Cold, Cold Water

by Marie S. Crosswell

In a lawless American West transformed by the Second Civil War, part-time bounty huntresses Ramona del Toro and Jo Lilly take a job: find and capture a mysterious woman named Cottonmouth, accused of murdering an innocent man. As they track her through northern Arizona, southern Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, Ramona and Jo encounter colorful people who can only point them in Cottonmouth’s direction. When Jo and Ramona finally catch up to Cottonmouth, she reveals the truth. Will the bounty huntresses join their target or trade her for a bag of cash?

138 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 25, 2019

Reviews

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Cold Cold Water is a short novel about the bonds between women and how people deal with and recover from trauma. Ramona is an emotionally closed-off and tough-as-nails bounty hunter who is accompanied on her jobs by the friendly Jo, a former pilot and POW camp survivor – of an American Civil War in recent times. It’s not clear whether this is an alternative history or speculative fiction, but it works either way. It’s an exciting, quick-moving, but also a poignant story about women trusting women. While the end result of the story is not surprising, it’s still satisfying. The story moves almost too fast at times, but there are several quiet moments between Ramona and Jo interspersed throughout. There isn’t enough space to give either character the depth I would have liked, but I understood their motivations. The novel is very violent, reminiscent of a western or a post-apocalyptic narrative. It was refreshing to have a story with women warriors who aren’t bogged down by feelings of guilt over the justified violence they dispense.

The novel is also unapologetically feminist, which I found wonderful. Often times, mainstream media has to approach any feminist theme with a subtle hand, so to not “offend” that small but vocal contingent of super-sensitive men who think any critique of misogyny or patriarchy is an affront to them personally. This novel is not shy about proactive violence towards threats and there is an overall theme of women helping and trusting other women – with good cause. There are good men in the novel, but the book is less about gender balance than the vicarious enjoyment of seeing bad men get theirs. And the bonds of sisterhood.

It’s a dark, gritty, fun, story set in one of my favourite regions in the world.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story takes place a few years from now, in 2043. But in those few short years things have happened that have changed the world in ways both obvious and subtle. The most obvious is that the Second Civil War in the US is now over. You didn’t even realize it was going to happen? Sorry for the spoiler. It’s now over and one of the results is that law enforcement is spotty, so people have had to take over enforcing social norms themselves. This has meant the rise of bounty hunters like Ramona and Jo, the main characters of our story, who for a price will track down wrongdoers, possibly bringing them back to the person who hired them so the client can exact whatever punishment they see fit.

I wasn’t sure what I’d think of this genre, described as “Western Dystopian,” which is just like what it sounds like. It’s dystopian, in that it happens in a future world that has changed in ways that aren’t so good. But it’s Western, in that in the largely rural area of the western US where this story takes place, things are lawless, with the fastest gun being the ultimate authority.

I not only enjoyed the basic story, but was drawn into it even more by the creative and different aspects to the characters and the story world. Not just the unique combination of dystopian and western genres, but also the non-traditional sexuality of the main characters. Overall this made for a quick, entertaining, and often thought-provoking read.

**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **