Customer Reviews

Wild

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Margo Maguire comes up a little short with her latest novel Wild. Her heroine lacks the usual charm of her past protagonists but her hero is engaging.

When he was only eleven future Earl Anthony Maddox was lost to the Congo river during a violent storm. All believed him to be dead. Twenty-two years later, two men on expedition in Africa return to London with a man who they claim must be the missing Anthony Maddox. He is almost wild and runs around the docks and injures himself in the process.

Always hopeful, Anthony's grandmother is ecstatic to have her grandson home. However, he needs guidance to acclimate into society and claim his inheritance and title so she turns to her companion, Grace Hawthorne, to guide Anthony in the ways of English customs.

Grace is appalled she has the duty of taming this man. She is a prickly and somewhat prissy woman who adheres totally to propriety. She comes across as disdainful and at times ridiculously demanding. For instance, she is angry that Anthony cannot eat properly at the table when they first dine and she just cannot believe he is the real Earl because he wears a breech cloth and everyone knows that a real English gentleman would never wear anything but trousers, shirt, coat and a properly tied neck cloth. He also is unaware he must stand until all ladies are seated. Apparently Grace has forgotten that this man has spent the last twenty-two years in Africa where the strict dictates of English decorum are not practiced on a regular basis.

Anthony is interesting especially when he recounts his adventures in Africa. It seems his African life is improbable but obviously he has survived and he desires to return to his African savannah. However Grace is a comely distraction. He teases her which causes Grace to become angry and distant.

As Grace teaches Anthony the fine points of decorum, she begins to have passionate feelings for him. He plans to return to Africa though and she worries that her heart will be broken. It is only toward the end of the book that I began to really like Grace; she loses her air of haughtiness and really begins to live life to the fullest. This came a bit late in the novel for me and even though Anthony is quite the hero, Grace just wasn't as dynamic.

Presumed dead over twenty years ago, Anthony Maddox is finally returning to England. He is not happy with this and proceeds to let everyone know exactly how he feels. The only person who knows who he is, his grandmother, accepts him for who he is but also knows that in order for him to be accepted in society, he needs to someone who will teach him the way of the ton. The only person Anthony's grandmother can trust with this highly secretive endeavor is her companion Grace Hawthorne.

Grace understands the seriousness of Anthony's grandmother's request. As much as she wants to refuse, Grace is unable to do so. Anthony is intriguing to her and she can't get him out of her head. Teaching Anthony how to be a gentleman will take every bit of knowledge and know-how she has. Anthony loves to be outrageous and inappropriate - two things that are a must if he wants to take his place in the social order of the peerage.

WILD by Margo Maguire is awesome. Her ability to fully immerse her readers in historical England always amazes me and WILD is no different. The plot of a `wild' boy grown into a man and suddenly found and asked to resume his place in his family was enough for me to take a second and even third look. Had Grace not been able to `tame' Anthony I was ready to offer my services but alas, this enigmatic and beautiful woman was exactly what bad boy Anthony needed. Grace had a hidden naughty side that I found refreshing and I really loved watching Grace's interactions with Anthony.

WILD is exactly the type of historical romance that makes me want to grab a seat, settle in, and read the entire book in one sitting. Which, to be honest, is exactly what I did!

***Natalie S. for Wild on Books***

When the long-lost grandson of the Countess of Sutton is apparently discovered in Africa, he is brought back to England to take up his birthright as the Earl. However, when Anthony Maddox arrives in London, it becomes clear that he just wants to return to his home in the Congo and not have any part of life in 'civilisation'.

Anthony is labouring under a misapprehension that his father didn't look for him when he was lost overboard a river vessel in Africa as a boy. As Anthony is taken to his grandmother's house and trained in polite behaviour by his grandmother's companion, Grace Hawthorne, he works on his plan for revenge against his uncle who tipped him overboard all those years ago.

But what Anthony wants - revenge and then return to the Congo - isn't what his grandmother wants. And what does Grace want? Apparently a normal life in English society with a husband and children, not some wild half-savage from another continent. But as Anthony and Grace get to know each other, and Anthony settles back into life as an English nobleman, his plans might not quite go as he hopes.

This was a reasonable read, if one overlooked some plot improbabilities and historical lapses. I was entirely unconvinced that a man who had lived, since the age of 11, as a nomad in Africa could be 'brought up to scratch' for society in a month, let alone that he would have retained his English language skills. Grace wasn't always easy to like, being part tease and part laced-up woman, and I was unconvinced that someone like her with minimal prospects could have attracted so many suitors. I felt that the author could have made more of the contrast between the supposed savagery of the Africans and the real savagery of English society towards people who don't quite fit in or who fail in some way to meet an arbitrary measure of behaviour. However this was a pleasant enough read for those who enjoy a male version of My Fair Lady.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book © Helen Hancox 2009

I have recently dscovered this author("Brash") and have fallen in love with her writing. This story is FAB-U-LOUS!!! A twist on the Tarzan story that left me speechless. Read it and be swept away.

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

Presumed dead over twenty years ago, Anthony Maddox is finally returning to England. He is not happy with this and proceeds to let everyone know exactly how he feels. The only person who knows who he is, his grandmother, accepts him for who he is but also knows that in order for him to be accepted in society, he needs to someone who will teach him the way of the ton. The only person Anthony's grandmother can trust with this highly secretive endeavor is her companion Grace Hawthorne.

Grace understands the seriousness of Anthony's grandmother's request. As much as she wants to refuse, Grace is unable to do so. Anthony is intriguing to her and she can't get him out of her head. Teaching Anthony how to be a gentleman will take every bit of knowledge and know-how she has. Anthony loves to be outrageous and inappropriate - two things that are a must if he wants to take his place in the social order of the peerage.

WILD by Margo Maguire is awesome. Her ability to fully immerse her readers in historical England always amazes me and WILD is no different. The plot of a `wild' boy grown into a man and suddenly found and asked to resume his place in his family was enough for me to take a second and even third look. Had Grace not been able to `tame' Anthony I was ready to offer my services but alas, this enigmatic and beautiful woman was exactly what bad boy Anthony needed. Grace had a hidden naughty side that I found refreshing and I really loved watching Grace's interactions with Anthony.

WILD is exactly the type of historical romance that makes me want to grab a seat, settle in, and read the entire book in one sitting. Which, to be honest, is exactly what I did!

***Natalie S. for Wild on Books***