While closing up the final year of his grizzly bear research project, Aspen encounters a man who is as wild as the beasts he studies. An underlying sense of familiarity draws him in, and an insatiable attraction binds them together.
Can Aspen tame the mountain man and discover what makes him tick?
More importantly, can he unravel the mystery of Huxley’s distrust and convince him to go home?
Comment: I have seen good opinions on this author's work and that was the main reason I decided to try one of her books. After checking out her backlist, this was the title whose blurb caught my attention the most, so I took a chance on it.
In it we meet Aspen, who is a professor and investigator, when he suddenly joins a new team studying the bear population in a certain Canadian region of the mountains. One condition of the project is to not go into private properties or, when possible, having the authorization of the owners, so he is surprised when a house which was supposed to be empty shows signs of someone living there. That is how he finds out where Huxley is hiding, whom he can't help but try to help. Huxley is a man who suffers from a paranoid condition and when his husband was killed in front of him, he ran away and no one knew where he went. Coincidentally, Aspen was on the jury that convicted the culprit so he knows a little about Huxley's condition, but is he ready to really go the extra step to help him? What about the quick but strong attraction between them?
My first impression after a few pages was that the author was very competent in setting up the stage and in presenting the information. The narrative is told from both character's POV and they are very clearly different, and not only because of Huxley's condition. I think the story was fluid, engaging and apart from some situations close to the end, very appealing to read. Actually I preferred the section in which they meet in the mountains and interact there... when the plot switches to another location (it is obvious it had to be this way!) I wasn't as marveled.
I don't know much about the personality disorder Huxley suffers from and how exactly one would need to cope but I think the author investigated and this was explained competently throughout the novel. Obviously in these things each case is unique but this version of it on Huxley's character felt well researched. Mental health is popular now as a battle to fight for or to highlight awareness about it, but if there is one good thing about books or other forms of art is in how that can help inform people as well and I think the author did well in this regard... Especially since this is not a book about Huxley's condition alone, it's a romance and while his disorder was a huge part of his personality, it's not the only focus of the story.
The romance is globally positive for me. I liked how it started, how slowly it developed and how realistically is was shown after they reach a compromise. Change isn't easy to accept for the most part, we do like to be in control of ourselves and our circumstances, but Huxley's mind doesn't work that way, it's not that linear and in some moments he can't control it. This is a romance so things end up well and in what feels like a healthy place for both guys, but I have to wonder how really those around someone suffering any kind of mental health issue can truly cope... closer to the end this possibility started to play havoc between them and while believable, it did make the story feel less balanced.
Huxley is a complex character and not only for his condition. Apart from it, he has suffered trauma, he only has his mother as a support system and it's not easy for him to accept the need for clinical help. Bt besides this, he is quite confident in other areas and his feelings for Aspen seem so organically demonstrated that I was surprised. I had assumed the romance would be a bigger effort from Aspen than Huxley but no, Huxley was actually quite certain about what he wanted...
Aspen is a good guy, almost 40, loves biology and doing field work... we don't know much about his youth years, only that he is now happy with where his life led him. He is happy to help Huxley and their relationship seems sweet when seen from his POV but he isn't perfect and I think the author tried to show it when Aspen wasn't always perfectly patient and understanding about Huxley, even though it is a given he reacted and helped a lot more than the average person might. I feel conflicted, though, because I did admire he spoke for himself when he admitted he didn't do the best he could in a certain situation, but he wasn't a doormat either. On the other hand, this attitude made him seem a little unfair... again, I'd place this on the "competence" side of how to portray human nature... after all, no one is perfect.
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