Book Review :: Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues by H.S. Valley

Tim Te Maro And The Subterranean Heartsick Blues by H.S. Valley
Published by Hardie Grant Books
Genres: LGBTQ+, Magic, Young Adult
Pages: 320
Source: HarperCollins NZ
Find at Harper Collins NZ
Goodreads

What happens when your enemy becomes your friend … with benefits? Red, White and Royal Blue meets The Magicians in this surprising, wildly original and joyously funny LGBTQ YA novel set in a magical boarding school.

Tim Te Maro and Elliott Parker – classmates at Fox Glacier High School for the Magically Adept – have never gotten along. But when they both get dumped the day before the big egg-baby assignment, they reluctantly decide to ditch their exes and work together.

When the two boys start to bond over their magically enchanted egg-baby, they realise that beneath their animosity is something like friendship … or physical attraction. Soon, a no-strings-attached hook-up seems like a good idea. Just for the duration of the assignment.

After all, they don’t have feelings for each other … so what could possibly go wrong?

Last updated on 13 February 2023

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My thoughts on Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues

Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues is a long title for a not a long book (coming in at 320 pages – the perfect length if you ask me), but I kind of love it.

I have to premise this review by saying that I don’t love New Zealand novels. And I hate that I don’t love them because I LOVE supporting New Zealand authors and booksellers. I’m all about it.

I think the thing with books set in New Zealand is that this country is so small that the chances that I’ve been to all the places mentioned in the book are high. Like, really high. Having lived in both the South and the North Islands, and being an avid traveller and explorer, there’s only a few ‘major’ places or spots that I haven’t been to (and I can probably count on my fingers). When I’m reading a book I like to be taken to another place … not down the road. That’s my main gripe with New Zealand based stories – they’re literally too close to home.

However! With Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues, I found myself actually really enjoying the kiwi jokes in it and the references to Kmart and Greymouth and some of the other New Zealand spots and places that were brought up. Perhaps it was the way that H.S Valley wrote about them that made me feel comfortable reading about my own country in a way that I don’t often do. Or perhaps it was because the book was about a magical school under Fox Glacier  (Fox Glacier High School for the Magically Adept)… and a concept that I LOVE. Like, of course, there’s a magical school under the glacier. What else would be down there … !?

That being said, I did think that the magic was a little side-story, and it wasn’t until near the end of the book that it really started to come alive more for me. The two boys – Tim Te Maro and Elliott Parker – spend the majority of the book looking after a magical egg-child as part of their school project, but the story is such that it could have been a robotic egg in a non-magical realm and it would have been mostly the same story. Perhaps that a stretch … but I do think that the magic aspect of it was downplayed a bit. I would have liked to explore the magic of this fictional Fox Glacier world a little more, and not just have snippets until near the end where it began a bit more front and centre.

But I did really enjoy the book, and at the end of the day, it’s a love story. It’s about two people going from enemies to lovers, and it’s entertaining, it’s sweet, it’s a bit smutty, it’s laugh-out-loud and it’s heart-warming. Tim and Elliott, along with their friends, exes, teachers, and parents were a joy to read, and if H.S Valley ever wrote another book in this subterranean magical world, I’d definitely read it.

If you’re after an LGTBQ+ read with humour, romance, sass, comments about Kmart, magic, and New Zealand, then pick up Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues. Then come on back here and tell me what you thought.

Have you already read Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues? What did you reckon?! 

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Thank you to HarperCollins NZ, Hardie Grant Books and H.S Valley for the review copy of this book. I received it for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.