Overall Grade: A
Tropes: sports romance; Vegas marriage; fake relationship; hurt/comfort
Karla Sorensen’s This Wild Heart serves as the poignant finale to her Wilder Family series, masterfully weaving together themes of grief, love, and healing. As Brittainy Cherry writes in The Problem with Falling, “[d]eath was the only life guarantee that humans had. We weren’t promised riches and fortune, or fame, love, or success, yet we were all promised a final chapter.” This sentiment echoes throughout Sorensen’s series, which is shadowed by the impending death of the Wilder family patriarch, Tim.
While each of Sorensen’s books explores how different siblings process their father’s terminal cancer, This Wild Heart focuses on Parker, the second-youngest Wilder child, who copes through avoidance. His struggle with grief forms the emotional core of this story, demonstrating Sorensen’s skill in portraying the varied ways people confront loss and how it shapes their journey toward love.
The novel gains additional depth through its connection to Sorensen’s Washington Wolves series. The female lead, Anya Hennessey, is the daughter of Aiden Hennessey and Isabel Ward from Forbidden in the Ward Sisters series. Anya proves to be the perfect match for Parker, possessing the emotional intelligence needed to help him confront his grief. Their story unfolds through compelling plot elements—a public breakup, an unexpected fake marriage, and the challenge of breaking through Parker’s emotional walls.
This Wild Heart showcases Sorensen’s greatest strengths as a writer: her nuanced understanding of human nature and her ability to craft emotionally resonant stories. As the final installment in the Wilder Family series, it delivers a satisfying conclusion while promising readers that Sorensen’s gift for creating impeccably written romances will continue in future works.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 