[4.5 stars rounded up to 5]

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for an e-arc of this book!

When I first read the description of this novel, I knew it was one I didn't want to miss. I'm so glad it lived up to the expectations I had!

<i>Lone Women</i> follows Adeline, who is moving from California to Montana to homestead. She leaves with little to her name, carrying only a travel pack and a trunk that she can't open, because if she does, she just might let something out.

That's really all you need to know about this novel. I recommend not knowing anymore.

I've been craving a good Western horror with a diverse cast of characters, and that's exactly what this is. The atmosphere of Big Sandy and its surrounding areas was perfect: the relentless wind, the isolation, the bitter cold, the ghost towns. It was all so good. The character work is also fantastic, and I loved the queer representation.

Everything about this just worked for me.

The cover to this book is stunning and the prose is beautiful. My issues are the plot holes. Two very specific bits if information are revealed about Elizabeth towards the end of the book but are never explained or expanded on. Those two plot points being explained would have pushed this to a 4 to 5 star for me. Not knowing has taken away from the story. The end feels rushed and I feel nothing is explained. I feel there is so much more to the end of this story and am disappointed we didn't receive it.

Having loved The Ballad of Black Tom and also The Changeling, I was thrilled by the opportunity to read a copy of Victor Lavalle’s new novel, Lone Women. It completely exceeded my expectations.

It’s the early twentieth century, and Adelaide Henry flees the homestead in California where she’d lived all her 31 years. She leaves with a secret locked in a steamer trunk, and attempts to establish herself on a homestead in remote area of Montana, a territory where single women can purchase a plot of land. Needless to say, not everything is what it seems, and what follows is an amazing tale that shines in a mix of horror and historical fiction. The characters, even the minor ones, are extremely well drawn and come to vivid life. Mr. Lavalle’s plotting is skillful, leaving no loose plot ends, even minor ones. I reveled in the excellence of the writing.

If Lone Women doesn’t become Victor Lavalle’s breakout novel, then there’s no justice in this world.

My many thanks to the publisher, and to Netgalley, for allowing me to read this wonderful new novel, scheduled to come out March 28.

This is a fusion of horror and historical-fiction--a reimagining of America's Wild West set in 1915. The first chapter grabs you immediately: Adelaide Henry, a 31-year-old black woman, leaves her family's California farm in a most dramatic and final way. She is taking some baggage with her in the form of a large, heavy trunk and is heading for Montana where she hopes to homestead some land of her own.

Montana is a frontier land where Adelaide and other women, as it turns out, can come for a fresh start. But so much is against them succeeding, including other settlers and Mother Nature herself. It turns out though that Adelaide's biggest problem (and her shame) is in the trunk she's brought with her...and secrets can always find a way out, to everyone's horror.

This is my first taste of Victor LaValle's writing but it won't be my last. He has a created a mind-blowing world where anything can happen...and does! I won't soon forget these women.

I received an arc of this novel from the author and publisher via NetGalley. Many thanks! My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

Title: Lone Women
Author: Victor Lavalle
Genre: Historical Fiction, Supernatural horror

My Review:

Lone Women is a novel that is so unique that it is very difficult to review it. Though it is a historical fiction with a horror element, this book can fit into many different sub genres.

The story is about Adelaide, but it's also about others. It's about the unknowns, about our fears, it's about finding our own strengths and it's about survival. There is so much packed in this book that it does leave a mark even after you are done with the book.

The pace of this book is excellent. Once you start the book, it's hard to put it down, but you definitely need to take a break because it's not an easy one. If you are looking for a book that is very different from other historical fictions, pick this one up.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley for the book.

CW: blood, violence, mild description of confinement

Source: DRC via NetGalley (Random House Publishing Group – Random House, One World) in exchange for an honest review
Publication Date: March 28, 2023
Synopsis: Goodreads
Purchase Link: Amazon

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Why did I choose to read this book?

I have a soft spot in my heart for survival stories, and if there is an element of historical fiction thrown in there, well, I’m probably going to check out your book. 🙂 And if your story is about badass women too? GIMME

What is this book about?

A black woman has moved to Montana to stake her claim on land that is available after running away from her parents’ farm, which she has lit on fire on her way out (her parents’ dead bodies left inside the farmhouse!). All she carries is a travel bag and a giant trunk that contains an unknown that she is guarding with her life. Once she arrives at her claim she makes friends with the other women who are doing the same thing and makes friends, which becomes very important once the unknown from her trunk escapes and wreaks havoc.

More generally this book is about how, when you are alone you are never really alone. If you look around you, there will be others like you that you can join together with to become stronger. On the negative side, this book reminds us that we can never really escape our past – we can either die of shame or we can face it and become better people. It’s mostly about found family and you all know I’m a sucker for these kinds of stories too.

What is notable about this story?

I’m gonna do this one as a list.

Don’t trust rich people.
Don’t trust men.
Ask for help when you need it so people have the option to support you.
Accept and protect trans people
Accept and protect LGBTQIA+ people
Support friends when they are dealing with their shit
Gentrification fucking sucks (even in the early 1900s in rural Montana!)
Fuck around and find out (see also: be a ride or die bitch for your weird friend group)
If you search, if you listen, if you don’t give up, you will find home. You will find happiness.
Just because someone is a woman, it doesn’t automatically mean they are safe (see #1).
Just a very valuable story about learning who to trust and creating/protecting your found family.

Additionally this one is a very quick read. It has a wonderful level of tension that keeps you moving, but it lets you rest too, the calms between the storm.

Was anything not so great?

This book was truly a delight to read. I love a book that tricks me into following social norms and then makes me feel like a gullible asshole for falling into a false sense of security. I don’t have any critiques of this one – I zoomed through it and I wish there was more.

What’s the verdict?

5 stars on Goodreads. A well-written, important story about how we treat people on the fringes of “society” and why that is hurtful, wrong, and monstrous. As relevant today as it has ever been in this country (USA) that I call home. (Also side note: if you enjoy this one, check out The Four Winds by Kristen Hannah. It has a similar survival/historical fiction vibe.) Run, don’t walk, to your nearest library or bookseller on March 28th when it officially releases to get yourself a copy. You won’t be disappointed. Let me know in the comments what you thought after you’ve read it.

Lone Women by Victor Lavalle is a historical-horror. It is a very unusual story…though you might have guessed that from the genre.

Adelaide Henry is a 31 year old Black woman living in 1915 southern California. In the first chapter, she douses her house in gasoline and sets fire to her dead parents wrapped in their bed. She then begins a journey to Montana, the only state where lone women homesteaders (regardless of colour) don’t need a man to cosign for a tract of land. Adelaide carries with her a big trunk she keeps padlocked shut. Around page 82, the padlock is opened for the first time, and the horror part of the book kicks in.

There are many things to like about this book: I love a historical novel that teaches me about historical facts of which I was unaware (yes, apparently lone women homesteaders in Montana was a thing). I love a book with short snappy chapters that prompt me to read “just one more chapter.” I love stories with LGBTQ+ inclusion, particularly when these stories come with no agenda: LGBTQ+ people existed in history too! And, I love a bad-ass bitch, of which there are several in this novel.

But what I don’t like about the book is the amount of inferencing required. Lone Women is a short book that could easily have been longer with a bit more character development and details. Lavalle left a lot of the details to my own imagination, and while this is sometimes engaging, it sometimes feels like he’s left the heavy-lifting to the reader.

I enjoyed reading Lone Women, but don’t know who I would recommend it to. Three-and-a-half stars, rounded up for Goodreads.

Lone Women will be published on March 28. Thanks to Random House, the author, and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review. As it happens, I ended up buying the book through BOTM, so I had two copies to draw from.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I liked reading about the group of strong women, the Lone Women. It was interesting to read about this time period and LaValle included a lot of themes relevant to the time. I don’t know much about homesteading in the West during the beginning of the 1900s and I didn’t think much about single women, including Black women, being a part of this population, so I enjoyed learning a bit more about that. This is categorized as horror, but while the story had some unsettling moments that gave me a spooky feeling, I think this is more of a historical fiction with just a touch of horror. There were a lot of unexpected turns that this book took after the initial twist was revealed, so I often felt like I had no idea what was happening while reading. There were also multiple storylines happening at once but they came together in the end. It felt like I was constantly waiting for a big reveal to happen and I’m not sure one ever truly did. But, I appreciate how the story ended and I enjoyed the journey of reading this.

Lone Women by Victor LaValle is a standalone novel mainly set in and near Big Sandy, Montana. The author has managed to combine horror, mystery, suspense, historical fiction, and the supernatural in a western set in 1914-1915. 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. Distant neighbors call, but Adelaide isn’t alone. What is her hidden secret?
Adelaide is full of grief, worry, and uncertainty, but she also experiences anticipation and excitement. Will she truly be free for the first time in her life? I still don’t understand why she left her home with as little as she did. How did she think she would survive? Perhaps it was the shock of the events in California.

What a shocking first paragraph! It immediately pulled me into the story. The writing is vivid and atmospheric. Readers slowly learn Adelaide’s secret and experience the west with its good and bad. Neighbors tended to help neighbors in time of need. However, there is also racism and vigilantism. Diverse characters, secrets, death, loneliness, difficult socioeconomic conditions, theft, curiosity, vengeance, rage, freedom, the supernatural, and retribution are also weaved into the storyline. My main quibble is the uneven pacing.

I always expect to learn something new from a historical fiction novel, and this one delivered. Information about the lone women homesteaders wasn’t something that was taught in any of my classes, making this novel a good fit to read during women’s history month.

Overall, this was a compelling, shocking, unique, and dark story that also had some uplifting moments. I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author.

Random House Publishing Group - Random House, One World and Victor LaValle provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The publication date is currently set for March 28, 2023.

We meet 31 year old Adelaide Henry as she flees California after burning her family’s farm down, where her parents lay dead. She leaves only with a heavy steamer trunk that must remain locked at all times. Her plan is to go to Montana, where a single Black woman is allowed to homestead - a chance for a new life. It would be a lot easier if it weren’t for the burden she carries, and the knowledge of what happens when her trunk is opened.
This book keeps your guessing from page one - and I would highly recommend going into it blind. There’s not a lot to say about the plot that doesn’t spoil it. The setting is dark, atmospheric, and increasingly blood-soaked.
This is a story about marginalized women. We have a full cast of characters; they vary in race, sexuality, economic status, and motives, but are seemingly drawn together. LaValle was able to bring out each of them so completely, they felt like they could leap from the page.
You know, when I started this review, I had put down four stars, but as I write this I think I’ll be upgrading it to a five. There is just so much to think about here! I think it’ll be on my mind for a while. Don’t miss this one.

I wanted to love this but I only liked it. There wasn't anything WRONG with it I just never managed to feel deeply interested in the writing. The main character was great, I loved her, I wanted to keep reading about her, but the writing just kept me at arms length.

<i>“On Tuesday, Adelaide Henry had been a farmer. On Wednesday, she became a fugitive.”

"A woman is a mule."</i>

Gosh, there are so many quotes from this book that hit on multiple levels. This book is set in 1914 Montana and after falling into the Yellowstone universe (and watching 1923), this book feels like a deliciously subversive piece of historical fiction - yet it is horror too. It's a story of female empowerment, of all the forms of abuse in the old frontier, of what it means to start over, of reclaiming your own autonomy and identity, of racism, and more. And yet somehow, each of these pieces work beautifully well together. Others have said it too - the short chapters make Lone Women even more devourable, the pace of this book is PERFECT. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

3.5 ⭐️ Not my usual genre of book but it was interesting and carried some good themes about accepting others even tho they’re different and the importance of friendship.

It was sort of Stranger-Things-ish, with the science fiction/fantasy dipped in a historical landscape. I liked that it was slow roll with the story, almost like a ghost story the way it unfolds and gets you invested rather than high intensity.

I didn’t mind that there were little bits of the other characters interspersed in between the main focus of Adelaide Henry. It was not done so much that it felt like there isn’t a focus or there’s too much going on. It fleshed it out more the way it was brief but relevant and I thought it was well done.

The main negative for me was it felt like it was trying to hit every aspect of all-things-to-all-people. Like one after another discriminated people group was represented here well after the concept was delivered. That made it feel a little overdone and less focused, less believable, and lost some of the poignancy. Instead of making me just focus on the theme of how easily and dangerously people judge what they don’t understand, I felt distracted by the peripheral details of yet another characteristic that was now thrown in the mix without being necessary to the story.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine.

I have just finished reading Lone Women by Author Victor LaValle

This was a most unusual book, and I did enjoy it.

It is a bit difficult to list the Genres. I would say It is a combination of Fiction, Historical Fiction, Strong Women, Horror Fantasy and Western..

The main character is Adelaide Henry. She leaves her home in California in the year 1914, and ends up in Montana, as a homesteader. When she leaves her home, she has with her a large and very heavy trunk.

The winters are cold and bleak, and the storyline begins to take shape.

For me I thoroughly enjoyed the first third or so, then lost some interest, and for the last third of the book very strange things happen.

There is a strong women, Pro female message as well within the words.

Thank You to NetGalley, the Author, and Random House Publishing Group for my advanced copy to read and review.

3.5 Stars

#netgalley

Wow! Victor LaValle has written some kind of book!!! In the beginning, I thought, "Oh, what a good book about a woman moving out West, alone, to live on the land." OKAY!!! But, I never saw what was coming, coming. I mean, just WOW! This story took a turn that surprised the heck out of me! and, all of a sudden it's as frightening as a Chuck Wendig/Stephen King novel!! This is a horror story! that you want to read! One strange turn after the next, and not one did I anticipate! Thank you first of all to Mr. LaValle for an incredibly imaginative story ( I will never think of Montana in a calm way again), and to NetGalley and One World, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, Publishing for the eGalley in exchange for this very honest review.

A unique blend of horror, fantasy, and historical fiction, this tale is a western and a portrayal of a woman's courage and determination, and I loved it all.

This was such a great spooky story that follows a Black woman as she makes her way from California to Montana, trying to get as far away as possible from humanity. When we meet her, she is setting her parent's bodies on fire, and it is clear something bad is happening. In Montana, there might be fewer people, but she finds herself connecting to a single mother and the few non-white women in the area. However, this might mean her secret is at risk.

The pace is slow and beautifully deliberate. The social commentary is a breath of fresh air, and the writing put me right in early 1900s Montana. I could feel the chill in the air and the need for human connection. This was my first book by Victor LaValle, but it will not be my last.

This story really had my heart in knots but I enjoyed every minute of it. This sorry will take you on a journey that’s worth the ride. The characters were simply amazing and I can’t wait to read more from his author.

"History is simple. [...] The past is complicated."

I enjoyed this gothic story about Adelaide, a woman saddled with a heavy familial burden and her attempts to carve out a life for herself in the Montana wilderness. The way these women build a community, help each other through this difficult life, and find their paths forward were so compelling - especially in the context of such a difficult life and Adelaide being one of a very limited number of Black individuals. I I would have loved a deeper view into the lives of the other women beyond Adelaide. I also felt there were some loose ends and some unnecessary plot deviations that didn't add to the story.

Overall, if you enjoy gothics and books about surviving in the wilderness, this is an excellent choice.

A huge thank you to the author and the publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Lone Women by Victor LaValle is an absolute masterpiece. The story follows a single woman who is running from her past life in California. She is traveling to Montana to homestead some property and to begin a new life. The problem is that she has to carry some baggage with her, in this case an extremely heavy steamer trunk and some old family secrets. I was intrigued by the historical aspect of this story. I did not realize that Montana allowed single women, in this case a single Black woman, to be homesteaders. I really was fascinated by what life was like for these lone women who were making lives for themselves in extremely harsh conditions. I also liked the horror aspect of the story, which I will not write about at all because I do not want to spoil anything for the readers. If you are a fan of historical fiction, you will enjoy this book. I’m not a fan of historical fiction and I loved it. Of course if you’re a fan of horror, like me, then you will love this book. I highly recommend this book.