Dates read: March 18-22
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Genre: Contemporary Romance
!!!!Please note there may be spoilers!!!!
Last night I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this book. I was participating in the 24 hour reading party hosted by Sabine and Leonie. If you don’t already know Wild at Heart is the sequel to The Simple Wild, which came out in 2018. Let’s just say I was super excited for this book and was so happy to finally read more about Jonah and Calla and their life in Alaska. I had originally pre-ordered the book for my kindle, but then received a notification on Goodreads to enter into a giveaway for a physical copy of the book and was picked! I shrieked when I found out and even more so when it finally arrived.
Synopsis:
Wild at Heart picks right up from where The Simple Wild ended. Jonah has surprised Calla in Toronto and has asked her to come back with him to Alaska and she says yes! Now the two of them need to figure out where they are going to live, what they are going to do and how they will survive together both in their relationship and in the wild.
Both Jonah and Calla learn very quickly that in their relationship there has to be equal say in things, compromise is essential and sometimes loving someone isn’t the only thing that will make a relationship survive.
Jonah begins a new job and is away more and more from home. Calla begins to feel secluded and alone without Jonah. She begins to realize that maybe she isn’t meant to be in Alaska like her mother wasn’t. Even though she can’t live without Jonah, is she strong enough to overcome the hardships that come with living in the wild?
My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book and couldn’t get enough of the story or the characters. K.A. Tucker is fantastic at character development, making you feel as though these characters are actual people. Throughout my read I felt as though these two people where close friends of mine. Their dynamic, sense of humor and sarcasm made them feel very real and I annoyed my boyfriend with all the quotes and passages I would read to him, like the one below.
“I’ll have the bison burger and the pale ale on tap.” Jonah folds the lodge’s menu and hands it back to Chris. “And Calla will have a steak knife to drag across my jugular.”
The beautiful Alaskan landscape that KA Tucker describes had me wanting to go and visit. Granted, visit maybe not live, because like Calla I do think that the lifestyle can be rough for most. I loved reading about the difficulties that Calla went through moving to Alaska and learning to live and love it there, but I will admit that this took up most of the book and felt like the last 70 pages were rushed to fill in other things to happen, like Jonah crashing and how Calla deals with it. I just think that if that was going to be included then maybe make it a bit longer than a page or so at the end. It felt too predictable to me.
The new characters we are introduced to were some of my favorites. I loved Muriel and Roy. I think that they were perfect additions to Calla’s journey and growth in Alaska and pushed her in ways she didn’t always like. Muriel is the born and raised Alaskan who is set to transform Calla into herself. Roy on the other hand is the grumpy and stubborn neighbor whose “bark is worse than his bite.” I have soft spots for both of these characters and made me love the relationship they develop with Calla.
“I also sensed the tectonic shift somewhere deep inside – my time in Alaska had changed me in ways I couldn’t pinpoint but also couldn’t ignore. Who I was and who I am now seem like two different people.”
Overall a great read, but one that took me far longer to finish that the first one did, and as much as I love Calla and Jonah I think the first book was my favorite and better than this second one. Even with that said, I am so happy for this sequel that KA Tucker wrote, but would have been okay if it had stayed a standalone.
Coffee, Crumbs & Books 