Savage Girl
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“An over-the-top romp through 1870s America . . . compulsively readable.” —Oprah.com
Jean Zimmerman’s spectacular follow-up to The Orphanmaster has it all: Gilded Age romance, robber baron excess, detective story suspense, and a compelling female protagonist whom readers will fall in love with.
In 1875, the Delegates, an outlandishly wealthy Manhattan couple on a tour of the American West, seek out a sideshow attraction called “Savage Girl.” Her handlers avow that the wild, seemingly mute Bronwyn has been raised by wolves. Presented with the perfect blank slate to explore the power of civilized nurture, the Delegates take her back east to be introduced into high society. Cleaned up, Bronwyn is blazingly smart and darkly beautiful; as she takes steps toward her grand debut, a series of suitors find her irresistible—and begin to turn up murdered.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The prologue of Zimmerman's superior historical thriller will suck most readers in instantly. On the night of May 19, 1876, 22-year-old Hugo Delegate awaits the arrival of the police at a house overlooking Manhattan's Gramercy Park, the site of a savage murder committed by either him or a "girl murderess." Hugo soon reveals that the victim, a "longtime acquaintance and sometime friend," is but the latest in a series, and after his arrest, he presents the complex backstory to his defense attorney. Flashback to June 1875. Hugo, a Harvard student recently released from a sanatorium, accompanies his family on a cross-country trip. In Virginia City, Nev., he becomes fascinated with a sideshow freak, the so-called Savage Girl, allegedly raised by wolves. Hugo's parents decide to civilize the girl, and introduce her into society on their return to New York. Zimmerman (The Orphanmaster) keeps the truth hidden until the end, combining suspense with an unsettling look into a tormented mind.
