Monday, November 24, 2008

Wild-Margo Maguire

Wild
Margo Maguire
Avon, Jan 2009, $6.99
ISBN: 9780061667879

Two decades ago Anthony Maddox went on an African safari with his father and never returned to London. While his family and friends assume he died, his grandmother Lady Sutton prayed for a miracle that she would see him one last time before she died.

Shocking everyone in 1829, an adult Anthony comes home. However, he is no longer the polite behaved child; instead he is a savage who flaunts the inane rules of High Society. Unaccepted by all except his grandma and yet desired by the ladies due to that same lord of the jungle unacceptability, the WILD Lord Sutton shocks the aristocracy with his behavior. A whisper campaign insists he is in an imposter taking advantage of a foolish lonely old woman. However Lady Sutton believes he is genuine and asks her companion Grace Hawthorne to tame the beast by teaching him proper etiquette. As they see each other daily, they fall in love, but he needs to go home to Africa to enact revenge on the individual who left him ostracized; that compulsion changes when he realizes someone wants his beloved spinster dead he believes because of him.

This intriguing early nineteenth century Tarzan meets the Ton and Jane in England is an engaging historical romance. The story line is at its best when the student purposely misbehaves to impishly get a rise out of his tutor. The avenging subplot feels overdone and though understandable never quite holds up to the Tarzan-Jane prime theme that sub-genre fans will relish.

Harriet Klausner

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