Review - The Voice of Wild Places by Noah Hawthorne
The Voice of Wild Places
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Tags: Trans* Historical
Posted in Book Reviews on 26 July, 2026
Watt and Annie were best friends as children, when Watt and his well-to-do family spent summers on the Michigan shore where Annie lived. One day, when the friends were in their teens, Watt’s father forbade him from ever seeing Annie again. Watt’s family left and never returned. Years later, Watt is now an anthropologist. The wife of his mentor, who went missing in South America, asks Watt to undertake a mission to find her husband, and she wants him to help enlist the aid of an eminent archaeologist, Cornelius Sawyer. Watt instantly recognizes Cornelius as the person he knew as Annie. Cornelius harbors years of anger over what he thought was Watt’s abandonment of him after he revealed his secret, but agrees to undertake the expedition to South America.
This historical romance is set in the 1930s, a time when archaeology was in the public spotlight thanks to the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen. Much less visible were trans men and women, but of course they existed. While the challenges of being trans in a world that doesn’t acknowledge their existence is part of the backdrop of the story, it’s really the personal relationships that are at the forefront of the book.
The narration alternates between Watt and Cornelius. Despite outward appearances, Watt is a man with his own secrets. He seems to be one of those people that takes on a lot of responsibility, even for things out of his control. Watt blames himself for allowing his father to sever contact with his best friend, even though there was nothing the boy could do to stop it.
Cornelius is a brave, even courageous, man for his time. He seems to have had at least one mentor that helped him to navigate life as a man, but his achievements are entirely his own and quite remarkable. Cornelius’ stubbornness and irascibility are what got him to where he is, but it may also be that his personality was shaped by the events of his transition to adulthood.
“The Voice of Wild Places” is available from Smashwords or see Bookshop.org to purchase from an independent bookseller.