Le spietate

by Claudia Cravens, Serena Daniele (Translator)

Arkansas, 1877. Bridget Shaughnessy ha sedici anni e deve badare a suo padre, buono ma incapace, troppo spesso ubriaco. Quando l’uomo muore per un morso di serpente, Bridget capisce di dover contare solo su se stessa: dopo una marcia estenuante, arriva a Dodge City a dorso di mulo e senza un soldo, ma i suoi capelli rossi e l’aria dolce e spavalda da ragazza di campagna attirano l’attenzione di Lila, maîtresse del Buffalo Queen, l’unico saloon in città gestito da due donne. Bridget sente di avere finalmente una casa: stringe amicizia con le sue compagne, soprattutto con Constance, e accetta la corte del vicesceriffo di Dodge City, Jim Bonnie. L’arrivo di Spartan Lee, leggendaria pistolera, getta però lo scompiglio nel cuore di Bridget, che si allontana da Jim proprio nel momento in cui il saloon e le ragazze hanno bisogno della massima protezione da una banda di pericolosi avventurieri.

In questo esordio travolgente, Claudia Cravens racconta il western attraverso lo sguardo di una ragazza che diventa donna ribaltando ogni convenzione, e scopre se stessa seguendo con candore e ironia i moti del cuore. Le spietate infonde nuova vita al mito della frontiera e, strizzando l’occhio al grande cinema, racconta una storia di riscatto, di libertà e di amore.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Westerns, Queer, LGBT, Historical, Lesbian

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 2023

Reviews

[Shelley Parker-Chan]

Oh, this one is an absolute banger. This is the sapphic whores and gunslingers I didn’t know I needed. I haven’t read a western in ages that’s felt so fresh and alive and seized with the need for freedom of the self. (Perhaps the nearest I’ve read would be Lila Bowen’s brilliant Wake of Vultures, which is a more fantastic take on the queer western). I knew nothing about the story going in, so it took me wildly (and delightedly) by surprise with every glorious turn. The way I screamed at that second act mic drop! And Bridget’s interiority and growth is so beautifully and powerfully depicted—I was beyond invested (in her, but all the whores! I would die for Constance), especially as the book galloped towards that explosive finale. And the jacket copy is right: it’s a cinematic as hell, particularly in the sense of producing that feeling of rapt immersion. I had such a good time.

[Melissa ~ Bantering Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m going with four stars for Lucky Red, but I’m being a tiny bit generous. It’s a debut novel, and as is typical of most debuts, Claudia Cravens makes a few rookie mistakes in it. Her mistakes didn’t stop me from enjoying myself, though, so four stars feels better than three stars, I guess.

What I wish Cravens would’ve done a bit differently is speed up Bridget’s transformation from 1877 Dodge City brothel whore to gunslinger. Most of the novel is set inside the walls of the brothel, dwelling in its mundane daily happenings, and it isn’t until the very end that we see some female gunslinging action.

The static nature of the story, however, does allow for a nice amount of character development which is beneficial when we examine Bridget’s sexual experiences at the brothel and her path to realizing she’s attracted to women. But it’s also another misstep in a way because I felt like I knew the character so well, and based upon the love story that came before it, I just couldn’t believe Bridget would do what she does at the very end. Spartan Lee, yes, but Bridget, no.

To be clear: I still really liked this debut. I will be the first in line for Cravens’s second book.


My sincerest appreciation to Claudia Cravens, The Dial Press, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

[Alexis Hall]

Source of book: NG
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.

***

Welp. This was perfect. 10/10. No notes.

See you next review.

Okay, okay. I guess I’ll say a bit more than that. I would describe Lucky Red as a queer, subversive, western-themed bildungsroman, written with a tremendous amount of heart and flair.

What, you still want more?

I guess if I had anything to criticise, and honestly, it’s not really a criticise is that the packaging of the book made me think there’d be more gunslinging on the part of the heroine. After all, she does introduce herself like this:

… though I ended up a pretty girl in boy’s clothes, mounted like a woman and armed like a man, I started much smaller and simpler, and mostly alone.

But I guess the clue is right there in “ended up.” This is Bridget’s journey towards that future. And I think as long as you’re on board with that, you’re in for one hell of a ride. I’ve seen some reviews that are a little impatient with the fact that the book mostly deals with Bridget’s life at the Buffalo Queen, before Spartan Lee turns up, but … I mean. I’m not saying they’re wrong. We get to feel however we feel, and be impatient with whatever we want. But I think it misses the scope and intent of the book. Like Mary Doria Russell’s Doc (another of my favourite books, btw), Lucky Red is using the genre exteriority of the western to explore the interiority of its central character. By the time Lucky Red was reaching its pay off-- three whores riding proudly out to deal with a gang of ruffians who done them wrong--it felt incredibly earned. Not because it was trope, not because I was expecting it or waiting for it (since it’s set up from the beginning and thus not much of a spoiler here) because of everything that had gone before.

Because I loved those three whores with my whole damn heart.

Okay, so. In basic terms, our heroine Bridget is the daughter of a shiftless wastrel, who dies of an unlucky snakebite, leaving his sixteen year old daughter alone and unprotected in the middle of the Kansas prairie. Finding her way, mostly by luck and a little bit of judgement, to Dodge City, she is essentially taken in one of the proprietors of the Buffalo Kate, a mid-tier brothel. Expect found family, queer awakenings, a whole host of flawed characters doing their best and their worst, tragedy, betrayal, and a heroine who does, eventually, grow the fuck up.

I realise that’s a rather harsh way to write about Bridget. But she is sixteen when the book opens, and, having lived a rough life, always on the edge of disaster, she herself does not understand quite how she is. She’s short-sighted, selfish, impulsive, the list goes on. But she’s also unbelievably endearing, far more vulnerable than she realises, and I rooted for her every single second. Even when she’s fucking up. Probably especially then. Because while she makes some pretty major mistakes, with far reaching consequences for the people around her, there’s also an extent to which (and she herself does reflect on this, from her own future) she should not have been put in a position to make those mistakes by the older people around her--who even when they treat her with kindness, and this goes equally for Kate and Lila the brothel keepers, as well as the deputy sheriff who wants to marry her, are for more preoccupied with what they can get from her, than what she might want for herself.

There was also something deeply fascinating to me about reading a western story set almost entirely within the world of women, and contemplating how static their world was. I think I’ve always tended to associate the western genre with change, with activity, and with journey--even stories connected explicitly to a place, like Deadwood, because they tend to centre on that place during a time of intense transformation. But it’s inescapable that the agency required to participate in change--to go on journeys, to be free in that way--is mostly and almost exclusively granted to men. The women of the Buffalo Queen, by contrast, spend their lives waiting for the men who drift in and out, and up the stairs. It kind of reminded me, of all things, from this passage from Persuasion, where Anne Elliott is discussing the nature of women’s lives with Captain Harville:

“We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions.”

Because, ultimately, I do think Lucky Red is an exploration of freedom, and how different women go about seeking it, for better of worse, within a world that constrains them. Not all answers are necessarily good--Sallie has dreams that drift into delusions that sour into spite and cruelty, and Kate lives in a benign, distracted opium haze. But Constance has her books and Lila has the Buffalo Queen. And Bridget … oh Bridget, you loveable hot mess … she learns to make choices. And I do think it’s important that Lucky Red hinges on choice above all else. About finding choices when everything around you seems to be trying to take them away from you. That strapping on a gun and entering the male-coded archetype of the wanderer isn’t the only way. But that if you want it to be your way, you have as much right to it as anyone.

The other reason to fall in love with Bridget, I think, is her narrative voice. The style of Lucky Red was, for me, pitch perfect, allowing Bridget the perfect combination of cynicism and naivety, along with this … I don’t know what to call it … rough poetic emotiveness? And this extends from throwaway lines so arrestingly perfect in their use of language that they literally arrested me (for example, when she describes a character as having picked “up my heart and [put] it in her pocket with all the careless ease of a matchbook”) from moments that this that took my breath away:

The changes that the wind brought to the sky were some of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Great, billowing clouds that seemed as though nothing could ever induce them to move would be suddenly swept aside, pulled carelessly across the sky like a gambler raking in his winnings.

In case I haven’t made it obvious enough, I adored this book. Absolutely adored it. To the extent it’s quite hard to talk about because I don’t want to spoil it and all I have to say is, it’s brilliant, it’s perfect, as long you’re into what it’s doing, you will love it.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favorite queer Western so far. Often they approach the genre with our protagonist as outlaw but LUCKY RED takes a more realistic approach: if your protagonist is a woman on her own she will likely end up in a whorehouse.

And this is an excellent decision because it really lets us dive in to that world and see how this life is more easy and more free than most women's but imposes its own different set of limits and restrictions. It shows us a lot about how women had to live at the time, and the strange world of being a whore, where your job is to be attractive and interested and put men at ease.

This is where we spend most of the book and I wasn't at all sad about that. It lets this whole world build up for Bridget and those around her. Much of the book is Bridget not understanding how things work, doing what she thinks is best and accidentally throwing off the balance of this little world. And it is during this time that she learns that she's gay, that sex opens up for her after doing so much of it and not taking any pleasure from it.

I could have just breezed along following Bridget through all kinds of moderate stakes stories but don't worry, this is a book that knows when and how to raise the stakes. It took a whole turn in a way I didn't expect and that was one of those perfectly satisfying plot twists that was perfectly executed.

[LesbianBarista · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kicking off pride month with one hell of a book that now holds a very dear place in my heart.

To say this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2023 is vastly underselling how excited I am, was, continue to be, for this book. Queer Westerns aren't something I see very often, as a matter of fact the only other Queer Western I'd read up until this point was Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp which was more in the fantasy vein of it.

Lucky Red falls more into what could be considered a true western: a character down on their luck that makes a name for themselves, falls in love, and get some revenge. Westerns were always something that intrigued me, from books, to movies, to shows, but I could never truly enjoy it. And, being honest here, a lot of the western classics are not made for women (or at least not with them in mind), and especially not for sapphic women, who envisioned themselves in that hard won role, as the gunslinger, getting the girl.

And it's funny to have it so skewed this way, considering how queer the wild west was.

But tangent aside, this book plucked all the right strings for me and was refreshing as it did so. Lucky Red set the Wild West genre down exactly where it needs to be. It's queer, features a main character who is in sex work and does not actively shame her, and is actually friends with the women she works beside. Not to mention seeing Bridget slowly realize the hand she's been dealt in life, the hardships she's faced due to her gender, the desire to freedom, burned a hole in my chest.

I wanted Bridget to be free, too, even as she tripped and stumbled and burned a few bridges along the way. I loved all of the character, even if they weren't as fleshed out as I would've liked them to be, I just like when the background characters are richer, but that falls on personal taste and not on the skill of Cravens' writing ability. Which is stellar, by the way.

I found myself falling in love with Spartan Lee, right beside Bridget. The skillful writing and pure SAPPHIC essence that was carried throughout each of their interactions, the beauty and skill that it takes to really encapsulate exactly what it's like to be taken by storm by another woman. Ugh. I hate that I loved it so much.

And the end! Oh! The end... chef's kisses all around.

Anything else Cravens decides to write, I eagerly await. Her skilled way of writing complex queer women will have eating out of the palm of her hand for a while. A talented and stunning debut!

**Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book & Random House Publishing for sending a copy to Copperfield's Petaluma in exchange for a fair and honest review.**

[Lola ϟ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mi dispiace distruggere così l'esordio di un'autrice, perché so quanto sia difficile farsi strada in un mondo dove già tutto esiste, specialmente con i libri. Ma quando la quarta di copertina cita «un romanzo di frontiera che racconta splendidamente il sex work e l'identità queer» io mi aspetto di trovare quanto promesso al suo interno e non il vuoto cosmico.

Partiamo dal presupposto che una storia ambientata nel far west - o simili - deve farmi respirare l'aria di prateria, maiali e cavalli a ogni pagina, non basta parlare di qualche pistola e cowboy per render viva l'ambientazione. Dodget City, il luogo in cui avvengono le vicende, potrebbe trovarsi ovunque e in qualsiasi momento e non avrebbe importanza, dato che non viene quasi mai accennato il setting che dovrebbe fare da scenografia madre, oltre il saloon.

Raccontare "splendidamente il sex work" in che modo? L'unica cosa che sappiamo è che Bridget, la protagonista, si ritrova a fare la prostituta per mancanza di soldi e un tetto sotto cui vivere. Sin dal primo istante quando viene violentata (mi dispiace ma quella era una violenza in tutto e per tutto), non si pone mai una domanda. Non mostra emozioni, sentimenti, pensieri, timori... sin da subito accetta il suo destino e tratta questo nuovo lavoro come se fosse roba da poco conto. Le giornate passano con lei che si spazzola i capelli, beve qualche tisana, «scopa» con qualche uomo e va bene così, non c'è assolutamente nulla che non vada. Per quanto mi riguarda, mentre leggevo, fingevo fosse una lavandaia, perché il modo in cui viene toccato l'argomento sex work è esattamente lo stesso. Non viene mai affrontato davvero cosa significhi lavorare come prostituta; le protagoniste passano la maggior parte del tempo a chiamarsi "puttane" a vicenda e ridere come se nulla fosse.

Ma passiamo a "l'identità queer", altro grande mah. Appena arrivata al bordello Bridget si ritrova circondata da bellissime donne su cui non fa mai un pensiero, «Scopa» con uomini senza porsi domande, e poi all'improvviso arriva una nuova «puttana» e lei si dichiara innamorata.
Lo accetterei, se la stessa sorte non fosse capitata con Spartan Lee, la nostra seconda protagonista. Subito tra di loro parte una scintilla (per chi ha letto il libro: lo so, lo so che non è proprio così) e attraverso tre - e ribadisco t r e - dialoghi basati sul nulla, noi sappiamo che Bridget è innamorata persa.
Non si parla mai dei suoi sentimenti, dei suoi pensieri a riguardo, delle sue paure sul poter perdere il lavoro se qualcuno la scoprisse innamorata di un'altra donna (o almeno questo è ciò che ci fanno credere e invece non ha mai conseguenze questa cosa, anzi viene spinta dalle sue matrone solo per farci vedere che possono passare il tempo a «scopare»).

Il punto di svolta che dovrebbe farci sussultare non provoca una minima reazione proprio perché non si riesce a creare quel sentimento di fiducia con i personaggi, dato che non sappiamo nulla di loro. Se tu autore vuoi farmi provare un senso di sconforto devi prima riuscire a farmi amare quel personaggio, creare un legame che solo dopo può essere spezzato, se è questo il tuo intento.

Non c'è climax, non c'è pathos, non c'è nulla. Un susseguirsi di scene identiche su come una prostituta passa le sue giornate senza mai focalizzarsi su cosa significhi davvero. Mi spiace ma non è così che si dovrebbe lavorare quando si ha voglia di toccare certe tematiche.

Dalle premesse mi aspettavo la storia di un riscatto, invece ho trovato solo un classico romance che avrei potuto trovare su wattpad.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting queer feminist western, even if it never quite captured my heart. (Tbh, I read this mostly while very sick, so that might have something to do with it). There is a great twist about 3/4 of the way through that came a little late for me; the pacing up until then felt a little too slow. I did really like the nuanced depictions of sex workers -- most of the novel is set in a whorehouse which I appreciate as a usual backdrop to westerns finally given center stage!

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this sapphic western. I went in blind after reading some friend’s reviews and it didn’t disappoint. I was glad to know beforehand that it wasn’t a romance because that could’ve left me disappointed. But I loved how it all worked out. I’m hoping that we get a sequel to find out what happens with Bridget.

[C.L. Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what I wanted, exactly my kind of book.

[Spencer Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucky Red is the incredible, immersive, feminist, gay western you didn’t know you desperately needed 🐎❤️‍🔥

That’s right - feminist 👏🏼 gay 👏🏼 western 👏🏼 need I say more?? If you’re already sold, go pre-order it. If you want more details, as you wish…

It’s 1877, and Bridget, aka Red, has had to do most things on her own in life thanks to her alcoholic father. But when he’s killed, she’s really on her own - and by the grit of her own two feet, she ends up in the dusty and lively Kansas town Dodge City.

Without many options, she accepts an offer to work at The Buffalo Queen - the town’s only brothel run by women. Used to being penniless and decision-less, Bridget finds freedom and power in earning her own money, and finds her first true friends in the other girls of the house.

Then Spartan Lee rolls into town - a notorious female gunfighter, and Bridget is enamored. But as they’re pulled together, loyalties and relationships are questioned, and Bridget’s new life of empowerment and happiness is on the line.

I was blown away by this book. I tore through it in two days and was totally immersed - the setting of the Buffalo Queen house and town are so atmospheric, and I loved how the girls cared for each other, while also being laced with the harsher realities & elements of boot-stomping westerns (desire, betrayal, gun fighting & dusty Southern towns).

The fact that it’s also gay is just *chefs kiss*. To have a female hooker and female gunslinger fall in love is so unexpected and made my queer heart so, so happy 🌈

This is also an unforgettable genre bend. It’s the kind of book that shows the power of phenomenal writing - I have never read a western before in my life, but I loved this book so much that I am now a believer in the genre and want to read more just like it.

And the writing really is fantastic - poetic and lyrical, there were many times when I went back and re-read sentences to savor how beautiful they were.

This book is a stunner. Do NOT miss it when it comes out June 20th. Eternally grateful to the author and publisher for granting me an advance copy ❤️‍🔥🐎

[Colette Celeste · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not lesbian enough and not enough guns

[Willow Heath]

Lucky Red is a historical sapphic novel set in the American Wild West of the late 19th century. Our protagonist, Bridget, is a beautiful young redhead whose childhood was plagued with bad luck, to say the least.

Bridget was raised by her dumb and useless father, who sold their house for nothing much at all. While on the road together, they take shelter and he is bitten and killed by a snake.

Alone, Bridget wanders until she reaches the frontier town of Dodge, Kansas. There, she is taken in by the kind women of the Buffalo Queen brothel, where she works and finds a community.

My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/must-read-sap...

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the concept and it was a good story. Very well written but I don't know why this don't feel like a 4 stars. Liked the way it was told and the drama. I rarely read historical fiction about women in brothels ect but it felt diffrent and interesting way to look at a historical story from.

[Leyla · Rating 5 out of 5]

The doomedest Yuri in all the prairie

My HEART. This ending really had me in its clutches, I was so hooked on the pain being inflicted upon me by the author…

Bridget be making mistakes but in the name of lesbianism so I forgive her for all of it. You might want to yell at her while reading, but I know it my heart of hearts that I’d fall for it too HAHA

For me personally it was a bit hard to get through the amount of time spent on the brothel days… the book is still definitely worth reading, but that does knock off some points for me.

Overall definitely not a feel good story, but it’s very compelling and I do love a story where hardships are actually portrayed as hard… A book with a generous amount of pain with just enough comfort sprinkled on top to allow me to sleep tonight.

The audiobook narrator is amazing!

[Andrew Eder · Rating 4 out of 5]

i had really low expectations bc a western is probably the last genre i would pick up, but this was an absolute JOY to read. thrilling, fun, goofy, sexy, pow pow revolver guns, yee hawing, and more.

the plot was so perfect too. everyone falling in love with the wrong people? yes. MAJOR kissing kate barlow vibes.

highly recommend to all readers because the writing was just so easy and the whole storyline was so captivating.

[Jena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never considered myself a Western girl, but Claudia Cravens and her queer cowboys have swooped in and changed my mind. I loved this adventure and these characters, and I'd urge more people to give this book a chance, even if it's not in a genre you feel comfortable in. It'll be worth it.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A queer Western adventure that I just didn't want to end! Perfect for fans of Upright women wanted by Sarah Gailey, Outlawed by Anna North or Heresy by Melissa Lenhardt. This was a heartfelt, character-driver queer, Western story that sees Bridget finding love and belonging working as a whore in the West after her father dies and she's left to fend for herself. Great on audio narrated by Elena Rey.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sixteen-year-old Bridget Shaughnessy is pretty disillusioned with her alcoholic father, and the demands men make on women, by the time he dies of a snakebite. Penniless and homeless, the naïve redhead ends up in Dodge City, and is quickly convinced by Lila to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town owned and run by women.

Bridget takes to the work; she is happy to be making her own money, is not shamed, and feels no shame in earning a good wage. But, though she is a draw for the local men and a good earner, she never really fully internalizes the brothel's rules, and there is frequent friction between her and Lila. Bridget does become friends with one of her coworkers, Constance, a bookish young woman. She also catches the eye of the Sheriff's Deputy, Jim, who provides the brothel with some measure of security.

Bridget is alternately frustrating and captivating. She's impulsive to a fault, strongly motivated by a wish for freedom, and truly doesn't understand how delicate a balance the Buffalo Queen owners must maintain in Dodge City to ensure their and their workers' financial and physical safety.

Author Claudia Cravens also shows us how the other young women at the brothel fully realize how complicated their positions are, how their jobs entail being attractive and empty-headed to please their customers, but are also appreciative how their work gives them independence in a way marriage does not.

After working for a while, Bridget discovers, after her first crush, that she's attracted to women, something that she's not shamed for, but must keep quiet from the brothel's customers.

Then, everything changes for Bridget when the only female gunslinger, Spartan Lee, comes to town. Bridget is instantly smitten, and begins a relationship with the woman, falling hard. And, because this is a western, there are double crosses, sudden violence and swift death, swearing of vengeance, hard riding after bad people, and flying bullets.

The writing was great, and the characters were well-drawn. Bridget leapt off the page; she's slightly cynical, but also a bit of a dreamer, aching to be heading off at full speed toward adventure.

Cravens creates the kind of western I've been wanting to see more of, where women are central to the story, and female friendship is critical to the main character's trajectory and success.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for my review.

[lise.charmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una giovane donna determinata (e forse testarda) finisce a prostituirsi in un bordello, senza che questo diventi per lei umiliante. L'ambiente è piacevole e accogliente, ma lei scoprirà qualcosa su se stessa che porterà a una serie di avvenimenti inaspettati.
E' un romanzo di intrattenimento e forse me lo dimenticherò tra qualche mese, tuttavia è scritto eccezionalmente bene: le descrizioni sono evocative come poche altre, senza che ci sia bisogno di dilungarsi (aspetto che in genere apprezzo molto).
Ve lo venderanno come una storia "queer". No. Il fatto che la protagonista sia lesbica è solo un dettaglio della storia come il fatto che ha i capelli rossi. La protagonista, Bridget, è una donna, una prostituta, un'orfana, è tante cose. Questo è un romanzo western con una protagonista femminile, non serve sapere altro.

[alailiander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. This one is awesome. The prose completely captures the place and time—you can see it as you’re reading. Each character is fully realized and fleshed out and compelling to boot.

I was not ready for the twist. Like, a lot. It broke me a little but the author did great things with it.

My one complaint, as it were, I feel that this book has to be a prequel; this is the origin story and the ongoing adventures of Lucky Red are still to come. Pretty please?

[Fran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lento fino a due terzi, vola nel finale.
Avrei lasciato il titolo originale, anche se Le spietate rende il libro più corale.

[Sydney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I read a different book than everyone else because this was not good. I can see why it appeals to people but the characters were just not developed enough for me. The main character falls in love almost instantly with the love interest which would be fine if we ever saw the actual conversations that they have, but we don't. I think that it has a good ending but it doesn't feel like the journey was earned.

I received an arc through netgalley.

[Haylee Perry · Rating 1 out of 5]

If this wasn’t for book club, I would’ve DNF’d. Not for me.

[Tahlia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so underrated are you kidding?? So fun, such high drama, sapphic western, what more could you want?

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this western because it has a different spin.
Bridget is sixteen who would be left alone while her Dad goes on a drinking binge and leaves her alone for days. One day her father comes home with two mules and a wagon because he traded the house. They leave their home and stop the night to rest in an abandoned sod house. During the night her father wakes up screaming because a rattlesnake had bit him in the neck. Her father passed away two days later.
Bridget is sixteen years old, travels along river banks until she walks into Dodge City, she meets Lila and Kate who own a bar called The Buffalo Queen Saloon and a house of ill repute.
The local Sheriff named Jim likes Bridget and visits the bar and keeps the rowdy and gunslingers away.
Then there is Spartan Lee, a woman who is a bounty hunter stops in. That’s all I’m telling.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'amore o il ferro: cosa scegli?

[Sana]

'A genre-bending queer feminist Western pitched as True Grit meets Sarah Waters, following a young woman’s transformation from forlorn orphan to successful prostitute to revenge-seeking gunfighter, exploring desire, loyalty, power, and chosen family'

Okay, I see you 👀

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What’s a young woman supposed to do when she finds herself in Dodge City, penny-less and without any family or education, in the 19th century supposed to do? She has two options: death or life. She chooses life.

I’m a fan of Westerns. But the Venn diagram of sapphic stories and westerns is basically just two independent circles. So when this book showed up in my library’s catalog, I knew I had to read it. And what a surprise! I didn’t know what to expect. Westerns are generally a genre where women/feminists/lesbians/bi women are sidelined—where they have few options. At least with any semblance of realism. But Claudia Cravens somehow manages to work within the construct of the Western to accomplish all of it: a queer, feminist-forward narrative that is gripping and heart wrenching and triumphant. More books like this, please!

[Netgyrl (Laura) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for writing style but a weak 3 for enjoyment. Let me explain.

It’s well written no doubt. It’s historical and definitely gives a good sense of the time and what it was like. It’s sapphic but it’s not a romance in that there is no HEA. if I had known that I probably wouldn’t have read it.

I also went through ups and downs with the main character. I liked her then I didn’t for awhile but by the end I respected her.

The plot is interesting and yet I really had to force myself to read it especially in the middle. I probably should have kept reminding myself that Bridget was only 16/17 years old and teens aren’t known for making the best decisions.

Can you tell I am conflicted? Y’all are going to have to judge this one for yourself.

[Maisie B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thumbs up on the lesbian homoeroticism. Much needed representation in the genre (and the main reason I picked this up if I’m honest)
I was a little bored at times but not really much to complain about, even through those times it was nice just to hang out with the characters. My one tiny personal nitpick is maybe Constance’s ending because I know she’s not the main focus but my girl deserved more. #justiceforconstance2024