Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Adelaide Henry is unconventional, unique, peculiar woman, strong, tall, trapped. In 31, raised like a mule more than a human, deciding to take her own fate into her hands. Her life completely changed at the day she put fire her family farmhouse in Redondo, where her parents Glenville and Eleanor Henry’s corpses left behind.

Adelaide heads to Montana for free land in hope to rebuild her life. She struggles with the weather and on her way to her new homestead she runs into a woman with four blind sons. The book gives you the eerie gothic horror vibe. Adelaide cares with her to her new home a travel chest with all of her regrets and will eventual be her undoing.

This book was really good story it gives you everything you need if you are a historical fiction lover then depiction of the early 19th century Montana with homesteading was accurate. If you are a fan of horror the steam trunk will keep you flipping the pages. There are strong women characters who are trying to survive in Montana and one thing they do well is support each other. oh did I mention Adelaide was one of very few African American women in the territory.

All the hype about this book is real it is going to be one of the best reads of the year. There are so many amazing women in this story. It was not roses and sunshine for these women they had to find their place in a place that is harsh and not made for women to be alone.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for a free copy of Lone Women for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

It’s 1915 in the American West. Adelaide Henry flees California after her parents are killed. She packs a heavy steamer trunk filled with a horrifying mystery and heads toward Montana. There she tries her hand as a homesteader, aiming to meet the challenge of proving up to own her land, but she’s met with hard times caused by more than just being a lone black woman taking on the harsh Montana landscape - when her steamer trunk opens, people go missing.

I’m really widening my bookish horizons this year by trying out new genres. I requested this book because I don’t usually read historical fiction and wanted to give it a go. I thought this would ease me into it because it has elements of horror, the paranormal, and a western vibe which I really enjoy. It’s also written by an author I’ve been interested in reading so it’s a win win all the way around. I very much enjoyed this book, especially the Montana setting and the writing; it really sucks you in.

Quote:
“This land is trying to kill every single one of us.”

Thoughts:
This was my first LaValle book (def not my last) and I really enjoyed and welcomed the magical suspense the book delivered. The story takes place in Big Sandy, Montana in 1915 after Adelaide Henry has to leave her hometown and relocates there after a tragedy. We see themes of survival, sisterhood and also racism/prejudice. An intriguing detail is that Adelaide always has a streamer trunk that contains a secret involving her past which we come to learn as the story continues (the way I turned pages to figure out this secret!). I appreciated how the stories/history of lone women were depicted, which helped me learn that there were actually many women homesteaders who didn’t need a man to co-sign for their tracts of land! 💪🏼
There are def monster vibes and action in this story which I enjoyed!!

▪️REVIEW▪️

The Lone Women ~ Victor LaValle

▪️QUICK TAKE:
* Genre: horror
* Pages: 282
* Pub Date: March 28, 2023
* Gist: suspense, horror, and the supernatural - all on the Western front

Adelaide Henry has just left her home for the Montana frontier, prepared to take advantage of the governments offer for free land to those who find a way to survive on it. She has little else but a large locked trunk that holds a horrific secret.

As Adelaide settles in, she makes the acquaintance of several cowboys, outlaws, and thieves but finds camaraderie with the “lone women” - Grace, Bertie, and Fiona. Together, these outsiders find strength in their togetherness despite being deemed outcasts and use this strength to temper the demon-like secret that makes it was out into the unforgiving wilderness.

I’m saying it now - if Jordan Peele doesn’t adapt this into a screenplay and turn it into a wild, crazy, horror western then what are we really doing here? This was a mind-bending ride in the most unassuming way possible - LaValle writes the horrific in a really simple way. Nothing is revealed too soon but just enough details are dropped to leave the reader giddy with the unfolding plot.

Modern talking points dot the western frontier of old. Even the genres bend as you’re left wondering what you’re reading - horror, western, historical fiction, female empowerment. Super impressed with this one - just wowed with LaValle’s talent as a storyteller. It’s a must for me but to enjoy it as much as I did you really need to subscribe and suspend to everything presented to you on the page.

This was my first time reading Victor LaValle’s work. And what a read it is. The premise of the novel, Adelaide Henry is a young woman who relocates from California to Montana in the 1910’s. She carries a huge, mysterious trunk with her. When the contents of the trunk are unveiled, the town people react in shocking ways.

This is a multi genre book. There are elements of literary fiction, fantasy and horror in the book. I quickly became engrossed in the writing. I was also questioning the choices of the main character. Over the course of the novel, the reasoning was revealed.

I enjoyed the ride this novel took me on. I also want to read more of the author’s work after finishing the novel. Readers who appreciate books that bend genres, will enjoy this one.

I was sent a digital copy of this book by the publisher, One World via Netgalley.

Lone Women by Victor LaValle was a surprise, horrific delight! I went in pretty blind reading this and I think it only enhanced the experience of this new release. The early 1900s, a single Black woman with a dangerous secret, and the American frontier? This is no walk through the prairie. Continue reading to get my take on Lone Women.

Horror
I’m telling you I was invested in that trunk initially for all the wrong reasons. In typical fashion, from when I read the synopsis to then reading the book, I took that time to completely forget the content of that synopsis. Thus I’m sitting here being like, why won’t people help her move her heavy trunk? She’s moving to a different state and has a whole lot of crap in that trunk. As a person who moved frequently in college and grad school, I can relate. BUT DANG... when that trunk has its reveal, I was... surprised to say the least.

I have not read anything by Victor LaValle before, so I was not ready for the cause of Adelaide’s current and past misfortunes. LaValle did an amazing job at just slightly hinting at it from page one and dragged us along until the things that go bump in the night made their way into the light. I can also say I did not guess the twist/reveal nor was it so outlandish that I lost interest. Instead, what this did was create some mistrust in our main narrator. This is always a fun device to encounter!

Historical Fiction
I always appreciate authors who know their history and explore those silent histories we often do not hear of. Typically when we think of the wild west and frontiers, we think of cowboy movies and white families making their lives work in an unforgiving place. Other characters are tangential. Well, that is due in part to the fact that that is what is often depicted in books, movies, and tv shows. LaValle dives into the lives of the minority and disenfranchised women who were able to carve out lives for themselves in the frontier of America at this time period.

Overall
I really enjoyed Lone Women. It gives an important look into the experiences (in addition to traumatic horror-fabricated ones) of women like Adelaide in the American frontier. All the characters are well developed, the story’s pacing is steady, and it continues to surprise you with the unexpected. If you get the chance, be sure to read a copy of Lone Women by Victor LaValle.

🌟 4.75/5

Publication Date: March 28, 2023

I want to thank Random House, One World and Net Galley for allowing me to get an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The opening chapter does a great job getting you hooked into wanting to find out what happened to Adelaide Henry and her parents. Set in a backdrop of 1915 Southern California we follow our FMC as she readies herself to leave the family farm. For good.

Once the contents of the steamer trunk were revealed, I was surprised by the turn that this book took but I couldn’t keep myself from reading on. This story has odd pacing but because the chapters are short the book was very easy to breeze through. I couldn’t put this book down and finished it within 24 hours. The diverse cast of characters were a joy from Sam the overly honest little boy to Fiona Wong on a mission of her own throughout Montana. I really loved getting to learn more about this particular era of American history with a darker twist added in to mix it up.

I really enjoyed this book! I don’t know what I was expecting going into this book but I was definitely pleasantly surprised.

Would recommend for those who are fans of
- Settling of the Western US Setting
- Mystery/thriller with horror elements
- Mostly-linear timeline
- LGBTQ+ rep
- Family secrets
- Yellowstone meets the ladies of supernatural

I was so excited when NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/One World approved me for an ARC of this book. Wow! I remember reading <i>The Changeling<i> back in 2017 and loved every bit of that book. It left me wanting more books by Victor LaValle. <i>Lone Women<i> was an amazing read. This horror/mystery/suspense/historical fiction novel reeled me in from the very beginning. I loved reading the novel through the POVs of the main female characters, who were struggling and facing their demons. They were all relatable characters and I was rooting for them to be there when I finished the book.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable read that kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next. I highly recommend it!

Loved this book, but then again Victor LaValle can do no wrong. A unique book about the power of love, friendship, and family.

Lone Women was so much more than I expected from a horror novel! Adelaide Henry is running from something horrible, and hiding something in her large, padlocked trunk. She is running to Montana in the early 1900s to claim a parcel of land and make it hers. 31 year old Adelaide is used to hard work – her mother always told her “a woman is a mule.” But surviving in Montana will take more than hard work, and she will eventually have to deal with the locked trunk.

Lone Women has a bit of everything - horror, historical fiction, suspense and supernatural. I was hooked from the start - from the truly horrifying, violent opening, I loved Adelaide and the other strong, diverse women - this is definitely a feminist story. This is so much more than horror or historical fiction - touching on gender, prejudice, grief, family and more. Loved it!

A true Western that showcases the struggles and hopes of those who fled to the frontier, Lone Women follows Adelaide Henry, a Black woman who leaves her majority Black rural hometown to settle in Montana, bringing with her only a mysterious trunk. Adelaide was lured to Montana by newspaper articles that promised a good life for any willing to work hard, but glossed over the strong winds, freezing temperatures, and exploitative systems in place. Adelaide struggles in loneliness, isolated by distance and whatever dwells in the locked trunk, a horror that forced her to leave her home and parents behind. Dark yet stirring, another masterwork by a horror expert.

Another amazing work by Victor LaValle. He has a way of taking predictable tropes in the horror genre and by pacing things out in a unique way keep you on your toes. There was maybe a slight pacing lull for me in the middle of this work but I had a blast the entire time from an enjoyment perspective. I am also a sucker for most homesteader/survivor stories, which is what we also have here. Add on to that amazing representation for a historical work with amazing nuance in theming and I am all in on this new horror/thriller/speculative work. Also this title is brilliant and a perfect match for the story you will find within the pages. Basically everything about this was done so intentionally and paid off for me. Even when I predicted things I still felt pay off because the story was not relying on twists for emotional impact, you still had to deal with the ramifications of a twist whether you predicted it or not. That's probably all I can say without spoiling this amazing 2023 release. If you need a weekend read I highly recommend it!

Lone Women by Victor Lavalle is a story of early Montana, of women making in on their own, and of a “demon.” Much of it is historically accurate and interesting. The hard-to-swallow part is the demon that one of the women, Adelaide Henry, has brought in a trunk from California, where it had killed her parents. The demon is a constant worry. It gets out now and then and hurts people. She doesn’t know what to do. She has enough trouble surviving. There are a great many subplots and interesting characters in this story and the overarching plot is very intriguing. Addie makes friends and, of course, enemies. The friends are all women and there are some very interesting characters amongst them: another Negro woman, a Chinese woman, a woman alone with her young son. All women trying to survive the a rough climate.

This is a well-written book: flows easily and is full of nuance. The characters are revealed slowly, in a need-to-know basis, but all multi-facted and worth getting to know. Even the “demon” comes into its own eventually. It held my interest throughout. The plot is respectful of women and shows them in their best light. It takes place in the early 20th Century at about the time of Prohibition, which also affects some of them.

I was invited to read a free e-ARC of Lone Women by Random House One World, through Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #RandomHouseOneWorld #VictorLaValle #LoneWomen

Read LONE WOMEN by Victor LaValle if you love starting over, familial trauma, big open spaces, steamer trunks, the unsettling feeling that something's not right, intersectional tales about homesteading (seriously), ghost towns, women supporting women, and monsters.

Adelaide Henry has never lived on her own, never done anything she wants to do, and has always been weighed down by her mother's mantra "a woman is a mule."
Now she is free...sort of. Out from under her parents' rules, she makes her way to Montana where she will someday own a plot of land outright if she can cultivate it. This is not an easy path for a woman on her own, and even harder for a lone Black woman in 1914 with a dark secret and a heavy burden she drags along in a steamer trunk.

I was totally entranced with Adelaide from page one. This is a book I would have devoured for the remarkable characters and story alone even if there wasn't any horror aspect woven into this intriguing historical fiction. I was so engaged in this story that it was almost a bonus when the horror crept in. Once I started I could not bear to put it down.

Victor LaValle is a master storyteller. There is a nuance and depth to his writing style that I have rarely encountered. I'm now on a mission to collect everything he has ever written and added him to my very short list of must-read authors. I'm trying hard not to fangirl all over this review but finding it impossible not to gush about it.

Nothing wrong with this, but it wasn't for me. The entire time I was reading it, I felt like I didn't quite "get" it. Adelaide and her adventures with her "secret" was an interesting premise, and I did quite like the reveal of everything (no spoilers), but ultimately, it just left me a little confused.

I also didn't really connect with the pacing here either. The first bit where Adelaide first sets off was interesting enough, and again, I did like the reveal of everything, but the middle half or so just couldn't keep my interest.

This can't be pinned down to any one genre, but I very much enjoyed the creepy elements throughout. Some parts were pretty disturbing, and they were very well written.

Suspense, action fill genre-buster

In the opening line, author Victor LaValle writes that “there are two kinds of people in this world: those who live with shame, and those who die from it.” Ironically, the heroine of his newest novel, “Lone Women,” attempts to escape her shame.

Adelaide Henry flees her family’s California farm in 1915 after setting fire to the house with her parents’ corpses inside. She takes with her an impossibly heavy steamer trunk that she does not like to let out of her sight.
She heads to Montana, one of the few states that allow lone women to homestead. What she finds there is an unforgiving climate, seemingly friendly neighbors—until Adelaide angers them—and only one other Black person for hundreds of miles.

Adelaide is almost completely unprepared to survive the winter and has to rely on some of those neighbors. In addition, a widow and her four sons make an unwelcome visit to her cabin, where Adelaide has just discovered her steamer trunk open and empty. That’s when people start to die.

LaValle’s genre-busting novel is equal parts western, historical, mystery, and horror. There is plenty of action and blood, but there is plenty to think about also. Adelaide contends with loneliness, isolation, allowing herself to trust others, and of course, “her shame.”

Despite some bothersome plot holes and a decidedly weird climax, “Lone Women” will entertain readers with a well-told story, complex and interesting characters, and page-turning suspense.

This book started off interesting enough. About half way through it bogged down and kinda wandered around. The second half was boring to me and I struggled to finish it.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

LONE WOMEN
By Victor LaValle

Release Date: March 28, 2023
General Genre: Western, Horror, Fantasy, Historical

A woman attempting to handle a troubling past, makes her way across the American West, dragging along a mysterious trunk at every stop. The secret she tries to lock away may prove to be the very thing she needs to survive.

✨️It starts off incredibly-- full of intrigue and horror. The story is vivid, almost cinematic. I could really sense the land and the people we encountered.
The historical elements were highly present, but I do need to question some of the cursing and slang, given the time period. "Heavy-ass" in 1915?

Part Two takes a break from the action to flesh out the town and its side characters, who I did not find as interesting as the MC, but in the end realized they were necessary-- the ending makes any lull in the story worth the wait! That ending!

I appreciated hearing the voices of strong women, who at the time would've surely been marginalized-- women of color, queer-- experiencing racial prejudices, predatory men, finding resources to survive, and dealing with a demon unleashed on the prairie.

Overall, I appreciated Lone Women.
The chapters are short, and the book slim, but it successfully packs a lot of ideas between its covers-- racial prejudices, queer identity, family, wealth, history, gender, demons...

It is a unique blend of weird-western with dashes of fantasy and horror, surely to please readers looking for something a little different this spring.✨️

3.5/5

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC.

#NetGalley #LoneWomen #VictorLaValle #bookreview #bookstagram #booknerd #historicalhorror #horror #horrorbooks #RandomHouse #readmorebooks #reading #StrongFemaleLeads #westernhorror

Lone Women by Victor Lavalle
Pub date: March 28, 2023

I don’t read enough historical horror and Lone Women has hit that sweet spot that drives home the importance of our history told in a way that should horrify.

Imagine being one of the ‘lone women’ given property in the wild west of Montana and then imagine the journey to settle there in the early 1900’s. It’s almost unfathomable to imagine setting up a homestead now but then? Adelaide is the main focus here and with her, she brings a locked trunk with a terrible secret locked inside, one that is responsible for both life and death.

This story hit me and it isn’t just one thing about this story – it’s in the telling of it, it’s in the characters – some with grit and determination, others with less than honorable intentions, it’s in the secrets and shame, and ultimately, it’s the bond of sisterhood.

This is an incredible balance of horror, history, and suspense with an amazing cast of characters.

My thanks to Random House for this gifted DRC.