Narrated by Iggy Toma

In my quest to find new authors to enjoy, I decided to pick up A.J. Truman’s Ancient History for review. It’s the first book in the South Rock High series, and features a second-chance romance between a history teacher and the school’s new football coach – who happens to be the guy who broke his heart a decade earlier.

Quite honestly, that’s about all there is to say about the plot. Amos Bright was the school nerd back in the day, and attributes his love of history to the fact that he and popular jock, Hutch Hawkins, were in the same history class so he (Amos) worked hard so he could help Hutch in class and show he was good at something. He had a big crush on the school’s football – sorry, soccer – star, but didn’t think the nerdy (closeted) gay boy stood a chance, and was content to crush from afar. Until one night at a party when everything changed, and Hutch dragged him into a bathroom and kissed him. For the next two years, they spent most of their spare time making out and having sex in secret, until finally, they both decided it wasn’t enough and they were going to come out by walking into the Prom holding hands. Except that Hutch got cold feet at the last minute – sent Amos a text saying he was straight after all, and went to the Prom with the head cheerleader instead, leaving Amos heartbroken.

Hutch then went on to have a career as a professional soccer player, but a torn ACL means he’s now no longer able to play at that level, and then the news that his dad had an accident at work sees Hutch coming back to South Rock and taking up a post as soccer coach at his old high school – where Amos now teaches Ancient History.

Big Quibble. Amos apparently teachers history from “cavemen to the renaissance”. The renaissance is in no way “ancient” history – it’s Early Modern. What about the Medieval period? (When we first meet him in class, he’s talking about serfdom.) The Dark Ages? None of those are “ancient”. Wikipedia defines Ancient History as – the time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. Having an historian in the family (whose speciality is Medieval and Early Modern History) is beside the point. If I can google that, so can the author.

Amos is, naturally, surprised to see Hutch in school, and isn’t in a forgiving mood. I don’t blame him – what Hutch did was really shitty. But of course, Amos is still Hot for Hutch, and Hutch is still pining for Amos; equally of course, neither of them has had a serious relationship in the past ten years because nobody else measured up. Amos forgives Hutch without any explanation offered, so they kiss and make up, The End. Except not really – they’ve jumped into bed together just before the halfway mark and there’s still half the book to go. So while we wait for something to happen, Hutch and Amos are sneaking off campus to go make out in one of their cars in “seventh period” (god knows when that is – we mostly have a five period day here with one hour lessons, so if their school periods are shorter, how do they have the time?) Plus, it’s not at all professional. Neither is texting in class, leaving the classroom unattended, or their mutual blow job session in Hutch’s office. Getting caught doing that last one or sneaking off campus would surely result in disciplinary action and/or dismissal. I get that this is fiction – but if you’re going to write fiction about people who do actual jobs that actually exist, then do the damn research.

For a second-chance romance to really work, there has to be an element of the protagonists getting to know each other again, for who they are now after the time apart, but there’s not really any of that here – Amos and Hutch just pick up where they left off with no real qualms. There’s no conflict in the romance at all (the only drama comes from the situation I’ve put under the spoiler tags), and when Hutch’s reason for dumping Amos is revealed, it’s utterly ridiculous. Amos doesn’t make him grovel nearly enough. Or at all.

Some of the language is really weird. At one point, Amos says something about how he doesn’t really want to hook up with some random paramour. Um – paramour? It’s 2023. Or is it meant to show how fabulous at history he is? And some of it is downright cringe-worthy, such as the “holesexual” joke and as for – “we were in some deranged butt-sex-flavored Romeo and Juliet redux” – just nope. Oh, and the use of the word “rod” is so very 1980s.

The most interesting part of the story comes in the second half, so I’m putting it under a spoiler tag:

Spoiler AlertA kid in Amos’ history class – who happens to be the school’s star soccer player – throws a hissy fit over Amos not giving him a passing grade because the school policy says he can’t play in the upcoming soccer finals if he fails one of his classes. I was totally team Amos here – it seems to be universal that sports in schools always gets way more money and attention than arts and humanities, and I’ve been that teacher who is told “sorry, X can’t do his detention after school today because he’s got an away game”. Hutch is being pressured by his boss to speak on behalf of the kid at the appeal made by his parents to the school board – it had the potential to drive a wedge between Amos and Hutch, and I heaved a sigh of relief when the author didn’t go down that road. And that’s the extent of the drama and conflict in the book.A kid in Amos’ history class – who happens to be the school’s star soccer player – throws a hissy fit over Amos not giving him a passing grade because the school policy says he can’t play in the upcoming soccer finals if he fails one of his classes. I was totally team Amos here – it seems to be universal that sports in schools always gets way more money and attention than arts and humanities, and I’ve been that teacher who is told “sorry, X can’t do his detention after school today because he’s got an away game”. Hutch is being pressured by his boss to speak on behalf of the kid at the appeal made by his parents to the school board – it had the potential to drive a wedge between Amos and Hutch, and I heaved a sigh of relief when the author didn’t go down that road. And that’s the extent of the drama and conflict in the book.

Iggy Toma is, hands down, the best thing about this audiobook. He’s always a safe pair of hands, so to speak, and he works really hard in his attempt to elevate this story, to give some depth to the characters and their romance, but he’s not a miracle worker. He assigns distinct character voices to Hutch and Amos and captures Amos’ upbeat, goofy nature really well – in fact his comic timing is excellent; if only the words had actually been funny. His portrayal of Hutch is good, with deeper tones and a considered way of speaking that illustrates his thoughtfulness and determination to do better by Amos this time around. The secondary cast is clearly characterised and differentiated – Hutch’s good-natured dad is the standout, but Amos’ bunch of sequel-bait friends are fun and are easy to tell apart in their conversations.

TL:DR I’m consigning Ancient History to, well, history. There’s no story, the characters are bland and have little to no chemistry, the humour is juvenile, and I didn’t get the need for the eleventh hour drama that robbed Amos of an important moment he really deserved to have. Iggy Toma delivers a really strong performance, but it wasn’t enough to distract me from the book’s multitude of weaknesses.