Working with elephants in their natural habitat has always been Eric Phillips dream. Getting what he’s always desired introduces him to Tyaan Bouwer, the bush pilot that flies in his supplies, and Eric discovers the allure of South Africa goes beyond the wildlife and the scenery.But in an area where bushveld prejudices and hatred bleed across the borders, realising their love will be a hard … hard fought battle. Keeping hold of it might just kill them.
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An unexpected job offer finds zoologist Eric Phillips transported from the elephant house at a zoo just outside London to the wildlife reserves in the South African bushveld. Being able to work with his own herd of elephants, and analysing their behaviour, more than makes up for the remote nature of the research station. The one bright spot on the horizon, quite literally if the sun hits it at the right angle, is the silver freight plane that brings his supplies and half an hour in the company of Tyaan, the gorgeous but taciturn pilot.
With wide open spaces and clear skies, Tyaan Bouwer is never be happier than when he’s flying over the bushveld, the landscape beneath him a changing vista of colour and texture. It’s that view and the freedom to be able to climb in his plane and fly that’s kept him in the small town where he was born and raised. South Africa might be a rainbow nation but in the northern regions where neighbouring countries are far from liberal minded, prejudices and hatred bleed across the borders. Tyaan’s not in the closet, not really. Get him to the city and with his strong, silent routine he can pull a guy without even trying. He’s fine with that as long as they don’t press him into trying to see them again. It’s not like he wants a relationship. And just maybe when he gets home he’s hovering in the doorway of that closet, but he’s never met anyone worth taking the risk for.
The day he’s sent to Limpopo to collect Eric that all changes. He tries to bury the feelings of want that Eric conjures in him, but he can’t resist the bonds of friendship that forms between them.
As a zoologist Eric likes to think that he’s adept at anticipating how a creature will react in any given situation, and they don’t come any more beautiful and skittish than Tyaan. Despite Tyaan’s jittery behaviour Eric has a theory they could be good together but when things go catastrophically wrong it appears their relationship will remain a theory unproven.
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Eric comes to Africa to study elephants. Tyaan is a pilot who delivers supplies to Eric. They are attracted to each other but Tyann is in the closet. He ‘s seen too many in his small town come out and then were brutalized. I enjoyed this book.
I enjoyed this romance novel, I liked the different setting and the challenges faced on a day to day basis in a remote situation. I found it sad that there was so much bigotry in the country and that Tyaan had to hide who he was because it could endanger his life if people knew he was gay. I liked the relationship that developed between Tyaan and Eric, they were both such different characters, but they complimented each other so well. There were plenty of struggles, both internal and external that they had to go through to get their happy ending, but I’m so glad they made it. I loved the el; elephants, they made for some extra entertainment and education. This is my first read by this author and I’ll be checking out more of her books.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Eric Phillips get’s the chance to work for The Foundation. He’s in Africa putting his skills to work as a zoologist. He’s extremely taken with two male elephants that hardly leave each others side. They don’t follow the pack. Eric tries not to get close to the animals but he can’t help himself and names them Jack and Ianto.
Tyaan Bouwer has lived his life in Afrikaan. His best friend is Jessie who is the Flying-doctor of the area. Tyaan is very much closeted and has seen tragedy in his life that put him in that position. At times he goes into the city for a hook-up but that’s all it is, he never commits to anyone, he just can’t afford that mistake. Tyaan’s job is important he’s the local freight pilot and does all the essential deliveries in the area and his main one is to The Foundation reserve.
Tyaan and Eric’s meeting doesn’t go as well as Eric would have liked. But as time goes on Tyaan finds himself becoming more interested in Eric. Eric get’s him involved with some of his research and experiments with the elephants.
As Tyaan and Erics relationship starts to grow, Tyaan is deathly afraid that something awful could happen and he knows for a fact because it does. His fear for Eric grows and Tyaan does what he feels is best. But small towns with their prejudice and gossip cause damage in more ways than one. Although South Africa passed laws against intolerance it doesn’t matter because anyone can cross the counties and do harm or worse to anyone.
“Theory Uproven” is a well written and entertaining story from Lillian Francis. She does well in describing the land and climate of Africa. The subject matter of the study of elephants is interesting and I was hoping there would be more. Most importantly it looks at the intolerance and prejudice that exists no matter what laws were passed and it reflects on small towns making judgements.
I liked both characters of Eric and Tyaan. Eric is the more inquisitive and curious type which goes with his profession and being alone most of time on the reserve. But he doesn’t hide his sexuality. Tyaan is more brooding and that comes with what he’s experienced and fear of what could happen. Eric works hard to make Tyaan see things differently. There are several secondary characters that bring interesting side stories: Jessie and Paul; the illusive Mr. Crowdrey and Benedict Brookes his assistant.
This is the second novel I read from Lillian Francis and I’ll be looking forward to more from her.
Love conquesr stubbornness. Tyaan is a bush pilot, enjoying his friendly skies. Eric, is a zooligist able to study his beloved elephants. He is also immediately insanely attracted to Tyaan. Eric, does his best to get noticed by Tyaan. Tyaan tries to avoid Eric, but he is attracted. Homosexuality is frowned upon in the village. They risk a lot having a physical relationship. Are they willing to out themselves? Does the village react as expected? Are they termporary to scratch itches, or are they more longterm? Is Eric able to get his information for his elephants? Nice story, a bit long winded. I reeceived an ARC from Boosprout an am voluntarily leaving a review.
I went into this one with high hopes. The premise of it was interesting but it just didn’t live up to my expectations. As far as slow burns go this was agonisingly slow. There was talk of clever flirtatious banter in the first half of the book but I never got that with Tyann’s more than obvious rebuffs to Eric’s advances. Also, the idea of the strong silent type being compared to rude bugged me. Almost like Eric had zero concept of personal space, this whole dynamic of him talking too much versus the other guy not really responding didn’t come off as clever and witty flirtations. He seemed a bit pushy. However once we got passed this and there was some real evidence of flirtation, it was fun. Entertaining, engaging, basically it was just good. That was when I started to enjoy the novel, once the main characters really began to be fleshed out I guess. Unfortunately, I was thirty percent or so into the novel when this happened. But it was definitely good enough to get me more than invested in the novel. Steamy flirtation awesome, that lead up to a delightfully fun steamy scene. Unfortunately, this was also shortlived.
After another thirty percent or so of reading a predictable thing happened which I was hoping would not happen until way close to the end of the book. Then the also predictable drama and tension and so on that these type of slow-burn romances entail happened. Even after the situation that caused the problem was resolved. I went from loving one character and relating to his situation to strongly disliking him. And as far as the plot goes there is a lot of pages left, I didn’t have it in me to see how long Tyann would be stubborn, the strain this stupidity would put on his friendship and the possible deterioration of a budding relationship would take. It felt like a missed opportunity to delve into his worst fears happening and how this fear played out without the all too overused it’s better if we end this plotline; coupled with ‘I’m going to micromanage your life because I still want you to be with me and only me’ and… I could go on. But diving deep into how this changed their relationship dynamic and how he pushed through with more panic and reverting back to clever banter and how Eric handled having to slowly open him back up again would’ve been a grittier, deeper and less cliche approach to the angst romance novels have.
Seriously, there has to be at least one man out there in a romance novel who doesn’t end the relationship or forget to call, or pretend it’s just sex and get caught joking about it with his buddies, the list is endless. With all the problems and hurdles life throws at us surely there’s another way to drum up the tension than running away which was the mode for this book.
All in all, I couldn’t like Tyann enough to read more pages of him micromanaging Eric’s life but refusing to actually be in it, and then ruining a friendship with the one person who’s actually taking care of him, so I couldn’t finish this. For all I know in the next ten pages all of this might’ve solved itself but even still there would’ve been a third of the book left to go through. The assumption could be made Tyann would do something else stupid, or Eric would refuse to take him back once he came to his senses, a lot of page time to push the tension as far as humanly possible. But after not really being in it for the first third and then loving the second third a whole lot, this happening just passed the middle of the book took me out of the book and I started skimming to see when it would be resolved and it didn’t look like it would happen fast enough for me.
Would I recommend this book? Yes and no. If I hadn’t planned to write a review I doubt I would’ve made it to the parts I loved. But I did love them. And when you add up the type of drama this genre entails. Tyann’s actions are textbook. Readers that are fans of romance will be all in, turning the pages with enthusiasm without overanalysing it and counting pages and making assumptions, whether right or wrong, about what could reasonably happen in that time and if they are willing to take the risk to find out. This book is definitely one of my not so good reviews that, in my opinion, hits the brief hard with the drama, tension, angst, and steam one would expect to be in this type of novel. On that end, it’s not a hard sell at all. But for me, I’ve read so much romance that I guess I’m numb to these types of actions now especially when they happen in the middle of the book and not close to the end so I at least know it will be resolved quickly.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.