Lori Brighton - Wild Heart

Leo Roberts is next in line for an earldom and the power and fortune that come with it, but he is uncultured, unrefined--and completely untamed. . . until governess Ella Finch arrives upon the scene. Can so young and inexperienced a woman tutor him in the manners and mores of his class? Leo's mysterious past has rendered him an outsider, too wild for polite society. But he finds her innocence most intriguing. . .
What manner of man he may be, Ella does not know. Yet he fascinates her and she must know more. Capturing Leo's reckless heart is about to free her in ways she never dreamed of. . . and his sensual touch releases the deepest yearnings of her body and soul . . . 

Comment: Here's another of the many books I've got for some reason that at the moment I pick them to be read, I no longer recall why they are there. Probably something about the blurb caught my eye but I can't really say. It's been in the pile for months, so on one of my attempts to be fair to those "forgotten" books, I wrote down its title to be read in January.

This is the story of Ella Finch and how the woman who always looked for her, even without affection, practically gives her to the employ of an old man who wants a teacher/governess to his grandson.

Leo is the grandson, left alone on the Indian jungle after the death of his parents. Leo wants revenge and he knows who were the killers,he just needs prove. Being in England is a challenge and his behavior makes others think of him as stupid and easily dismissed, but in reality Leo knows what he's doing, but Ella makes him feel and want even more than he thought possible.

This story had everything to work out well for me: an orphan, poor young woman having to work to keep her dignity and food on her table and a misunderstood man who only needed affection and caring to become what society and his family wanted of him, happiness and stability. Add a woman who did her duty and got rid of the heroine when possible and an old man who wanted his son to be accepted again, I really set myself to be wowed.

If this story seemed a romance on the starts to be developed, I have to confess what came after was quite the surprise. The romance and HEA still happened of course, but totally not how I thought it would. This story if full of strange elements that were supposed to bring an extra sense to everything but in my opinion it just added to the confusion.

One thing, however, I do have to admit, the plot kept surprising me; I just can't say it was for good reasons.

Ella and Leo both have things about them that make them special, Leo's experience in the jungle and Ella's ability to communicate with animals, not speak to them, just calming them or sensing what they are feeling. These two things make the main couple special, but the plot around them jumped from intriguing to full of mysticism and some ridiculous scenes I kept thinking what was happening.

The romance was ok, I guess the part where we are suppose to believe their are in love and will be happy was well enough, but the plot....the reasons why the bad guys - surprise on them too! - acted the way they did, the ways they made things happen, the amount of time spend on that, all the plot related issues were a surprise alright, but I was confused and the paranormal aspects of this story felt like too much and I wonder how this would be without it.

I think there were too many silly things to make this story enjoyable, even despite the interesting human study one could make of each character.

All in all, a good setting up, but the development and execution weren't always a match to both the expectations and ideas from the beginning of the story. My opinion, of course.

This is the first of a trilogy but I don't know if I'll read them, to be honest I'm not that curious about the elements left unsolved here.

Grade: 5/10