This request comes from Todd, and I'm not entirely sure this is a romance, as it sounds more like historical fiction, but it's AMAZING:
I read this several years ago and while I don't know if I'll read it again, I'd love to know what it was.
Basic story: Heroine was on a trip to Africa with her father (titled gentleman) and her mother (not his wife). She got separated from the group. They searched high and low … but obviously not in the right places. Assuming she'd been abandoned in the wilderness, the heroine was taken in by a pack of wild dogs and lived with them until she was in her teens.
At that time, she decided it was time to go back to being human and got returned to England, where she's made the ward of some gentleman (our hero). There's a lot of back and forth as she re-integrates into human – upper-class English – life. There are also plot points with her father (who may have died recently … or be dying). He had been an impoverished titled gentleman, so after he and the heroine's mother returned from Africa, he married an heiress — who's a bitch (metaphorically, not literally, like the heroine's foster mother). There are two sons, obviously younger than the heroine.
Much danger, plotting, etc., until it comes out that – surprise! – the titled gentleman HAD married the heroine's mother so she's legitimate (but still … raised by dogs) and his sons are not legitimate, cannot inherit his title, and the evil not!wife is thwarted. I also have a vague memory that somehow the heroine's father managed to leave a will in which she was left all his money … most of which came from the not!wife's.
I'd appreciate any help on this … I've been trying to remember the author's name, the book … anything. I'm good with plots but lousy with names.
Are there a few romances where the heroine is raised by wild dogs? Why dogs? How about giraffes? Are there any heroines raised by giraffes? WAIT. How do we not have were-giraffes yet?!
Anyway. Do you recognize this book?
Madeleine Brent? Golden Urchin?
Raised by wild dogs rings a bell (and not only Mowgli) but I don’t think I read this book. Perhaps something in Australia? Can’t remember.
As for the rest I’ve just requested a were-shark book on Netgalley, but I’d so love to see a were-giraffe!
I’ve read this!! And I can’t remember what is either! *sobs*
Sounds like Fairest of Them All by Josette Browning.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Fairest+of+them+All+Josette+Browning
If you’d like one where the hero is the lost one “Wild” by Margo Maguire
http://www.paperbackswap.com/Wild-Margo-Maguire/book/0061667870/
Another not the book you’re looking for, but similar theme, is Patricia Gaffney’s Wild At Heart, with a hero raised by wolves
No, it’s not “Fairest of Them All” – there’s a man who becomes her guardian and re-civilizes her and they fall in love, but she’d been old enough that she wasn’t completely feral and, if I remember correctly, came back out of the wild voluntarily.
There’s also a short story I read years ago called “Tarzan of the Grapes” – Jane’s a student at Berkeley; it’s in a collection called “Mother Was a Lovely Beast”.
I have much love for this line.
I know it’s not Golden Urchin, but that was all I could think of.
Dingos raised my baby?
I defo want to read this beauty… !
I will confess to having started a short story in which the main characters are were-elk.
Excerpt:
“My ex-girlfriend told me I was just fooling myself. ‘It’s psychosomatic,’ she told me. ‘You want freedom, so you project yourself into the mindset of something wild and dangerous and free.’ I might have believed her before then, but a moose? It’s not like I’m Canadian, why would I use a moose to symbolize the wild and free? And what, I just convinced myself that there were grass stains on the pillowcases after the full moon, and the neighbor’s vegetable garden just disappeared coincidentally?”
“She really said all of that?”
He nodded. “She was a psych grad student.”
Another not-the-book-you’re-looking-for: in 1987 Mills and Boon published a historical (set in New Mexico) by Janet Edmonds called Wolf Girl.
I’m sure at one point the eponymous wolf girl is displayed naked in a cage, and fed raw meat, as a sort of sideshow. The sight is only deemed suitable for men.
This (otherwise) free and feral existence somehow turns into her being a proper young woman raised in a (Spanish influenced?) culture of being chaperoned at all times, and the hero being exceedingly Alpha and only considering the most sheltered and innocent women as suitable brides.
At least that’s what I remember from reading it a few years ago.
P.S. I’m impressed at the number of wild-animal-raised heroes/heroines already in the comments!
Hi,
Could this be Kala? Tale of a girl lost on African safari with some kind of diamond connection and then raised by hyenas…? I can’t quite recollect the plot since I read it when I was a teenager…sorry.
http://www.abebooks.com/Kala-Luard-Nicholas-Random-Century-Group/849851259/bd
Cheers,
P
Wow, I’ve got nothing.
Some close suggestions “Sweet Paradise” by Terri Valentine and “No Brighter Dream” by Katherine Kingsley
There’s also a series by Wilbur Smith about a family setting up a life/ranch in Africa.
Was any of it actually set in Africa? Or was that just the back story and it was all focused on life in England and teaching her how to be a lady?
It wasn’t Kala.
Some of the backstory was set in Africa – there was a bit about her getting separated from her parents and assuming they’d abandoned her so she’d go live with the wild dogs. No African people, that I remember.