Untamed : The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island

Cumberland Island, off the coast of Georgia, is the largest barrier island in the United States and one of the most biodiverse places in the world. Celebrated for its windswept dunes, sea turtles, and wild horses, the island is also famous for its human inhabitants. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie owned much of Cumberland, and his widow Lucy turned it into a Gilded Age playground. Generations later, when Carnegie heirs tried to turn the island into a lavish resort or a national park with millions of annual visitors, another island matriarch, and by far the most unusual, had her say.

Carol Ruckdeschel is one of the wildest women in America. She eats road kill, wrestles alligators, and dissects giant sea turtles—more than any other scientist, ever. She lives in a ramshackle cabin she built herself and is a whiskey-drinking, bareback-riding, modern-day Thoreau, who also happens to have shot and killed a man in self-defense. With only a high school diploma, Carol knows more about sea turtles than most marine biologists, and she wasn’t about to let Cumberland slip away. Untamed is the story of an American original standing her ground and fighting for what she believes in, no matter the cost.