This book is a wonderfully terrifying contemporary western horror. I couldn't keep away from it and read it in two sittings. This is definitely one of the best books of the year.

Victor LaValle is an unparalleled talent. With every new release comes a new turn in his voice, a new reveal of his fluid ability. His characters and their distinct voices stay with you long after a book is closed and shelved, whispering to you to release them again at your next free moment. With Lone Women, LaValle's latest fantasy-tinged tale of tragedy and triumph, we are introduced to a frontier landscape unlike anything we've seen before.

Lone Women is the story of Adelaide Henry, her mysteriously heavy trunk, and a dark family secret that haunts her from the depths even as she tries to outrun its implications. It is also the story of an unforgiving land--both literal and social--and the risks paths single women must take to forge their own successes in an environment designed to quash their independence. Adelaide may be on the run, but her hunger for a place and path of her own is palpable above all else.

As with LaValle's other works, Lone Women is tinged with blood and sacrifice, but buried inside it is a fiercely beating heart, and a connection long since misunderstood. It is an examination of monstrosity and humanity told in a way only LaValle could, with twists and turns designed to terrify as much as turn readers' eyes inward. LaValle excels at making us turn a critical eye to the social landscapes he presents in every tale--a version of our own under the veil of the fantastic--and with each novel his shifting voices seem poised to paint us critically and tenderly all at once.



I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to receive an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5-4 stars

I had mixed feelings about this book. I thought it started out really well, and I was intrigued by the secretive nature of Adelaide Henry and the steamer trunk she traveled with. I was also really interested in the idea of “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame. Women didn’t have many opportunities in the early 1900s, and to see them given this chance was pretty remarkable for the times.

Once the book took a bit of a turn to horror/magical suspense, I was still hooked on the story but it had a completely different vibe from how it started. By the end I was questioning what the heck I just read. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but I appreciated that the synopsis didn’t give anything away. If you enjoy historical fiction that goes beyond the scope of reality, then I think you will really enjoy this.

*Thank you to NetGalley and One World for providing a copy of this book to review.*

This book is a pretty slow burn of a read. The ride to the big reveal is compelling and interesting. Typically, with these slow-burn books, I am left underwhelmed by the reveal, but I did not feel that way with this book. The greatest part of this book, I think, is how complex the story becomes once you understand how the "thing in the trunk" fits into the story. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how it all fits together and am very impressed that the story did not become overly complex just to fizzle out because the author tried to overcomplicate the plot. Very good book!

I highly recommend this book. The imagery was so vivid. Great storyline depicting the power of womanhood and the african american struggle. Very well written. Victor LaValle is truly a gift.

“History is simple. The past is complicated.”

Be still my history major heart, I loved that line that gets repeated throughout the book. History is what gets written down, but the past is so much more complicated.

This novel is a horror and historical fiction mash up that focuses on women of color in 1915 Montana, and that combination worked for me. I went into this knowing there was one “thing” that made it a horror novel without knowing what that thing was so when the reveal came it wasn’t completely out of left field, which I think enhanced my reading experience.

The story focuses on Adelaide Henry, a black woman who leaves her farming village in California to break out on her own in Montana. But she can’t leave her past behind and trouble follows her to Montana. I loved reading about trying to eek out a living on the mostly inhospitable land, and the relationships that people are forced to form in order to try and survive.

Overall for me this was a good historical fiction read with some horror elements that kept things interesting and a little weird.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for an egalley in exchange for an honest review

A woman who is traveling the plains alone, and has a mysterious case. Every time she opens it people disappear. Honestly the premise of this had me interested. the actual book felt slow and long. I wasn't ensnared like I was hoping to be. the twist wasn't the big hook I think it was supposed to be. In the end it was interesting, but it felt really long for a shorter book. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I was genuinely hoping I was going to. There were a lot of interesting dynamics in this book. I felt like there were a lot of plot lines and non of them got the attention they deserved. It felt scattered for me, and it made the story drag. Unfortunately, for me, this wasn't a win.

Lone Women
By Victor LaSalle
This is a western horror story. This is a standalone novel mainly set in Montana. The author has managed to combine horror, mystery, suspense, historical fiction, and the supernatural in a western set in the early 1900's. Featuring thirty-one-year-old Adelaide Henry, the novel also sheds light on the little-known historical fact that single, widowed, divorced, or deserted women who where at least 21 could become homesteaders and through “proving” their claim, own their own land.

Adelaide flees her home town of Redondo, California with only one bag and a very heavy and locked steamer trunk. Arriving in Montana, she starts making improvements on her land and keeping her terrible secret.
Adelaide is full of grief, worry, and uncertainty.

The first paragraph will grab you and pull you into the story. This novel touches upon racism and vigilantism, diverse characters, secrets, death, loneliness, difficult socioeconomic conditions, theft, curiosity, vengeance, rage, freedom, the supernatural, and retribution.

Random House Publishing Group provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley.

I found myself enjoying this more than I had the previous LaValle book I read, The Changeling, because he seems to have found his stride as a writer since completing that work. I enjoyed the mystery, I look forward to discussing with others. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity with the title.

I love a book that offers a fresh perspective on a setting that comes with as much established mythos and iconography as the old American West, and this genre-transcending novel from Victor LaValle didn't disappoint. The characters here are really well written, and I found the plot to be engrossing throughout.

The book drops you into the story right away. I was hooked immediately and wanted to know what was happening. The reveal was interesting but also strange. I am still not sure how to process the deeper themes and meanings…but there is a huge focus on women’s independence and ability to work together for survival.

I know a lot of people liked the twist/ reveal of what was happening in this story, but I’m not sure I did.

The writing is so so good and ultimately I do recommend checking this horror story out! It’s definitely a wild ride that will keep you hooked.

This wasn't for me. I really didn't like it. The story just didn't line up and it had a lot of plot holes. I guess I just really wanted to know more about the "monster". It was very confusing.

I enjoyed this book. It really was gripping in the beginning. Then I like how it wasn't just "shock value" the whole way. We got to live with the characters and understand them.
I was constantly left wondering what was the "curse". And I loved how the story of the curse ended up.
I also loved how this book was jot so long. It was shorter and a perfect length. I think anything longer would have dragged the story along.

I highlighted this book on my Booktube channel. The video can be accessed here: https://youtu.be/vNGio5zsFAI

An absurd tale of a 31 year old black farm woman who emigrates to Montana for a free land parcel toting a monster in a steamer trunk! The publisher should have laughed and not bothered to waste the paper. As to be expected, murder and mayhem ensued. I put the book down and deleted it from my library. I am adding this last sentence only to meet the 100 word minimum.

I put Lone Women on my immediate TBR as soon as I heard what it’s about. I really like the idea of westerns, specifically the setting, but it’s hard to find anything that’d hit the spot. Reading books based on the concept alone can be pretty hit or miss, but this time, it worked out perfectly. I could not put it down.

With both her parents dead and not much to her name except a mysterious steamer trunk, Adelaide Henry moves to the middle of nowhere in Montana in search of a fresh start. She establishes her homestead, even starts making friends, but her deadly secret can’t stay hidden for long. And the small town, of course, has a few secrets of its own.

I really liked the atmospheric, somewhat slice of life nature of most of the book. Sure Adelaide has a little problem she’s hiding, and there’s a strange family terrorising the local populace, but mostly it’s about trying to survive in a harsh landscape, which can’t be done without the help of your neighbours. This communal (later even found family) aspect of the book, was also great. And I liked that it centers non-white and often queer characters.

Overall, even with all the horror and gore, plus the usual racism and sexism of the era, Lone Women is a strangely compassionate book, especially towards the end. There are strong themes of guilt and shame, redemption, who are the real monsters, what is the meaning of family. Adelaide’s burden is as metaphorical as it is literal. It might be predictable in places, the ending maybe a bit too positive to be tonally consistent, but the mystery of the trunk was compelling and damn if I wasn’t a complete sucker for every little bit of the plot.

Most highly recommended, even if you don’t normally like horror. I want to read other books LaValle has written now.

Adelaide Henry is heading to Montana, a state where a woman can be a 'lone' woman and own her own parcel of land. She leaves California behind by burning more than bridges and she'll carry her family curse with her ... both of these, literally.
She leaves California by saying goodbye to her parents - by dousing their corpses and the entire house in gasoline and then lighting a match as the wagon she's hired, now carrying her entire life (and a family curse) in a large, locked trunk, rolls away.

But can you really escape any horror when you're a lone, Black woman in the middle of nowhere just after the turn of the 20th century?

On paper, by description, this is exactly the kind of book that might appeal to me ... western and horror. But in practice, this had not enough to do with either.

Despite the dark promise at the beginning of the novel with the burning of the homestead, the horror here is teased throughout. I'm not a fan of the in-your-face horror, and subtlety is generally more appreciated, but I've often noted that subtle horror is difficult to maintain for a novel and this, to me, is a case in point. It's a teasing of the same thing, over and over, starting from page one: what's in the trunk?

I generally appreciated the sociological aspects of the book much more - the lone woman making her way in a dangerous territory during a dangerous time (when isn't it a dangerous time for a woman alone?) and the need for the other lone women looking to band together, to look out for one another in this territory. And just when I'd settle in to this being the focus of the book, we'd be teased with the horror again and I'd get frustrated, wondering what this is supposed to be - and I know it could be more than one thing, but rather than seamlessly integrating stories, this felt like one idea would unceremoniously dropped to bring about something else.

Adelaide was an interesting character and we got to know her quite well. The others in the book are generally two dimensional, Her parents, dead before we begin the story, are more interesting than just about anyone else we meet.

I did like the western and sociological aspects of this book but the overall concept did not work for me.

Looking for a good book? Lone Women by Victor LaValle is a western/horror novel with a strong central character and interesting concept that gets lost trying to bring out a dark story.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t typically read horror fiction, but this book was truly a revelation. It begins with our Black main character, Adelaide Henry, who is setting her family’s California homestead on fire, and arranging her murdered parents in their bed. Adelaide has read advertisements designed to lure people to homestead in Montana which make the state sound like Disneyland or Oz. So she heads north alone, along with her few possessions and a menacing steamer trunk containing a danger we don’t initially see or understand. Adelaide makes it to Montana, which unsurprisingly turns out to be far more unforgiving and desolate than the place described in her newspaper stories. But carry on she does, meeting good people and bad, with her heavy steamer trunk in tow. I don’t want to post any spoilers, other than to state the obvious. Yes, we find out what is in the trunk and death and destruction follow. But what makes this novel so much more than a scary story is the underlying theme of acceptance of the Other (whether based on such things as race, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation), and what happens when the Other is rejected. This is a powerful lesson for those of us living in present time, and not just in the desolate nineteenth century West. 4.8 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a complimentary advanced readers’ copy of this book.

QUICK TAKE; read more like a novella to me, but ultimately i loved it. Very cool concept with a well-executed mystery (what's in the box?), set against the backdrop of a historical period and world that I didn't know much about. If I had any complaints, I wish there was MORE to the book as it was a lean and mean read that I flew through in a couple hours.

Courtesy of Random House and Netgalley, I received the ARC of Lone Women by Victor LaValle. I was drawn to this story of strong women homesteaders in the wide open spaces of Montana, and curious about the secrets! No spoilers! Suspenseful, well written, with interesting and compelling characters, this novel completely captured my attention as the story unfolded.