The Beautiful and the Wild by Peggy Townsend – a Review

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Description:
It’s summer in Alaska and the light surrounding the shipping-container-turned-storage shed where Liv Russo is being held prisoner is fuzzy and gray. Around her is thick forest and jagged mountains. In front of her, across a clearing, is a low-slung cabin with a single window that spills a wash of yellow light onto bare ground. Illuminated in that light is the father of her child, a man she once loved. A man who is now her jailor. Liv vows to do anything to escape.  

Carrying her own secrets and a fierce need to protect her young son, Liv must navigate a new world where extreme weather, starvation, and dangerous wildlife are not the only threats she faces. With winter’s arrival imminent, she knows she must reckon with her past and the choices that brought her to the unforgiving Alaskan landscape if she is ever going to make it out alive.

A story of survival in the wilds of Alaska, The Beautiful and the Wild explores the question of whether we can ever truly know the person we love—or ourselves.

Review:

The Beautiful and the Wild by Peggy Townsend is a standalone thriller.  We meet Liv Russo, at the start, when she finds herself being locked up in a storage container, by her supposed dead husband. The story takes place in Alaska, with POV’s in current time and in the past. Liv had thought her husband committed suicide jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge a few years ago.  With her financials dwindling, she gets a lead that her husband (Mark) is still alive in Alaska, and takes her young son, Xander to leave California and find him.

Liv eventually finds Mark alive, in a remote cabin, within a wilderness area of forest and mountains; and he has a mistress.  Mark at first is happy to see Liv, especially Xander; but when Liv threatens to leave with Xander, and get a divorce; he then locks her up in the storage container.   Liv is determined to find a way to escape, though she knows she needs to convince Mark and Angela (mistress) that she will work with them living off the land and free love. Mark wants her to conform to his needs (sexual) and wishes. A bit later on, another woman (Diana, who has another son, Rudy) returns, bringing Mark having three women to fill his needs and do chores.  I will say that the first half of the book was a bit slow, and redundant in Liv’s trying to find a way to escape.

Part of the POV in the past, revolves around Liv and the life she lived with her mother and father; as well as her spending time in jail, upon the death of the mother and father. We do see many flashbacks during that time, and the trauma Liv suffered. Mark is also hiding from someone who he owes money too.

What follows is a wild time for Liv, pretending she is happy to live in the wilderness, and help with all the chores, including setting traps for animals/fish, gardening; in the extreme Alaska weather and dangerous wildlife.   As we reach the last quarter of the book, the story does get more exciting, with Liv getting surprising help from Rudy, to find what she needs (car keys, car, phone). But can she escape Mark and Angela, who will do anything to stop her, especially Xander?

The Beautiful and the Wild was an interesting story line, though slow and redundant through more than half the book, which also made it a bit depressing early on. But I did like the last quarter of the book, which had a very good and exciting ending. The Beautiful and the Wild was well written by Peggy Townsend.

Reviewed by Barb

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