Where Coyotes Howl is a tragic look at life in Wyoming in the early 20th century.

Ellen Webster is a young teacher in Iowa when she sees an ad for a teacher needed in Wallace, Wyoming, a very small community. She wants an adventure but doesn't really know what she is getting herself into. Life is hard in this area where blizzards can keep you home for long stretches of time and in the summer it is so hot and dry that growing crops and livestock is treacherous.

Ellen survives her first year and falls in love with a ranch hand who dreams of owning his own ranch.
Ellen and Charlie live a simple life full of chores and trying to make a living to survive. Life in this desolate place is all about survival and a lot of people don't make it. I really enjoyed the relationships that the women made with each other; it wasn't easy since it took an hour to get to see a neighbor. But they tried to help each other and support their neighbors who were struggling.

This is not a "feel good" kind of book unless you just take away that life is much better and easier now! It's a good look at what life was like in the 1900's for ordinary people.

Heartbreaking

1916

Ellen Webster accepted a teaching position in the High Plains of Wyoming. She grows to love the town, her students and cowboy, Charlie Bacon. Life in the High Plains can be hard - the summers are hot, and the winter blizzards are beyond harsh. But they make a life and Ellen makes friends with the women on the Plain.

The women in this book bond and support each other. Not all are as lucky as Ellen who has a husband who loves and cherishes her. Others have loveless marriages and some much, much worse. They live in an unforgiving time and place. Life is hard and the west can be a dangerous place.

This proved to be a fast read for me. I had both the audiobook and the e-book. The Audiobook cut off halfway through, so I was happy to have the book to turn to. This book is full of both likeable and unlikeable characters. The author shows the harshness of both the time and place. Reading books like this make me happy that I live in the modern age with access to healthcare and better living conditions.

This book was very realistic to what life was like during that time. It was refreshing and heartbreaking at the same time. If you are looking for a happy-g0-lucky book, you are barking up the wrong tree with this one. There are difficult sections to read and a tearjerker moment or two. The book is also well written and captivating.


This book will have triggers for some.

I chose to read this book because of the cover and the fact that it was classified as Historical Fiction. But, it turns out that it is much more than that. It's also part western, part love story, a lot of Americana. To me, it's almost a fusion of Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza. (definitely dating myself)

The story takes place in 1916, in the dull brown prairies of Wyoming. Ellen and Charlie are the central characters. They are a couple deeply in love. Times are hard. They have very few comforts that most people nowadays are accustomed to having. Charlie is a cowboy, he works morning to dawn.

This book drew me in. It is not uplifting because the people live a hard life and sometimes desperate. But they are so stoic, they are their own support group. They are neighbourly, they do what needs to be done. They survive.

The relationship between Ellen and Charlie was amazing. Ellen arrives in Wyoming as a teacher, refined and cultured. Charlie is a cowboy, as tough as they come. But it is love at first sight. Charlie treats Ellen with love, consideration and respect. No matter how tough times get, their love is there. It is a love story, but not a “romance”.

At times it felt strange reading about the relationships between the husbands and wives. The women are happy to do as their husbands expected. So different from our lives now.

Ms Dallas researched the story by reading journals of the women who settled in Wyoming, one hundred years ago. She painted a very realistic picture of the life and times. Interesting and revealing. The times were hard but so many of the people stayed positive. Those that couldn't handle it, packed up and left.

The ending was a total shock to me. But, I was glad I met Ellen and Charlie. According to the author: “Ellen and Charlie were ordinary, just like everybody else. There was nothing different about them, except for the way they loved each other.”

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

Western Women by the same author was one of my favorite books for the year but this will not be a favorite. I'm starting to think it may two different authors? This was all "tell - no show" and it felt like the author was a teacher and I as a reader should sit still and listen. After a while I couldn't take it anymore and put it down.

I will definitely read her next book but now I was disappointed.

WHERE COYOTES HOWL by Sandra Dallas is an historical novel that takes place in 1915 in Wyoming. It is the story of a cowboy and his wife trying to eke out a living on the harsh prairie.
This story about true love, real friendship and supportive neighbors surviving amid the loneliness and hardship of the American west. Ellen and Charlie’s story touched my heart and reminded me of the power of love and friendship in the most tragic of times.

Thank you NetGalley, Sandra Dallas and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of Where Coyotes Howl. This is my personal review.
I started this book thinking I was going to read a book about Ellen Webster teaching in Wyoming. She had a vision in her mind of how it was going to be to do this. Instead, she met Charlie Bacon and marries him and moves on to be a homesteader.
I wanted more from this book and got a very depressing story of how hard it was for them to live there during this time.
This just was not my type of book to read.

The setting: [Starting in] 1916. "Wallace, a two-street town, is not what Ellen Webster expected when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but she falls in love—both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie. Life isn’t easy .... with unforgiving winter blizzards and relentless summer heat. But they face it all together, their relationship growing stronger with each shared success and tragedy. In the end, it’s not the trials Ellen and Charlie face [on their ranch] that make them remarkable, but their enduring love."

The other women on the plains look out for each other and these bonds and their stories/secrets, make the novel a BIT more lively.

Tragedy abounds--seemingly for everyone. BLEAK--like the Plains, although Ellen does grow to love it and find beauty in the landscape [though always fearing snakes and coyotes]. The weather, however, is their greatest enemy.

As I read and much enjoyed Dallas' Westering Women and Little Souls, I was so looking forward to this one. However, on the whole I found the novel somewhat flat, simplistic, and pedestrian, and was very disappointed. I was never really engaged. A fast read, and no groaners, but just felt lacking. And at times, predictable. How coincidental that there were two challenged female children in the novel--or not? [No spoiler from me, but I saw that trajectory a mile away.]

What I did learn: charcoal is rubbed under the eyes to keep the glare of the sun on snow from making one snow-blind.

Surprised that in acknowledgments Dallas says that this book is perhaps the favorite of all her books!

Recommend with hesitation.

My emotions were all over the place with this story. There is a beautiful love story but also heartbreak and the challenges of breaking ground in Wyoming in the early 1900s. Overall, I liked the story and learning more about this historical time period.

ARC was provided by NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

Clearly lots of people love this book, and are fans of Sandra Dallas. I haven't read any of her other books, but this one was definitely not for me, unfortunately. Dallas clearly knows how to write to please her fans, and that's awesome. Good for her!

For me, the best thing about the book is the historical part of it. For example, I hadn't heard of a soddie before and there were other little things I learned like that. I love to learn from historical fiction!

There are many sad events, but I personally wasn't moved by any of them. The love between Ellen and Charlie is central to the novel, but I didn't feel it. My old, jaded heart apparently takes more to get it beating.

It's great that others were emotionally involved, but for me, it all felt flat. The characters are simplistic and not well differentiated. Mr. Brownell is a nasty piece of work and so is Mr. McGinty. Although the facts of their life were different (one had lots of little kids and was educated, the other had an adult daughter and couldn't read), to me their characters were no different from each other. (Same goes for Margaret and Lucy.)

Gladys did have her own way of speaking, so she was the most differentiated character. I did like Gladys. I would read a novel all about her!

The writing is simplistic — almost YA if it weren't for the grim, mature subject matter. No beautiful poetry to describe the prairie. Again, this is personal preference. I want poetry, other readers don't. There was also a lot of quick telling, rather than sensuous showing of events. I prefer to linger over a scene; others prefer a quick pace.

Finally, to me, the characters of Ellen and Charlie are... dull. I didn't care about either of them. They seemed like cardboard cutouts. After Ellen moved to Wyoming for the teaching job, she wasn't a very active protagonist. Things happened to her and she responded, but she didn't actively DO much during this novel in the way of pursuing her own goals. So, overall, I found it a bit boring.

Sorry to be so negative. I'm glad that others enjoyed this, but it just wasn't for me. :(

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I really enjoy reading historical fiction and Sandra Dallas did a wonderful job of detailing the characters and Wyoming landscape in the early 1900's. They relied on their friends and neighbors to get them through the heartaches. However this was a difficult and emotional read for me as it seemed tragedies kept occurring. I look forward to reading another of her books, just hoping they are not all this depressing.

Ellen Webster is ready for a change in her life. When she spots an advertisement for a teaching job in Wyoming, she imagines how romantic that could be and signs on for a year. She never could have imagined what it would actually be like. It took time, but she managed to fall in love with the land, as well as one of the cowboys, Charlie Bacon. She becomes a homesteader and learns to serve her husband as well as her neighbors.

This was just such a depressing book for me. Lots of people have enjoyed it and rated it high- there just didn't seem to be any wins in this one! I get the frontier was rough, but wow- Ms. Dallas didn't pull any punches in the way she told that story. I do feel as though I better understand just how hard it was to live and survive the land (didn't feel like much thriving there). So for that, her storytelling was very good.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Where Coyotes Howl
By Sandra Dallas
Pub Date: April 18
St Martins Press
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
For me this was just an ok book. Well written, fast read but not one I will recommend.
Real life but I’m depressed now.
3 stars

From publisher:
Except for the way they loved each other, they were just ordinary, everyday folks. Just ordinary.

1916. The two-street town of Wallace is not exactly what Ellen Webster had in mind when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but within a year’s time she’s fallen in love—both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. Life is not easy in the flat, brown corner of the state where winter blizzards are unforgiving and the summer heat relentless. But Ellen and Charlie face it all together, their relationship growing stronger with each shared success, and each deeply felt tragedy. 

Ellen finds purpose in her work as a rancher’s wife and in her bonds with other women settled on the prairie. Not all of them are so lucky as to have loving husbands, not all came to Wallace willingly, and not all of them can survive the cruel seasons. But they look out for each other, share their secrets, and help one another in times of need. And the needs are great and constant. The only city to speak of, Cheyenne, is miles away, making it akin to the Wild West in rural Wallace. In the end, it is not the trials Ellen and Charlie face together that make them remarkable, but their love for one another that endures through it all.
*****************************************************

My review:
Little House on the Prairie was one of my favorite childhood shows. This historical fiction romance is of that time period. It has all the elements: family, community, heartache, heart break, death, triumph, tragedy and outcasts. And more tragedy.

Ellen and Charlie love each other and that keeps them grounded even in the worst times. Yes, it's a romance story and at times I felt that overpowered the story and made things seem unrealistic. Ellen could piece a quilt, bake 6 loaves of bread, and save an abused woman all in one day.

But the friendships of the women Ellen knew and their stories were intriguing. There are many stories about cowboys but fewer about the women in their orbit. In the end it was a story about the women. On the unforgiving prairie women supported, protected, accepted, and laughed. They had no choice after the choice to follow their husbands was made. I gasped a bit and was surprised by the ending. I'll leave it at that.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4 stars for the drama.
Thank you to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for early access to a digital copy of this book in exchange for my review.

I love reading about anything that has to do with life on the prairie. This is such a fascinating time period to me. This book was a pretty quick read, written well, but the character development was a little lacking in my opinion. I didn’t feel too connected to many of the characters. It was very sad. The ending was so sad but overall I think it was enjoyable and I would recommend!

If the lifestyle of Little House on the Prairie intrigues you, then this may be your book. You can't help but get caught up in the story until the very bitter end. What these women went through and endured... heartbreaking. The descriptions of nature made for a satisfying setting and it is, after all, a love story.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Of course I couldn't put it down until the very end.

I had not read anything by Sandra Dallas before, but because her books generally receive rave reviews, and I enjoy historical fiction, I was eager to read this. Set in the eastern plains of Wyoming in the early 1900s, the novel focuses on the relationship between Ellen Webster, a schoolteacher, and Charlie Bacon, a rancher. Talk about hardships they suffered — wow! The novel is very well-written and presumably impeccably researched, telling a story that is pretty dismal — one filled with many heartbreaking moments (perhaps way too many) — and may be one of the most depressing novels I have read. Nonetheless, I found it to be an interesting read and look forward to reading another by Sandra Dallas.

What is it about stories about strong females living in a barren, untamed land with no running water or electricity? I'm not sure but that is my jam! Where the Coyotes Howl scratched that itch for me and I enjoyed every page. I read it in 24 hours, It's not going to be a 5 star for everyone, but it was for me.
The story is mainly about Ellen finding her way in a new town in Wyoming in 1916 as the incoming teacher. Of course, she falls in love immediately with a lovely cowboy, but this is where our story lays its ground. Ellen becomes a rancher's wife and begins to form friendships with many of the surrounding women. This story is about friendship and being a friend even when it is hard. The story is about coming together when things are not going right. This was a story about saving each other when we can't save ourselves.
Another aspect I enjoyed was the incorporation of two characters with developmental challenges. These characters were loved and well-cared for by their families and another example of how love shone through the pages!
I really enjoyed it. Gave me vibes of Kristin Hannah's The Four Winds and Amy Harmon's Where the Lost Wander. (The cover is identical to Where the Lost Wander...coincidence?)

I have been reading so many WWII stories that it was very refreshing to read a story set in the American plains in the early 1900's. Sandra Dallas is a tremendous storyteller and this is not my first book by this author.

Ellen Webster comes to Wyoming in 1916 to serve as their town teacher. It wasn’t quite what she expected. Then she falls in love with a cowboy. Life isn’t easy on the land, but they love each other and the women of the town are there for each other.

This is one of those books that seems to exist for one reason: to rip your heart out. While likely an accurate display of frontier life in 1916 Wyoming, it is unbearably sad. You will learn a lot about a historical time period, and how women dealt (and didn’t deal) with it, but you will also cry buckets because it’s just plain sad. I loved how it was about the women of the frontier and how they support each other.

“Except for the way they loved each other, they were just ordinary, everyday folks. Just ordinary.”

Where Coyotes Howl comes out 4/18.

I love reading stories of settling the American West. In Where Coyotes Howl Sandra Dallas has done her homework and captured the beauty and satisfaction of settling along with the hard work and sorrow. As she remarks in the Acknowledgment, she’s written a story of the everyday life. The story of an ordinary couple in a hard place. Don’t look for a happy ending- this story is real life.