Our October HEA Book Club pick was Unwanted by Mia Sheridan, the first book in the Men and Monsters series.
Going into Unwanted by Mia Sheridan, I was hoping for a strong romance with a little Jane and Tarzan energy, alongside a mystery that would keep me guessing. Mia delivered on both.
What I hadn’t quite prepared for was how much Jak’s story would hurt. I came for the romance and suspense, and ended up desperately wanting someone to give this boy a safe home, a full stomach and a reason to trust the world.
Previously published as Savaged, Unwanted is a romantic suspense novel set in Helena Springs, Montana. Wilderness guide Harper Ward is brought in to help with a double-murder investigation, where a man calling himself Lucas has become a suspect. He has spent years living in the wilderness, and Harper’s curiosity about him soon becomes something much more personal.
The first part of this review avoids major plot reveals. There is a clear warning before the spoiler discussion. Content note: the book includes child abuse and endangerment, violence, grief, and animal death.
The writing style was different from what I’m used to in romance. I usually read first-person narration, or third-person stories that stay with the two romantic leads. Unwanted uses third-person narration across multiple characters, taking us beyond Harper and Jak and into the investigation itself.
It gave the book a wider scope than a romance told only through the couple’s eyes. There were questions they couldn’t answer for themselves, and following other characters allowed the mystery to develop around them.
I thought the pacing worked well, too. There was enough movement in the present-day story to keep me curious, while the sections set in Jak’s childhood gradually revealed what he had endured. Those chapters became the ones I approached with the most dread.
I loved Harper and Jak’s immediate connection. I’ve generally enjoyed instant attraction and love-at-first-sight stories, so a quick spark isn’t something an author needs to apologise for on my account. What matters is whether I can believe there is something worth building on.
Here, the attraction comes with curiosity. They want to spend time together, understand each other and keep coming back for more. That made the connection work for me.
I did occasionally wonder whether Jak might have fallen for almost any attractive woman who showed him kindness. Given how sheltered and isolated he has been, it was a fair question. But the story gives us reasons to believe his feelings are specific to Harper. Another woman makes herself available to him, and he simply doesn’t respond in the same way. His thoughts keep returning to Harper.
Part of their connection comes from loneliness and shared trauma. That didn’t make it less convincing to me. They recognise something in each other, and there is comfort in being understood without having to explain every part of yourself.
I wanted them to be happy. I believed they really “got” each other, and that mattered more to me than whether their relationship developed according to an ideal timetable.
Jak was the character I cared about most. His circumstances make him compelling, but his curiosity and thirst for knowledge made me love him.
I enjoyed the way Harper sees him: she notices his intelligence and his desire to understand things. There is so much more to him than the assumptions people make about a man who has lived outside society.
Watching him encounter a wider world also raises a painful question: what might his life have looked like if someone had given him safety, encouragement and opportunities much earlier?
His ability to keep learning and reaching towards other people was one of my favourite parts of the book.
Major spoilers from here
The following sections discuss animal deaths, Jak’s childhood, character identities and major mystery reveals.
Pup and the childhood chapters broke my heart! I knew Pup was unlikely to have survived into the present-day timeline. I had already done the wolf-lifespan maths in my head. It did absolutely nothing to prepare me.
I cried when he died. I also cried earlier, when the other puppies were dying from the cold and their parents weren’t coming back. Those scenes were heartbreaking before I had even reached the loss I knew was coming.
Pup’s companionship made Jak’s isolation feel even more painful. When your world is that small, the presence of another living creature means so much.
Each return to Jak’s childhood had me bracing for another horrible thing to happen. The fight with the boy who had the broken leg was particularly awful. I had spent so much of the book wondering what had happened to the other children, and then all I wanted was to scoop both boys up and take them somewhere safe.
There was no satisfying victory to be found in that scene. There were children in unbearable circumstances, and adults who should have protected them.
What made it worse was discovering that Jak’s suffering had been deliberately engineered. He had endured all of this because someone had decided to put children through a sick training programme.
I struggled to understand how he hadn’t completely broken, especially once he learned that so much of his suffering had been avoidable. The fact that he could still be thoughtful, curious and capable of connection made him even more remarkable to me.
I usually have at least a theory about who is responsible in a mystery, and Unwanted gave me plenty to work with. Some of my assumptions were right. Others were very wrong.
I took it for granted that Jak and Lucas were the same person. It wasn’t until Sarah mentioned that she had wondered whether the childhood chapters might be the killer’s backstory that I realised I had made an assumption at all. That was an interesting reminder of how differently two people can read the same clues.
I also suspected Driscoll’s former colleague was involved. When Mark noticed his deep voice during their phone conversation, that felt like confirmation to me.
The fourth child, however, completely threw me.
I had convinced myself that the missing child might have escaped, grown up and returned to kill Driscoll for what he had done. It seemed like a plausible explanation, and I kept trying to fit that possibility into the present-day murders.
I did not see Harper’s identity as that child coming.
In hindsight, I could see how it fit. But while reading, I was so committed to looking for another boy that I missed the possibility in front of me. Her short hair and Jak’s childhood perception helped sustain an assumption I never properly questioned.
That was the reveal that caught me out, and I loved having to reconsider my theory.
For a while, I wondered whether Jak’s grandfather had helped finance the operation.
Driscoll had access to a substantial amount of land, and I questioned how he had afforded it. Then we met a wealthy grandfather who had disapproved of his son’s relationship and the baby, and my suspicious brain started joining dots.
Could he have invested in the scheme? Could it have been a way to get rid of a family situation he didn’t want?
That theory was wrong, but I enjoyed having enough uncertainty to entertain it. Even when I felt confident about one part of the mystery, there were other pieces I couldn’t quite place.
Unwanted delivered the romance and suspense I had hoped for, with a central character I became deeply attached to. I loved Jak and Harper’s connection, thought the pacing kept the story moving, and enjoyed having some of my theories confirmed while one major reveal slipped past me.
It was also an emotionally difficult read in places. The childhood chapters and animal deaths hit me hard, so those are worth knowing about before picking it up.
If you enjoy romantic suspense, immediate attraction and characters finding understanding after profound loneliness, there is a lot here to connect with.
For me, Jak was the heart of the book. I wanted to see him safe, loved and free to discover everything he had been denied.
Have you read Unwanted? Did you work out who the fourth child was, or were you looking for someone else too?
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