The Butte Girls' Club

by Lois Paige

Growing up isn't easy, but with your besties by your side, anything is possible!
When Josephina Wolohan’s father dies suddenly, she’s left with her mother Lilly, who struggles with grief while managing the apartment house her husband left as their sole income. Jo’s childhood fills with the uncertainty of mining strikes, stale bread, and empty cupboards. The Kennedys rise and fall, America races Russia to the moon, and rebellion brews in the young like frothy Butte beer. Now a grieving single parent, Jo’s mom retreats into herself, leaving her daughter to navigate life’s growing pains mostly on her own.

Welcome to Butte, Montana, in the 1960s—a mile-high copper mining town nestled in the Rocky Mountains, next to the Continental Divide. Known proudly as Butte, America, this rugged and rowdy town is a maze of mines, churches, and bars that eats, breathes, and belches copper.

Jo turns to her three closest friends—Maggie, Cat, and Mikey Ann, and the mischievous foursome dub themselves The Clover Girls… proving their friendship is a safe refuge in a crazy, chaotic world. Through fourteen-year-old Jo’s eyes, we see how loyal friends help her navigate loss in a town as tough and tender as she is.
Jo and her friends reveal the strength that lies within each of us--a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit.

298 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 1, 2025

Reviews

[Milana Marsenich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Josephina Wolohan is seven years old when her father dies. Her world is turned upside down and she needs a friend. She finds not one, but three solid, true, loyal, mischievous, funny friends. Maggie, Cat, and Mikey Ann stand by her through thick and thin. They help her through all the bad times, create the good times, and get her into plenty of trouble. They help her grow up. Going between the past and the present, when Josephina is 14 and her mother is in the hospital in a coma from a boating accident, Lois Paige shows us how great friendships develop and the strength and tenderness of those friendships in times of need. Her writing is fun, quirky, tender, brilliant, and funny. Her use of details summons up the 60’s as if out of the gritty earth of Butte, Montana. I remembered things I didn’t even know I knew. I felt this novel as if I lived it. I laughed out loud several times. I cried too. Simply put, The Butte Girls’ Club is a wonderful experience. Paige has created engaging, believable characters with big dreams and huge amounts of rock-solid love, friends who frequently find themselves in precarious predicaments. If you are from Butte, if you grew up in the 60’s, or if you just love damn good writing with a huge heart, read this book!

[AR bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very personal coming of age work of Historic Fiction, the author traces key characters and events in her youthful home town.

Butte comes alive in this recollection. Well worth the read of fans of Americana.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed it lots. Such wonderful touching themes of life, coming of age, the power of relationships, etc. The setting is the 60’s a sometimes turbulent time that many of us have forgotten just how turbulent those years were. The location in Butte, Montana. A location that one might not think of, in an historic novel of this era, but it provides an excellent background for the stories and themes here. I believe for many this story will touch your own memories of this time as well. It did for me! Highly recommended!

[Jeanne Swartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Butte Girls Club captures the experience of coming of age in the 1960s mountain west so accurately you can almost hear tinny melodies coming from an old transistor radio as you follow the adventures of Jo Wolohan. The friendships that sustain Jo through the funny and sometimes tragic episodes of her childhood and youth are very relatable and keep the characters alive in your mind long after you finish the book. An excellent read, a real gem of a book.

[Barbara Cranston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remember

Growing up in the 60s this book brings back a ton of memories. As I share life with Jo and her friends I remember JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King,Jr-I remember how dark the world seemed at times-still standing 60 years later!
I laughed and cried-and I remembered.
Butte Girls Club was a good read.

[Donna Monaco-Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading The Butte Girls Club made me feel like the author was writing so much of my own personal history. A little eerie, but I truly enjoyed the walk down memory lane as she jogged long forgotten memories. My Butte family and friends are pure gold, silver and copper… precious in every way!

[Linda H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Very entertaining.

[Cindy Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

True to life at that time! Loved the nostalgia and the expression of friendship that was so important to us all!!

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a fun book and brought back so many memories as I grew up in the same time period.

[John Hardesty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memory lane!

I can relate to so much of this and love the humor, and the life lessons. I can feel the emotions and the growing pains of being that age!! What a great story!!