So Wild a Dream

by Leslie O'Grady

So Wild a dream (Onyx) [Paperback] This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451400992
• ISBN13: 9780451400994
• Release Date: October 1988
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 411 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Not a "trashy romance"

Although this book has the cover of a typical "trashy romance" novel, the story is actually more than that. Oh, yes, there are some smutty elements, but the plot is multi-layered, and the characters too. Fenella Considine, spinster daughter of the local doctor, is taken aback when Patrick Quinn enters her house one wild April night -- gaunt, sickly, almost ghostly thanks to four years of imprisonment. Patrick had been imprisoned for recklessly kidnapping the woman he loved. Now he's returned to his Irish home, the heir to his father's estate, but snubbed and derided by people who used to respect him, and he's as prickly as a bear about it, too. Fenella and Patrick actively dislike each other, at first -- she because she fears for anyone to find out her dread secret (she has second sight which comes on her when she least expects) and he because he considers Fenella a priggish spinster who is appalled by the ex-prisoner. There's also Patrick's ongoing love for the woman who betrayed him (who returns to the district when she's widowed) and another small matter: the terrorist activities of the Irish tenant farmers, who are suffering under high rents and poor harvests. This serious topic is given all the time it needs; the reader is provided with an unusual history lesson, but in the best possible way for a romance novel. In other words, the history doesn't slow the book (or the romance) down drastically; it's been written as an indelible part of the plot. I was surprised by the depth of this book -- and the fact that the characters felt so 'real'. Fenella, wary of people, and yes, somewhat priggish, is changed into a warm and vital woman due to her love for Patrick. Patrick is not admirable when he's obsessing over the woman he lost, and in his occasional jumping to conclusions about Fenella in the beginning. But as he changes and matures, he grows on me -- all the characters in this book grow on me. It was a very pleasant reading experience and quite unexpectedly good, since frankly, from the cover art, I was expecting a late '80's-type bodice-ripper.