novel_untamed

My Take in Brief: An enjoyable romance in an unusual setting.

Setting: 1750s, upstate New York. If you have seen Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day Lewis, you know all about it. Most events take place in a French fort, with other action in the forest. Here’s  Clare’s own description of the military doings:

Some 250 years ago this summer, British forces under General James Abercromby, including Colonials, faced off against the Marquis de Montcalm and his troops at what became known as the Battle of Ticonderoga — or the Battle of Carillon, if you’re French or Canadian. Some 15,000 British soldiers and Colonial militia, certain of victory, attacked the 3,600 French inside the small fort and, despite overwhelming superiority in numbers, lost due to French ingenuity and Abercromy’s bumbling.

Clare on what drew her to the unique setting in a great interview at the Book Binge:

I’ve always loved early American history. My ancestry dates back to the earliest beginnings of this country, so it holds a lot of interest for me. Plus I love the idea of the untamed wilderness, of the wilderness being almost another character in the book, one that can save you or kill you. It’s like the wild west in that way — good guys, bad guys and the frontier. The clash of cultures from this period fascinates me. It wasn’t just Europeans vs. Indians but also Europeans vs. each other, and yet people were coming together, too. The history in general just fascinates me; I could study it and write about it forever.

(I might add that it was also “Indians versus each other”, a fact that Clare explores nicely, but that generations of US schoolchildren forget, thanks to being taught to call it the “French and Indian War”.)

Watch a video of Clare visiting the upstate NY where Untamed is set.

Heroine and Hero: Honorable, brave Scotsman Morgan MacKinnon fights unwillingly for the British. Honorable, innocent, kind, orphaned French and Native American Amalie Chauvenet, raised in a convent, living temporarily at a French fort.

Plot: Morgan is wounded and captured by the French and Amalie is ordered to nurse him back to health so he can be interrogated and then killed. A bond develops between Morgan and Amalie, but they are on opposite sides of the war, and things get complicated.

Series?: Yes, this is the second of the MacKinnon’s Rangers trilogy.

Word on the Web:

Babbling about Books, Katiebabs, B+

Ramblings on Romance, Kristie(j), 5 out of 5 stars

AAR, Heather, A- (DIK)

Dear Author, Jayne, B

Amazon.com, 5 stars after 18 reviews

Excerpt here.

The Racy Romance Review:

I won Untamed from Babbling about Books (thanks Katiebabs!). I had read one other Pamela Clare this year – Unlawful Contact — which I enjoyed, and thought it would be interesting to read a different subgenre from this author. Like Unlawful Contact, Untamed is not the first book in its series, and while you can certainly start with it, the fact that a character introduced in book 1 — Lord William Wentworth, who pressed the Mackinnon brothers into the British King’s service  — is so important to this one, I think my enjoyment would have been enhanced had I read Surrender first.

This author clearly does her homework — the details about the historical events, people, and places are rich and, to my layperson’s eye, accurate.  Objectively speaking, the setting is unusual and exciting, but subjectively speaking, frontiers do nothing for me.

My favorite part of this book was the beginning, when Morgan was injured and Amalie cares for him. Morgan’s group of fighters, MacKinnon’s Rangers, killed her father in a battle a year prior, so he’s definitely the enemy, but she is horrified by his injuries and his treatment at the hands of the French, and morally conflicted over nursing him back to health just so he can be interrogated by the French and then handed over to Indian allies to be burned to death.

I knew, as do you, dear reader, that Morgan would not be killed, but I was surprised by how he avoided it, and then Clare kept on surprising me with the twists the plot took as I read. This book is a good example of how wrong people are when they say that the HEA means you don’t have to read anything but the first and last pages.

Morgan and Amalie are both conflicted in their loyalties (she hates the British but begins to care for Morgan; Morgan shares a religion with the French, but his men and brothers fight for the British), as are several other characters in the book (Amalie’s guardian, Fort commander Chevalier de Bourlamaque, has to balance his growing respect for his prisoner, Morgan, with his concern for potential conflict with his men, who fear and distrust him), making for some pretty complicated motivations.

I really liked the moral conflicts these two faced, and I thought Clare did a great job of showing how religion, genetics, nationality, and personal history all help define what we take to be our moral duties (for example, not falling in love with a soldier on the British side was always an obligation for Amalie, but when one of those soldiers killed her father, she had even stronger moral motivation not to do it).

The romance itself is pretty straightforward — a bit more so than it should have been, in my opinion.  Amalie is innocent, sweet, and kind, and perhaps just a bit too naive, because she not only overlooks the fact that Morgan’s an enemy who has strong motivations to seduce her and use her to escape, but gets over a later, quite serious, betrayal in record time.

The relationship was sweet, but for me, it didn’t rise to that level of two characters leaping off the page who are perfect for each other. Why does Morgan come to love Amalie? She’s femininity incarnate — all beauty, sweetness and light. But that can’t be all of it. If you ask yourself why you love someone, and you list all their good qualities, you see that this is inadequate to account for your feelings. Your partner may have virtues X, Y, and Z, but so do lots of potential mates. There has to be something else that draw this particular person to you. And the only way to explain it is in terms of a relational property — something about the way you two mix together. Whether we say “you complete me” or what, you know what I mean.

I think Clare did a good job characterizing Amalie and Morgan, and they both are gorgeous and good, so on an abstract level, I can see why two such people might love each other, but I felt the piece that shows that this particular beautiful and good woman was right for this particular handsome and good man was rushed a bit — and perhaps that’s the tradeoff for having such a richly detailed setting and complicated and action-packed plot.

IMHO, Clare writes very sexy romances, and this book is no exception. In both Unlawful Contact and Untamed, there are several post-declaration-of-affection sex scenes, and since I really like reading about how loving two people can be to each other, whether in bed or out of it, I appreciate that.

I also felt that the treatment of Amalie’s sexual awakening was handled really well. I mean, how do you go from living in a convent to sleeping with this Scottish stud? Many virginal heroines treat sex like another day at the park, once they give in to the hero, but it floors Amalie to discover sex, and she has some alone time with a mirror that would have done the vulva consciousness crowd very proud.

I enjoyed this one, and will certainly be reading more from this author.

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