I adore everything paleontology and so I adored Fossil Feud. In this growing STEM romance field, Fossil Feud makes my list of faves. I adored their interactions and the science! Keep reading this book review of Fossil Feud for my full thoughts.
Summary
Renegade paleontologist Ripley Adams is this close to digging up a fossil treasure and vindication. She’s spent the last three years in academic exile after her ex-boyfriend stole her work, betrayed her trust, and broke her heart in one fell swoop. If she can unearth a complete specimen of her newest discovery—a never-before-seen missing link between dinosaurs and birds—it will put her back on the map and finally restore her ruined reputation.
But when unfairly hot Oxford professor James Smithson crashes Ripley’s dig site, she realizes she’s not the only one searching for redemption in the Montana dirt. James is convinced a splashy new fossil is a fraud, and he needs Ripley’s help to prove it. She’d tell the buttoned-up Brit where to stick his suspicions, but the fake fossil is eerily similar to hers . . . and the fraudster is her ex.
The race is on to reveal a T-rex-sized discovery. Polar opposites Ripley and James will have to find common ground if they’re going to take down a hoax that could ruin them both. And as they dig deeper into their unlikely attraction, Ripley’s excavation boots won’t be the only things getting a little dirty. . . .
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Fossil Feud is the perfect mash up of paleontology, exes who are awful, and academic rivalries. There’s also an element of second chance romance, the sexism within academia, and found family. Fossil Feud begins at the juxtaposition of money and science. To know that academia doesn’t pay the bills – not even remotely in its exploitation and low pay – and how Ripley needs the money to help her family. It’s about the hollows and shallowness within academia against women – and the way their careers are ruined by rumors – and the exploitation of writing credits and also aspiring scholars. And then Fossil Feud becomes a story about second chances, about love in spite of our brain, and justice.
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Fossil Feud is a story about the past, about fossils, and old wounds. The ways the past doesn’t let us go. And the ways the injustices will never let us go. What will we take as our line in the sand before we speak up? How, even now, we can do something about it. Fossil Feud is also about figuring out who we want to be. To not live for the legacies, the dreams of our parents, and instead figure out how to live for us. Find Fossil Feud on Goodreads, Storygraph, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.