My Lord Savage wasn’t quite what I expected when I picked up the book. The cover touts it as a “Native American Romance,” which suggests either a book set in the 1880s west with a stoic, proud, chief hero – or a book set in Regency England featuring the half-breed offspring of a duke. My Lord Savage is set before either of these more common scenarios. It’s set in 1573, and the hero, Black Otter, is the first “savage” brought to England.

Black Otter, who is (of course) a proud chief of the Lenape tribe, is abducted from his Virginia homeland and brought to England as a scientific curiosity. Since his abduction predates the first attempt at permanent English settlement in the New World by more than a decade, it seems unlikely, but I was willing to go with that. Still, why not set it a decade or more later, since the change would have had no effect on the plot? Regardless, Black Otter is purchased by Sir Christopher Thornhill, who considers him just another unusual specimen. Sir Christopher plans to “break” Black Otter (like the savage he is), then study him. Sir Christopher’s daughter, Rowena, is appalled by Black Otter’s treatment. He had been shackled throughout the long ocean voyage, and fed very little. The night of Black Otter’s arrival, she sneaks down to the dungeon where he is housed and brings him a blanket and some bread. He ends up grabbing her through the bars – an experience that Rowena finds surprisingly arousing.

You can probably guess where much of this is heading. Rowena is a thirty-two year old virgin spinster who has never been tempted by matters of the flesh, but she is aroused every time she is near Black Otter, especially when he’s holding her at knife point, or threatening to choke her with his chains. But Black Otter eventually figures out the Rowena is his only real friend in this hell hole, and he knows where his bread is buttered. Meanwhile, Rowena’s father dies at the hand of her evil half uncle. Rowena begins to fear for her own life, but she is even more afraid for Black Otter, whom she is now calling “John Savage.” Black Otter/John Savage, who knows few English words when the book begins, learns English halfway through. He is mostly imprisoned or in hiding, but he and Rowena somehow find the time to fall in love. But how will they escape the evil clutches of Rowena’s half uncle? And if they do, will they be able to live happily ever after?

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? I’ll say this for My Lord Savage – it made me think quite a bit about what constitutes a happy ending, and what constitutes a good romantic romance. Is happily ever after what you want out of a romance, or is happy for the time being good enough for you? If happy for the time being works, you might enjoy this more than I did. The book ends with Black Otter standing in his homeland with his new wife, a chieftain once more. He knows white men will be coming, but he’s hopeful about the future. Since I actually knew what the future had in store for him and his people, I was a little less sanguine. In the short run, I hoped that he and his children from his first marriage had a good resistance to smallpox, and in the long term – well, the odds just weren’t that good for the poor guy.

This book is also one that will have you thinking about political correctness in romance. Sir Christopher calls Black Otter a savage and thinks the words he speaks are nothing more than incoherent babble. Rowena is much more concerned with his humanity, but she calls him a savage too. Obviously these people are a good four hundred years away from decent diversity training, and their viewpoint would have been correct for their time. One of the problems with Indian romances is that they face a Catch-22: If they portray treatment of Indians realistically, they tend to be horribly depressing, yet if they gloss over cultural differences and prejudices on both sides, they come across as unrealistic and too happy. This book has the first problem, and it’s just depressing as hell. It reminded me of an earlier book I reviewed which was set during the waning days of the whaling industry, Beyond the Sea by Mary Kingsley. It was more or less accurate for the time, but depressing or upsetting to a modern reader. My Lord Savage is the same.

While I appreciated the fact that the author took a wholly different tack on the Indian romance – and made me think a lot in the process – in the end this book received a poor grade because it was completely unromantic. Black Otter is in a dungeon or unable to speak English for the first half of the book, and separated from Rowena again for most of the last half. When a hero and heroine hardly spend any time together, it is pretty tough for love to blossom believably. This book centers more around the external struggles of the hero and heroine. Rowena must figure out how to thwart the evil uncle, and Black Otter just wants to escape and get home. Romance doesn’t just take a backseat; it doesn’t even have a seat. That’s why this book was ultimately a failure for me. If you’re a real fan of Indian romance (and you don’t need happily ever after to last forever) this might work better for you.