Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2014
416 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
Jean Zimmerman's new novel tells of the dramatic events that transpire when an alluring, blazingly smart eighteen-year-old girl named Bronwyn, reputedly raised by wolves in the wilds of Nevada, is adopted in 1875 by the Delegates, an outlandishly wealthy Manhattan couple, and taken back East to be civilized and introduced into high society.
Bronwyn hits the highly mannered world of Edith Wharton-era Manhattan like a bomb. A series of suitors, both young and old, find her irresistible, but the willful girl's illicit lovers begin to turn up murdered.
Zimmerman's tale is narrated by the Delegate's son, a Harvard anatomy student. The tormented, self-dramatizing Hugo Delegate speaks from a prison cell where he is prepared to take the fall for his beloved Savage Girl. This narrative - a love story and a mystery with a powerful sense of fable - is his confession.
"Starred Review. [Zimmerman] keeps the truth hidden until the end, combining suspense with an unsettling look into a tormented mind." - Publishers Weekly
"This is best for fans of Zimmerman's first novel and readers who like their historical novels tinged with darkness." - Library Journal
"A richly detailed 19th-century murder mystery and a fresh gloss on the Pygmalion fable, all in one. The story, narrated by a man who may or may not be a serial killer, compels you to keep turning the pages all the way to its shocking – and satisfying – end." - Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train
"Filled with fascinating and unexpected details, this absorbing tale will draw you deep into the lives of its engrossing characters as it lures you to its startling end." - Koethi Zan, author of The Never List
This information about Savage Girl was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jean Zimmerman is the author The Orphanmaster and several works of nonfiction, including Love Fiercely, a portrait of an iconic couple of Gilded Age Manhattan, and The Women of the House. Born in Tarrytown, New York, she is a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University School of the Arts. She lives in Ossining, New York.
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