Savage Whispers

Savage Whispers is a historical romance by Cassie Edwards, published in 1989 by Berkley. It is one of a large number of romances written in this period in which the central couple are divided by the frontier conflict of the setting.

The plot begins with an imprisonment. Marilla is the daughter of the post commander, and the man she wants is being held by the garrison, which makes her attachment a matter of loyalty as well as desire. The novel places her on the wrong side of her own family's expectations, and the stakes it uses are the ones the genre attached to such choices at the time, including the risk of disgrace.

A modern reader will notice the conventions the book works with, including its title and the way it presents a Native American character as both captive and romantic lead, and the record preserves those conventions rather than tidying them. Berkley published this kind of historical romance in large quantities in the late 1980s, and the imprint's lists were dominated by exactly this frontier material. The title and the cover material of the period are part of what the book is, and the copy presents the pairing of the lieutenant's daughter with his prisoner as the whole of the attraction.