By Martina Juričková

Kaitlyn Facista, Into the Heart of Middle-earth — A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: A Spiritual Journey for the Hobbit at Heart, Ave Maria Press, 2026, ISBN 9781646803651, 192 pp.

As a fan, I have known Kaitlyn’s project Tea with Tolkien almost since its very beginning, when it was yet a business selling Tolkien-inspired tote bags and clothing apparel she used to hand print on (I even got a custom gold-on-red sweatshirt ordered from her, that I wear to this day to pretty much every Tolkien-related event.)

Although inactively, I have followed her journey from her Etsy business to developing a major online community dedicated to the appreciation of Tolkien’s work and especially its religious aspects. And although she has published several analysis/devotional books to help readers better understand some of these elements in Tolkien’s stories, Into the Heart of Middle-earth is the first of her books that I ever purchased. And just a couple of chapters in, I realised that in it Kaitlyn touches upon every subject that I have been academically analysing in my Tolkien research so far. So coincidentally—neither of us being aware of the other’s research—that this her book ended up representing a simplified, distilled version of my own research, made digestible even for non-academic readers.[1] The main difference is, though, that hers is something between a devotional and a motivational literature for Middle-earth fans.

But all in order.

So what does this book actually contain?

Into the Heart of Middle-earth proclaims to be a guide on a life journey for those Tolkien fans, who are new or yet finding their way to religion, that should help readers become better people via clarifying how Tolkien’s Middle-earth books do the very same—you know, the same motivational stuff, just with a (huuuuge) sprinkle of Tolkien in it. Each of its 14 chapters focuses a chosen set of virtues, analysing how they are presented in Tolkien’s stories and we, readers, can imitate the actions of our beloved Middle-earth heroes in everyday lives. In each of them, she also draws parallels to the lives of various saints that exercised the particular virtue the most and can be invoked to help with its development. In addition, to help us do so, at the end of each chapter, Kaitlyn provides specific suggestions of tasks to do or questions to ask selves in order to achieve that, hoping that we would adopt these and put into regular practice to create new virtuous habits.

The first chapter focuses on how to be more like Hobbits and appreciate the small daily joys of our lives more, including community, food, and cheer. At the end it presents a list of qualities the readers should review and choose a couple of them they want to improve in during the course of the book.

The second chapter discusses authenticity and the need to embrace all our sides, the better and also the one we deem worse, just like Bilbo embraces both his Baggins and Tookish identity (I analyse his double nature and parallels with Gollum’s dual personality in chapters 6.2 and 6.6 of my book and partially also touch upon in this essay). Besides that, it also talks about the need to embrace our fate and/or the will of God (depending on what you believe in).

Closely related to that, the third chapter discusses the role of humility and trust (I discuss these in chapter 6.3 of my book), and chapter 4 the importance of fellowship (I analysed the role of friendship and false friendship in my university theses). Chapter 5 follows the analysis of how to be a good and just leader (just like Kaitlyn, I discuss various leadership qualities mainly through comparing their presence in Aragorn and Denethor in chapter 6.3 of my book). In chapter 6, Kaitlyn discusses the role of generosity and hospitality (mirroring my chapter 6.5).

In chapter 7, Kaitlyn focuses on the need to withstand and endure tests and hardship and hold onto the right things as our goals (I discuss this in chapter 6.2 of my book).

In chapter 8, she continues with discussing the gift sharing, both as the ability to share our physical wealth (again, discussed also in my chapter 6.5) as well as the ability and willingness to develop our mental/spiritual gifts and use them for the benefit of our community.

In chapter 9, she comments on the importance of having courage, exemplifying it mainly on Éowyn—an example the suitability of which I would argue, and do so in chapters 6.3 and 5.4.1.2 of my book, as, in my opinion, Éowyn represents rather ofermod than virtuous courage.[2]

In chapter 10, Kaitlyn analyses the importance of hope as an element predating courage, mirroring my research on the subject, followed by the analysis of mercy as the core virtue that grants us eucatastrophe in chapter 11. (I analyse the role of mercy in chapter 5.4.1.4 of my book).

In chapter 12, Kaitlyn discusses the so-much-relevant today need to process and accept grief as the prerequisite to maturity and moving on. In chapter 13, she then focuses on the role of faith and eucatastrophe itself (I discuss faith in contrast to hope in chapter 5.4.1.5 and this essay).

And finally, in chapter 14, Kaitlyn end on emphasising the need to sacrifice our comfort and let go of our “rings”—things that we grew too attached to—to allow for our growth.

And as Kaitlyn herself says, it wouldn’t be a Tolkien-related book if it didn’t have appendices like his The Lord of the Rings does (and I agree with her), so she supplements her book with a brief overview of Middle-earth’s history and the content of each of his major publications set in it, as well as his theory of subcreation, and important themes from his works. These appendices may benefit most those readers, who are not yet familiar with the deep lore behind Tolkien’s works and possibly only found their way to Kaitlyn’s book and her online community through the films. For these, she also provides a list of major Tolkien-related celebrations held worldwide, and finally a list of recommended reading.

So in conclusion, I hope this shamelessly self-promotional review of Into the Heart of Middle-earth has shown and proved how strong and permeating certain religious and moral elements are in Tolkien’s stories, so much so that two Tolkien fans on entirely different planes of the fandom (scholarly vs. plain fandom with inclination to devotional insight), unbeknownst to each other, discern them in his works and choose to write about it, each in their own style and approach (academic vs. motivational literature). And although all that Kailtlyn writes in her book has already been known to me (now a relatively seasoned Tolkien scholar who has read tons on the subject), it presents a very good introduction into the moral and religious value of Tolkien’s writing for those, who haven’t looked into that matter yet, in an appropriate narrative style (in contrast to my scholarly approach, which ordinary readers may find confusing at time, or boring).

Editorial Footnotes

[1] See Martina Juričková, Cardinal Vices in Middle-earth (Peter Lang, 2025).

[2] Ofermod is an Old English word associated with prideful combat or inappropriate bravery, explored by J.R.R. Tolkien in his essay “Ofermod” which serves as a commentary on  The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son and other works. See John R. Holmes’ entry on “The Battle of Maldon” in The J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, ed. Michael C. Drout (Taylor & Francis Group, 2007), and Juričková, Cardinal Vices for more details.