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In 1893 America, an anthropologist gets custody of the "Ontario Man," who was found running wild and seemed to have been raised by wolves. Thrilled at the thought of discovering the nature of humanity untainted by civilization, he locks the man up and begins performing psychological experiments on him. Meanwhile, the anthropologist's family-- including his young widowed daughter Sydney -- begin to realize that there's more to the Ontario Man than meets the eye.
Considering that this is genre romance, the potential for this story to be sappy, squicky, or embarrassing seemed high. It's actually great: sweet, funny, touching, well-characterized, and with some serious exploration of what would really happen in such a scenario. The supporting cast is given plenty of time and attention, leading to a lot of intriguing secondary relationships. I especially liked the interaction between the heroine's little brother Sam and her older brother Philip with the man whose name, they eventually discover, is Michael. Michael himself is a great character, a feral child re-discovering human interaction, and sentimentalized as little as possible.
The prose is good, too, and the sex scenes are both hot and based on specific character interactions. I don't know anything about this period so I have no idea if its portrayal is accurate, but it was vividly evoked (the World's Fair! The scientists arguing philosophy!) and felt real within the book, at least.
Like many romances, the book has some third-act problems such as Michael's parentage being a total cliche and, more importantly, his relationship with Sydney getting lost for a while. Sydney starts out a very strong, interesting character, and while she doesn't exactly become less strong, she does become less central for portions of the book than I would have liked.
Nevertheless, I loved this a lot and it rekindled my enjoyment of the genre. Has anyone read anything else by Gaffney? What would you recommend?
Wild at Heart
Considering that this is genre romance, the potential for this story to be sappy, squicky, or embarrassing seemed high. It's actually great: sweet, funny, touching, well-characterized, and with some serious exploration of what would really happen in such a scenario. The supporting cast is given plenty of time and attention, leading to a lot of intriguing secondary relationships. I especially liked the interaction between the heroine's little brother Sam and her older brother Philip with the man whose name, they eventually discover, is Michael. Michael himself is a great character, a feral child re-discovering human interaction, and sentimentalized as little as possible.
The prose is good, too, and the sex scenes are both hot and based on specific character interactions. I don't know anything about this period so I have no idea if its portrayal is accurate, but it was vividly evoked (the World's Fair! The scientists arguing philosophy!) and felt real within the book, at least.
Like many romances, the book has some third-act problems such as Michael's parentage being a total cliche and, more importantly, his relationship with Sydney getting lost for a while. Sydney starts out a very strong, interesting character, and while she doesn't exactly become less strong, she does become less central for portions of the book than I would have liked.
Nevertheless, I loved this a lot and it rekindled my enjoyment of the genre. Has anyone read anything else by Gaffney? What would you recommend?
Wild at Heart
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Though not in this particular case. In this book, there's a perfectly reasonable plot-related complication, but also the heroine becomes somewhat randomly convinced that OH WOES IT CAN'T WORK OUT for unrelated reasons that don't make a whole lot of sense.
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