunteers to go into the Nmen’s land which is essentially Canada to suprevise a dig at an old library from a BC college. The Nmen were expecting a man and instead got a woman. Games are held to get her a husband, which apparently ts the only way women can safe be in the North .
The main character, Christina, seems to be a bit of a bubble head. She was willing to drop her life in order to be with a man. But we are never shown why this love was so big that an educated woman raised in a Matriarchal society would leave everything behind. Either the scenes between Boulder (the hero) and Christina end up being fights, sex or one or the other trying to find their other half.
The secondary characters? Well, we get a two female Obiwan-like women – one an calm priestess, the other an Elder with several ulterior motives. Two Nmen – one a wise king and his hot-headed brother. There are other characters but they fade away because they are not interesting or we are told more about them and not shown.
I tried so hard to finish but when I got 92% of the way through, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the various characters to finish, with the sole exception of Victor, the male sex-bot. As a series starter, there is way too much world-building. But that I mean there are several whole passages about the various reasons the world ended up this way. That should have been done by the characters or the readers should be given bread crumbs about the world, in the manner of Suzanne Collins.
2 stars out of 5
https://www.amazon.com/Protector-Men-North-Book-ebook/dp/B072JQJ78J
THE PROTECTOR is Book 1 in the Men of the North Series. This is a very different Dystopian Romance story. It takes place 400 years in the future. There are few real men left, except in the Northlands. This land was formerly know as Alaska & Canada. The men which inhabit the Northlands, are a group of strong men, who have refused to be ruled by women. To the south of them is the Motherlands that was controlled entirely by women. Women who made up the ruling council, banning men from positions of power. There was much disagreement between the two groups, till the council finally decided to let the men live the way they pleased and built a border to protect them from each other. They had a treaty signed and all were to live in harmony & peace. RIGHT!?
Christina Sanders was an archaeologist & a professor that taught history. She thought the life in the Motherlands was the perfect one. Everyone was kind, loving, and peaceful. Things were very feminine including the few males that lived among them. She believed that women where better off without men, but longing for adventure, she makes the decision to lead an archaeological excavation in the Northlands. As soon as she crosses over into the men’s territory, she is met by Alexander Boulder. A tall, huge, dominating, all male man, the kind she had been warned against all her protected life. She has no idea what is in store, when he is assigned as her personal protector.
I thought the world building story was entertaining. If a story takes place in the future in the year 2437, I would think people would realize that it is an imagined community & society. And I liked the ending of Christina & Alexander’s story. “Tell me you can live with someone as crude and primitive as me.” “I can,” she said. “Because I know what it’s like to live without you, and I never want to do that again.” Their story might be told at “The End.” But I wanted to know what happened to the other characters, so I immediately bought Book 2: THE RULER!
Audible Escape. Also available via KU.
I actually sat on this a bit after finishing it before writing my review. While I did finish the audiobook, ultimately I was underwhelmed. It started out with a somewhat interesting premise, but the world building never came together as cohesively as I had hoped and bogged down the story quite a bit. While the characters were in their 30s, it had a distinctly YA/NA feel to it in regards to conversations, interactions, & maturity. As an archaeologist, Christina was completely unwilling to have any understanding or compassion for a different society’s way of life. She constantly belittled not only the NMen as a people, but complained about them personally, including constantly disparaging Boulder’s looks. Despite having a sexual relationship and spending nearly the entire book together ~ I never actually felt real chemistry or romance between Christina and Boulder. There were a lot of sex scenes, but most felt almost clinical in interaction and description.
It’s likely the narration is the reason I finished this. Both Noelle Bridges and John Masterson did an excellent job and I’d definitely listen to more by either of them.
Trigger Warnings (possible spoilers):
There were several instances of dubious consent that were passed off as “romance”.
Ok, I was looking forward to this one but it just didn’t deliver for me.
There was nothing really wrong with this it was well written and the future dystopian setting was fascinating but for me, it just fell a bit flat.
I also found it really hard to get on board with all the extreme feminism and overt maleness with nothing really in between the two.
I also didn’t like Christina at all, logically I got why she was the way she was but I still couldn’t force myself to like her any more than I did I just found her to be narrow-minded and rather selfish and a massive prudish wuss and I know again understandable considering but I just found her to be so bloody irritating.
Boulder/Alexander saved this for me really, without him well I’m not sure I would have finished this one at all.
But If I could describe him in one word it would be nice and I was looking for something more than that.
So yeh super imaginative idea but this didn’t quite work for me.
I won’t be continuing on with this series.
Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9460945-bex-beckie-bookworm
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/
http://www.beckiebookworm.com
Cristina is a history professor and archaeologist that lives in the year 2420 in the Motherlands. There is no crime, no marriage, no male female relationships, women dominate over the feminine looking males and women rule everything. When Cristina volunteers to go the Northerlands to excavate an ancient library, she is shocked when she is met by a crude, barbaric foul mouth man, Alexander Boulder. Boulder who is just as shocked, as they were expecting a male archaeologist, are fascinated by Cristina, the first female from the Motherlands that he lays eyes on and touches. But things get complicated because for a female to be in the Notherlands she must have a protector to keep the other Nmen away, so Cristina agrees to choose a protector, but the Nmen trick her and she has no choice but to choose Boulder. In the beginning Christina’s close mindedness and rules was really irritating, but she eventually adapted to the Nmen’s ways. Great start to a series, interesting characters and fresh new storyline. Loved it!
Well at least book one. What can I say? I am an Anthropologist/Archaeologist who has a thing for hot, alpha, Viking-esque men who are protective, passionate, intelligent, rough around the edges but love their women. And…this first book our heroine is an Archaeologist.
I really like the storyline and the social/societal issues presented. It really reflects gender biases and global attitudes towards gender equality and current political behaviors. Can the struggles for power and dominance truly be broken down to a gender issue? Such a unique storyline and characters.
A fantastic read that drew me in from the first page. Cristina is a professor in history. Then an opening comes open for an archeologist, and Cristina volunteers for it. It opens her up to a whole new experience. This Author has done a fantastic job at bringing the characters out. I loved this storyline its fast paced, theres action and twists and turns, a definite must read.
Shauna Joesten
This is a wonderful story about how to cope with life’s change now we are 400 years into the future and women control America they setup a counsel that decides what happens on there side of the border. Christina Sanders is an teacher and a Archaeologist who was determined to get across the border to see the Northland which was primitive where men still killed animals and fought, were rude and treated women with no regard for what they might want. But she had heard that there was the opportunity for her to work on a new find. She had heard about the women ratio of 15 to one for every man, she was after a man but you never know. But there was not much information but one woman had some pictures that she had shown and they were able to see and talk to them, but didn’t know a lot about them but had found them fascinating and mysterious. The Nmen are in need of a man to excavate a building site which happen to be Berkley College unfortunately happens to be inside of the Northland and Christina is requesting to go are rather dying to go and when she is given approval she was certainly not prepared for what she saw and heard. When she was dropped off at the border she was waiting for her ride to the city and when he came flying down she was scared to death because of the way he was flying the drone he stepped out and she did try to be nice where she was from in San Francisco all men and women didn’t believe in being rude or not speaking in a kindly tone to anyone, but her ride was a 6 foot 8 inch muscled bound bearded swearing giant and she was scared to death but she looked him straight in the eye. Then she met the Ruler Khah Aurelius of all of the Northland and he was very unhappy because she was a woman he told her that she had to have someone to protect her or she would have to leave. Christina touched them all in a way they never expected. This was a funny, romantic, sad and a look at what could happen in our future. I received a copy as a gift from the author. I have provided a review with no obligation.
I loved this whole series!
Elin Peer is my absolute favorite author. I’ve read every one of her books and they are ALL great. She has a gift!
I really enjoyed learning about the world in this book. The setup was done very well and I was never confused about where it was taking place or what was happening. I liked the idea of people from two different societies trying not to strangle each other over their differences but I was unimpressed by how quickly the main female character gave in to the nmen.