Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Loving an Absentminded Astrophysicist
AUTHOR: TN Tarrant
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 228 Pages
RELEASE DATE: February 20, 2015
BLURB:
At twenty-three, Dr. Liam McGregor is a well-respected astrophysicist, astrobiologist, and geologist. With no family, few friends, and no romantic prospects, he’s used to being alone. Focusing on his various scientific projects and taking care of his decidedly unusual cat help keep the loneliness at bay.
Jareth Manning is starting life over—new town, new job—after the loss of his husband. The last thing he expects is for the most absentminded, and beautiful, man he’s ever seen to take up residence in his heart. Nor did he expect to find himself a willingly humble slave to Her Imperial Highness, Empress the Cat. But Jareth has learned that love doesn’t come around often and to hold on to it when it does. Jareth is willing to be patient if Liam is willing to take a risk after being burned before. They just have to survive Liam’s past returning.
Eight years after Liam and Jareth marry, they want a child. Things don’t go well when they try to adopt, with terrible accusations thrown at Jareth. After recovering, they proceed with a private adoption, bringing home a beautiful little girl, Carinae. Then things get ugly, endangering not only Liam’s life, but Carinae’s.
REVIEW:
Before you choose to read this book, you should be aware that originally it was written as two novellas. Plus one short story wedged in the middle. The author actually did a great job of joining these pieces together, the time jump between the two isn’t confusing. The reason I felt I should point out this book’s novella origins, is because this is now a novel with two stories worth of drama packed into one place. And if you’ve read this author before you will know that she is a heavy hand with the dramatics at the best of times. Now I personally don’t have an issue with that. I know going in to TN Tarrant’s books that I’m going to get a soap opera, and I look forward to it. But if you’re a reader who prefers their characters’ actions and situations to be slightly more moderate then this book might not be your cup of tea.
I adored this couple together. Liam is written as one of those clueless geniuses that struggles to function in the world beyond academia, and Jareth is the widow whose life has been on pause until he spotted his absentminded astrophysicist. The fact that the research institute the men worked at was populated by two kinds of people, the bumbling accident prone scientists and the security guards who steered them away from walls, was actually cute and endearing rather than ridiculous.
One aspect I truly appreciated was that Jareth’s deceased husband, Loren, wasn’t presented as less than Liam. It really bothers me when the first love of a character’s life has to be diminished in some way to make the new love seem more special. But the author didn’t do that here.
Liam’s work as an astrophysicist is very much a part of this book. If you check out other reviews of this story you’ll see that some people liked the detailed inclusion of…space…stuff…and others thought it was too much. I’m one of those readers who loves a book that includes topics I know nothing about, so I was okay with it. It really was interesting. I have no idea if this is an interest of the author, or if she just slogged through days of research to write this book, but from what I can tell (and admittedly I wouldn’t know if every single fact was wrong) TN Tarrant knows her stuff.
I would recommend this book to readers who are entertained by an over the top plot where mustache-twirling villains are lurking around every corner.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
Amazon