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The Wild Child

Bride (Putney) Series, Book 1

#1 in series

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
0 of 1 copy available
I met a lady in the meads /Full beautiful, a faery's child. /Her hair was long, her foot was light, /And her eyes were wild. -John Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" Keats' famous poem might be describing Lady Meriel Grahame, the enchanting heroine of this passionate tale set amidst magical gardens. An equally appealing leading man, a thrilling love story, and a rich historical milieu make this novel positively irresistible. More pagan than lady, Meriel spends her days running barefoot through her English estate, cultivating her flowers and her mystical connection to nature. She is mute and, according to most people, mad. But handsome Dominic Renbourne, who has been sent by his twin to court her, senses in Meriel a kindred spirit. He manages to inspire her trust, and against his better judgement, her passion. Award-winning, New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Mary Jo Putney lives up to her reputation for creating strong, intelligent characters. Barbara Rosenblat's stimulating performance will awaken all your senses, if not the wild child in you.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 31, 1999
      Lady Meriel Grahame, the eighth heroine in Putney's Fallen Angels series, has lived in a world of self-imposed silence since the night of violence in colonial India that claimed her parents' lives. Deemed mad by her guardian uncles (one good, one evil), looked after by two widows (both good), she lives a life of fey barefoot willfulness, making weedy centerpieces for the mahogany dining table and communing with the animals who roam the gorgeous grounds of her ancestral home, Warfield. Lord Grahame, her evil uncle, would like to see her locked up in a mental asylum (Putney dwells on the horrors of early 19th-century "modern" psychiatry), but her good uncle, Lord Amworth, thinks a wedding and bedding might cure her--and the time is now, while Grahame is out of the country. Since infancy, Meriel has been pledged to Kyle Renbourne, Lord Maxwell, the future earl of Wrexham. Heart-bound to escort his dying mistress home to Spain, Kyle dispatches his twin brother, Dominic, to court Meriel in his place. The novel is most enjoyable precisely where it's most predictable, and it's in the all-consuming attraction, body and spirit, between Dominic and Meriel that it reaches its peak. Allowed unthinkable liberties, Meriel paints henna designs on Dominic's trembling torso, laughs at his morality and offers up an irresistible bargaining chip: if she may have his body, he shall hear her voice. Her words may lack the eloquence of her silence, and the second half of the novel is altogether the weaker, but there's satisfaction for readers who like to see villains die and everyone else live happily ever after. Author tour.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Rosenblat animates Putney's tale of madness and deception. Elder twin Kyle is contracted to wed an eccentric heiress, thus acquiring her estate and, it is hoped, calming her antipathy toward marriage and motherhood. He enlists his brother to do his wooing until he has dealt with problems of his own. Lady Meriel, traumatized by childhood events, is warmed by the glow of her supposed suitor. In Rosenblat's voice Dominic speaks with gentle intensity, and Kyle's voice hardens to leaden precision. Only a master of articulate narration could so delicately have caught the nuances of this romance. S.B.S. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

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