Lovely Wild

By Megan Hart

From New York Times bestselling author Megan Hart comes a haunting and insightful novel about a woman trying to find her place in the world…

Brought up in the savage captivity of her unstable grandmother's rural Pennsylvania home, Mari Calder once yearned for rescue. Now she struggles every day to function as an adult in the confines of normal society. Left with only a foggy recollection of her childhood, she's consumed with being a dutiful wife to her husband, Ryan, and mother to their two children.

But an unexpected twist of events returns her to that long-forgotten house in the woods. Soon, Mari is greeted with reminders of a past life, the clarified memories only inviting a new level of strangeness into her fragile world. To protect her family, she must find the beautiful, powerful strength hidden in her inner chaos. Because someone is bent on exploiting Mari's trauma, and as normal and wild begin to blend, a string of devastating truths force Mari to question all she thought she knew.

'Haunting, devastating, heart-wrenching.' – RT Book Reviews on Precious and Fragile Things

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781474007450

Megan Hart

Megan Hart is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than thirty novels, novellas and short stories. Her work has been published in almost every genre, including contemporary women’s fiction, historical romance, paranormal and erotica. Learn more at www.meganhart.com.

Reviews for Lovely Wild

[kbranfield-837433 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

4.5 stars.

Lovely Wild is an absolutely riveting and occasionally heart wrenching novel about a woman fully coming to terms with her long forgotten past. Once again, Megan Hart has crafted another unique and creative story about some of life's darker moments that beautifully demonstrates how remarkably resilient a person can be despite a traumatic and neglectful childhood.

Mari Calder is a devoted wife and stay at home mother who has a seemingly perfect life. She has an excellent relationship with her two children and a happy marriage. Mari is serene, placid and unflinchingly honest but she also has a few idiosyncrasies that stem from her very unorthodox early childhood. Her memories from that time in her life are quite hazy and Mari does not waste time trying to recapture those long ago moments. She instead focuses on the life she has now but unfortunately, current events will soon bring Mari face to face with the secrets of her past.

While Mari is an extremely likable and sympathetic heroine, her husband Ryan is not exactly hero material. A horrible lapse in judgment has jeopardized his career and his marriage, and his reaction to these problems is self-serving, selfish and exploitative. It soon becomes clear that Mari's past has left her blind to his faults, but as she becomes more self-aware, she also begins to recognize his less than desirable traits as well. Of course, Ryan is not all bad, but will Mari be able to overlook, and ultimately forgive, his betrayals?

The couple's children, fifteen year old Kendra and eight year old Ethan, are absolutely delightful. Ethan is blissfully self-involved with an endearing innocence that allows him to see what others sometimes overlook. Kendra is a typical teen in many ways, but she is also surprisingly mature. She is old enough to recognize that Mari is different than her friends' mothers and although some of her mom's behavior is a little bizarre, Kendra is very protective of her.

Lovely Wild is written in third person from alternating points of view. Mari's perspective is the most poignant and while watching her come face to face with her childhood is heartbreaking, she is strengthened by what she learns. Ryan's viewpoint shows him in a less than flattering light and it is very difficult to see him justify his reprehensible decisions. Kendra's view of the unfolding events is refreshing and realistic and she plays a vital role in the story's conclusion.

Lovely Wild is a mesmerizing psychological drama that is incredibly captivating and infinitely fascinating. Megan Hart has again created an incredible cast of characters that is flawed but likable and for the most part, redeemable. The storyline is thought-provoking and insightful with unexpected twists and turns. This extremely well-written novel slowly builds to a dramatic ending that will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.

[amy_j-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing! Lovely Wild was both original and heart warming. I was hooked from beginning to end. The more the story progressed, the more the story unfolded and left me wanting to learn more. And in the end, I was left completely satisfied with the way Megan Hart, the writer, wrapped things up.

[nightprose · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mari is a happily married, stay at home mother of two children. However, her own childhood is a mystery to many. In fact, Mari does not seem to remember much of her childhood. Her psychiatrist husband, Ryan, is one of the few who knows the complicated truth. It was his father who researched her after she was found as a feral child living with her grandmother, in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. Now, years later, Ryan and Mari are facing some marital difficulties. Self-serving Ryan delves into his father’s research to uncover more truths about his wife’s past. He intends to write a bestseller, in hopes of salvaging both his career and family finances. In order to research and write his book properly, he feels that he needs to move his family back to Mari’s childhood home. The facts of Mari’s childhood and life do come to light, with all of the horrific and traumatic truths. Megan Hart is the author of numerous books. Lovely Wild is a riveting, yet poignant novel. The author describes a backwoods childhood in deep poverty and dysfunction with clear eyes and heart. She writes of the trials of a contemporary marriage with equal clarity. Ultimately, Lovely Wild is a story that will draw you into its unique world, make you think, and stay with you after you close the book.

[msbaba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“Lovely Wild,” by Megan Hart, is a lovely, slow, haunting, and suspense-filled psychological mystery that will tear at your heartstrings. It kept my interest from beginning to end. I was fairly sure I’d figured out the mystery long before the big reveal, but that didn’t matter in the end. The story was still thoroughly engaging and emotionally satisfying…and the details were well worth reading it fully through to the book’s emotionally satisfying conclusion.The book focuses on the life of Mariposa Calder, Mari for short. When we first meet her, she is a loving, stay-at-home mom in her early thirties, with two children—Kendra, a 15-year-old daughter, and Ethan, an eight-year-old son. She’s a very good mother, but the children have always realized that there was something quiet different about their mother…something rooted in the mystery of her childhood. But Mari’s children are too young and interested in their own lives to want to know more.But Mari’s husband is just the opposite. Ryan is a man who makes his living as a clinical psychiatrist and has always known about Mari’s past…at least the outlines of it. It was Ryan’s father who made Mari the focal point of his psychiatric research up until his untimely death. Ryan’s father started studying Mari soon after she was rescued as a small child living under almost feral conditions in the backwoods of Pennsylvania with her grandmother. Now, Ryan desperately needs to know more about his wife’s early childhood. Using his father’s clinical notes, Ryan hopes to write a bestselling popular medical book about Mari. He needs to write that book to save his career and rescue the family’s finances.Because of the book, Ryan decides to move the family temporarily back into the home that Mari was rescued from as a child. The home has long since been transformed into a modern rental, but he and his wife have never visited it before. He wants to move there to gain the peace he requires to write his book. In addition, he hopes that being there will jog his wife’s memory about her childhood. As it is, she remembers precious little about those years.All this information sets the stage for the mystery of Mari’s past to unfold throughout the rest of the book. The plot reveals itself in a dramatic, slow, and haunting fashion. And there are lots of suspenseful moments. What we learn is heart-wrenching and at times, completely unexpected.If I there was one major problem that disturbed me about this novel, it was that I had a hard time believing the science behind the plot. This is not something that should bother most people. I am very unusual in the amount of knowledge I have in this area: I just plain know too much about feral children, psychiatry, psychiatric research, clinical psychiatrists, and other related topics. It was hard for me with all that knowledge to believe parts of his story.In summary, this is a very good novel by a writer who excels at inviting her readers into the emotional depths of her characters. I enjoyed it quiet a lot. I certainly recommend it to any reader who might be captivated by this unique plot.