A Review of Untamed, by Pamela Clare

Untamed is a thrilling and steamy historical romance that has my heart still pounding. Pamela Clare is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors as I read my way through her work. The books in this trilogy can be read as stand-alones, so don’t think you need to read the others before this, unless you want to experience the MacKinnon brothers’ story unfolding in chronological order, in which case, start with Surrender.

Setting

Fort Carillon, New York Colony, by Lake Champlain, 1759.

Main Characters

Morgan MacKinnon and his rangers are feared and hated by the French and their allies, and are the deadliest weapon of the British, whom they are forced to serve. Morgan fights to protect his brothers and his men, and will not betray them, even to serve with fellow Catholics and traditional Scottish allies, the French.

Amalie Chauvenet was raised in a convent after the death of her Abanaki mother but has come to Fort Carillon to nurse her father back to health. Her father is a French officer who loves her dearly, and she finds joy his presence and away from the convent. But that joy is cut off when he is killed by MacKinnon’s rangers in the first British attack on the fort.

Romance

Morgan is shot saving his men in a raid, and is brought into the fort as a great prize. Amalie helps nurse him back to health, despite him very likely being the man who killed her father. She is torn between the horror of his reputation and the reality of his thoroughly honorable behavior toward her.

Morgan knows he is a dead man if he does not escape, but he cannot live with himself if he implicates Amalie in any way. She has risked herself to keep him safe, even though they both know he is being healed only to be tortured and killed in a far more brutal manner.

She uses all her powers to persuade her guardian, the commander of the fort, to spare him, but that will mean Morgan would have to turn against his own men. He cannot betray her, and he cannot betray them, and most of all, he cannot succumb to the temptation of teaching her what true passion is, only to leave her.

Plot

Capturing Morgan MacKinnon is coup for the commander of Fort Carillon. When he has finished getting every bit of information about the rangers he can from him, he will turn Morgan over to France’s Abenaki allies to be burned to death in retribution for attacks on their village.

But his ward’s intriguing suggestion of turning Morgan to fight for the French is far more appealing. No fool, he tests Morgan again and again to see if he can trust the man. If he makes the wrong move, it could shift the balance of the war.

Historical Worldbuilding

Pamela Clare brings the gritty details of the Seven Years War to life so that you feel you have been dropped right into the midst of it. You can see the dingy room in the hospital where Morgan is shackled to his bed as Amalie helps heal him, Amalie’s lace fichu that she gives Morgan to use as a shroud for a friend, Morgan’s beaded arm bands that he wears even under his most formal clothing.

Clare weaves Morgan and Amalie’s story into the true history of the war seamlessly, and she illuminates just how fraught the choices were for those who fought it. Amalie’s experience of the British attack on the fort, in the first chapter of the book, sucks you right into the moment and Clare never lets you go.

Tropes

This is another classic protector romance, as all the books in this trilogy are. Morgan and Amalie are very much opposites in character, so we have the opposites attract trope. They are also star-crossed lovers from warring nations, and Amalie is a convent raised virgin, initiated into the world of sensuality by the far more experienced Morgan. That can be a difficult trope to pull off well in a gritty novel, but Clare handles it with expert care.

Secondary Characters

The commander of the fort is a deeply drawn character with moral dilemmas to face with honor, and practicality and idealism constantly doing battle within him. Lord Wentworth, Morgan’s commander, returns in all his complicated villainy, and Morgan’s brothers and men, well, if you don’t love them, I have no words.

Point of View

The story primarily alternates between Morgan’s and Amalie’s points of view, with Wentworth having a few of his own point of view scenes scattered throughout.

In Summary

• This is an angsty, passionate romance, with all sorts of life-and-death adventure. My heart is still pounding, and I can’t wait to read the final book in the trilogy. So good!
• It is a historical romance set in and around Fort Carillon (which the British renamed Fort Ticonderoga) on Lake Champlain. It takes place in 1759 during the Seven Years War, also known as the French and Indian War.
• The main characters are conflicted and passionate, and sacrifice deeply for each other.
• The history is superb, and Clare weaves in the intricacies of French, British, Scottish, and Native American interests and convictions. She brings this period to life so we can experience it on a visceral level.
• The tropes are protector, forbidden love, convent-raised heroine, and opposites attract.
• The heat level is about a three out five, and bedroom scenes are steamy and central to the story and the characters’ growth.
• This story, like the first in the trilogy, takes place during a brutal frontier war, and that is accurately, but not gratuitously, portrayed. There is attempted sexual violence, but again, the scene is not gratuitous in any way, nor is it long.

Can I have some more, please?

Do you love books like these, too? Please continue to let me know about historical romances set in the Americas that you enjoy! I am reader, too, and I would love to hear about them and also share them with others!

Do you also love military historical romance set in American history? My next novel, Pasion’s Duty, is set in 1755, at the start of the same war that this trilogy brings to life. Sign up for my newsletter for updates on its release this spring and to know when I post reviews of more historical romances set in the Americas! Be sure to check your spam folder if you don’t see the confirmation email, since legislation requires that you confirm your email before I can start sending you my newsletter.

Map of Fort Ticonderoga (then known as Fort Carillon), by Thomas Jeffreys. Image in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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