Such fun!! A page turner, this debut (!!! Wow!!!) follows a teenag girl in the late 1800s who loses her only living parent and sets off to figure out a way to survive in the world. The girl meets a group of women who give her a job - and off we go! Go in cold - there are twists and turns and surprises that you ought to experience blind - so much more fun. Loved the HEART in the book and the twists on the “western” genre. Can’t wait to see what this author writes next! Thanks to Dial Press for the advanced copy!

Bridget is a 16 year-old orphan alone on the plains of Kansas. She thinks of herself as lucky, but mostly her luck is just in staying alive. It's interesting, though I got tired of Bridget being the last one to get what was going on. The last section is a welcome break from the whorehouse and an actual adventure. It's spoiled by her being unbelievably stupid one more time, but it was amusing. Not sure exactly if I would recommend, but I'm not sorry I read it.

The publisher offered it to me, so I decided to give it a try. But I’m not a Western fan for the most part, and the first several pages didn’t convince me to make an exception.

HIGHLIGHTS
~make your own luck
~but keep the sheriff happy
~first loves ain’t gotta be forever
~twisty as a straight-up prairie twister
~except definitely not straight

Le gasp! A book that isn’t SFF!!! Yes, folx, it happens. Rarely, I grant you. But it does happen that I occasionally read non-SFF books, and sometimes I even review them!

Like this one. Because wow, people: Lucky Red is so freaking good!

And it’s an interesting premise, sure, but what makes it shine is Bridget’s incredible voice – aka, Cravens’ genuinely marvellous prose. Bridget comes alive on the page from the very first line, and she is hard not to love: wickedly (and usually unintentionally) funny, fierce, defiant, stubborn as hell, with a surprisingly soft centre beneath the grit. Despite all she goes through, she retains a streak of frustrating but appealing naïveté that makes you want to shake her and hug her tight. She’s such a real person, and damn if her perspective on the world isn’t sharp and clear, coming from an angle so alien to my own soft life that her reflections on Life, the Universe, and Everything are both eye-openingly incisive and, often, laugh-out-loud brilliant;

<“You know, you think you know everything, but all you got is book learning, and that ain’t all there is to know. You think you’re smart but you’re just–world-stupid!”>

I mean – world-stupid! That’s a term I’ve been looking for for most of my life, and Cravens just calligraphs it onto the page, just like that.

I think it’s that wordcraft that makes Lucky Red stand out from the crowd, even more than all its other great aspects (we’ll get to those in a minute, I promise!) Bridget is – she’s poor and uneducated and spends most of the book as a sex-worker, and that means her voice isn’t the kind of lush and decadent prose that I usually prefer (it’s quite a contrast to Kushiel’s Dart, for example, which I’m nearly finished rereading).

But there is nonetheless an unpretty but piercing poetry to Cravens’ prose; an almost shocking insightfulness in Bridget’s character, a way of seeing the world that rapidly becomes addictive.

<the stars picked themselves out one by one against the woolly blackness like a mourning dress, half-sewn, with silver pins still tucked into the seams.>

See? No describing the stars as diamonds; the night sky is not a piece of velvet. The image isn’t beautiful in the way we’re taught to expect, the way we’re used to. Instead, it’s…if I say mundane, I don’t mean boring, I mean down-to-earth and relatable, homey, earthy, something that feels like it comes out of a normal person’s life rather than a fairytale of princesses and treasure chests. And that makes it hit differently. It’s still a wonderful line, a clever way to describe the night sky, an image we haven’t seen used a thousand times before – but it also feels like something we can touch in a way diamond-stars are not. It feels real in a way I can’t quite put into words.

<rage scrabbled in my chest like a pack of wolves all caught in one trap, biting each other’s legs and howling in each other’s faces.>

Craven’s prose hits like a gut-punch because it perfectly puts into words things and thoughts and moments that you the reader have experienced too. There are no wasted words, and each one grabs you by the throat – and then pries between your ribs to snatch your heart out, too, just for good measure.

<unlike the rope-twist I had grown accustomed to, now my chest was full of violin strings, each one carefully tuned to just the right pitch so that when next the fiddler took up her bow I would ring out clear and bittersweet to fill the room with music.>

Well, what about the story? The story is also great! I don’t think Lucky Red would burn as brightly as it does if another author had written it – it’s Craven’s wordcraft and the life she breathed into Bridget that turns a great story into a freaking excellent book – but I loved how unconventional the actual plot was. By which I mean; if you’ve read (or watched, or heard, or whatever medium you prefer to use) a lot of stories, you get a sense of the patterns they tend to follow. The templates, let’s call them. And so I reflexively expected Lucky Red to go one way – and it did not.

And then it did not again.

And after that I did my best to stop expecting things, I really did, but I couldn’t help it and IT WENT ON TAKING ME BY SURPRISE AT EVERY TURN! Craven spun me dizzy with all the twists I didn’t see coming, and I loved every minute of it.

<Every now and then, somebody says something about you that’s so true you just can’t do a thing about it.>

A smarter reviewer than myself – and one with more spoons – would go into all the ways in which this is so fiercely a feminist novel, from the woman-owned and -run brothel, to depicting all too accurately how men tend to think of women when sex is involved (especially when it’s paid for), to all the reasons a happy sex worker has to reject a conventional life as wife-and-homemaker. I do not have the spoons, but allow me to assure that those themes are very much present, and they’re on-point and merciless and cut like glass. *chef’s kiss*

And then there’s the whole queer awakening aspect of Lucky Red, which I had no expectations about at all because I had no idea what that might look like in a Wild West setting. But yet again, I loved how Craven handled it, how it was simultaneously a huge deal and a tiny one, and so completely confusing for poor Bridget! You can’t help but empathise and wince and cheer and cringe and laugh, not at her but for her.

(Well. A little bit at her.)

<Sallie laughed, and I felt a twist of what I now know was gut-level envy, though at the time I thought I was just hungry.>

This is not, at all, a book I would have predicted myself enjoying – Wild West? Plucky orphans? A town literally called Dodge? Um. AND YET. I flew through this, only taking breaks to read the best bits out loud to my hubby, and look, the blurb is kind of appallingly misleading – Bridget’s wish to be a gunslinger is the tiniest part of this book, not a major plotline at all – but the truth of it is that Lucky Red is simply awesome. It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s much smarter than it lets you think it is, and Bridget is a main character I would happily follow through an entire series. I suspect it’s intended as a standalone, but if Craven ever comes back to it–

Who am I kidding; whatever Craven writes next, I’ll be pouncing on it!

Western books are not my normal genre, in fact, this might be the Western book I have ever read?? The was intrigued by the queer female perspective and I think the writing was really good! Overall, I liked this book but didn’t love it and that’s probably only because of the unfamiliar genre.

Lucky Red is a bright as a penny addition to the Western gunslinger genre! Bridget ("Red") is anything *but* lucky. Left an orphan on the prairie crossing to Kansas in 1877 by her alcoholic, spendthrift father, she stumbles her way to Dodge City, where she is quickly recruited to work in the highest class brothel in town. "The sporting life" is an easier gig than what she had before, and Bridget enjoys her friendships with the other whores, and isn't too bothered by the "pokes". The easy balance shifts, though, when an admirer falls in love with her, and Bridget falls in love, too... with someone else. Then her life at the brothel becomes a cascading series of catastrophes.

I enjoyed spending time with Bridget, and hope that the ending of the novel leaves an opening for a sequel!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

- LUCKY RED has that perfect blend of gorgeous writing, deep emotions, and edge of your seat action.
- I adored Bridget and the crew of the Queen, rooting for them to make the best of impossible situations.
- The summary of this book promises lesbian gunslinging, and while it does have that (holy cats those last few chapters! I was riveted!) but it comes near the end of the novel. It's a slightly different book than is promised, but wow, the book you get is truly a special one.

I usually don't read historical fiction or westerns, but this sounded so interesting I had to request it. This was way more than I was expecting. it was an enjoyable read.

A queer, feminist Western. The dialect might work better on audiobook but was a bit much for me on the page. Storyline dragged a bit. I didn’t finish this one.

This Western Read is squarely in the Western genre. It follows Bridget, a young redhead who moves West with her alcoholic single father to homestead—but almost immediately, her father is killed by a rattlesnake bite. To survive, Bridget keeps traveling, and winds up working at the Buffalo Queen, a brothel in Dodge City. She starts to settle into a life of steady work, friendship with the other women at the brothel, and becomes the favorite girl of the sheriff’s deputy.

I do think this novel would have been a bit better like a short story in the vein of Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” (not just a queer Western, but also a brilliantly composed short story). For me, the first half really dragged. I loved Cravens’ writing about the Plains landscape and the affects the West evoked in Bridget, but I found the plot portions to be a little mundane (similar to some parts of Jane Smiley’s A Dangerous Business, also a historical Western with a sex worker main character).

The plot picked up halfway through with the appearance of Spartan Lee, a female bounty hunter who catches Bridget’s eye; related events cause a massive stir in Dodge City and especially at the brothel. I don’t want to spoil too much, but from Spartan’s arrival, the story is all twists and turns, seduction and revenge. While I didn’t enjoy everything about this book, it was a very fun take on a Western and had some truly beautiful writing.

My first thought after I finished this book was, goddamn what a hell of a book. Falling in love with a book about gun-toting lesbians in the wild west was not on my bingo card for this year, but this book was outstanding. Everything from the plot to the high stakes of love and betrayal was absolutely so well written. This book is perfect for anyone who loves the found family trope and messy love stories. The writing in this book was so incredibly vivid that I could easily see this book being made into a film. I loved everything about this book and highly recommended it!

Love the idea of a sapphic Western coming-of-age adventure, and this has a lot of sassy, old-timey dialogue,. but this has some major pacing issues. The main love interest isn't introduced until halfway through and the conflict comes in like 3/4 - the rest is a bit redundant with a lot of circular events inside the brothel and tons of weather descriptions. Didn't hate it, just felt like the events in second half all came a bit late.

To say that Bridget hasn’t had the best life is a bit of an understatement.

Her mother died in childbirth and her father is an alcoholic, which means that Bridget has spent most of her days relying on herself and cleaning up after her father’s messes. After her father trades away their house for a couple of mules and dies to a rattlesnake bite, Bridget can’t even say she’s surprised.

She does, however, need to find a way to support herself.

Luckily, she makes it to the next town over, where she is picked up off the streets to work in a brothel.

Despite the fact that a majority of this book takes place in a brothel and there is a lot of talk about sex, the book isn’t spicy. I actually really enjoyed that we were talking about this topic as a concept and stuck to a more informational tone, rather than having every single one of Bridget’s interactions with a customer drawn out and sexualized.

On the other hand, Bridget finds out throughout the course of this book that she’s more attracted to her coworkers than she is her customers, and I found the way the book describes sexual moments focused on female characters really interesting! While Bridget’s own work is described very blandly and occurs in the blink of an eye, there are moments in this book where Bridget just so happens to see a coworker working, and those scenes are much more detailed! The writing itself showing Bridget’s attraction to girls even when Bridget herself doesn’t acknowledge it was an interesting detail I enjoyed seeing.

I was also very surprised by the plot of this book, which was a lot different than what I was expecting from this story! Looking back at the description, all the details are there, but I definitely think a lot of readers won’t pick up on anything until they’re actively reading about it in the book!

Unfortunately, that’s also where this book loses me. While I enjoyed seeing Bridget’s character throughout this book and seeing her growth, I wasn’t a fan of the dramatics and the plot itself. I’m not sure how to talk about my issues with this book without also spoiling it for readers, but let’s just say I wouldn’t classify this book as a romance, although it is sapphic and focuses on the relationships between Bridget and two women.

Someone out there is probably going to absolutely adore these historical western sapphics and their story, but this book definitely wasn’t for me!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an earc!

I've been reading a lot of westerns recently and I can't say I'm mad about it. So needless to say, I'm glad that Lucky Red crossed my path.

Our main character is Bridget, a redheaded 16 year old who unfortunately had to grow up too fast in the wild west. the daughter of a drunk, without a penny to her name, she has to turn to prostitution to earn her keep. Strong content warnings for sex trafficking, sexual abuse, sexual assault, etc. She takes to the profession but everything may fall apart, especially when a female gunslinger comes to town and sweeps her off her feet.

I couldn't put this book down. Considering the subject matter, I thought that I would have to take breaks or it would feel laborious to get through, but I kept coming back for more. The pacing did seem a bit rushed at the end and I've seen other reviews comment on it, but honestly I barely noticed because I was just fully interested in knowing what happened next. Bridget's story was captivating and the writing kept me hooked. And I think the perspective was quite unique. We don't normally see the westerns told from the perspective of the saloon girl.

However, there were just a few things that prevented me from fully enjoying this western. I wish there was a bit more delicacy around the sex work. We're going to ignore the fact that she's sixteen but in the wild west so modern age of consent laws don't apply, but it did still give me the ick every time I thought about it. Bridget's employers like to say that they're her best option due to them being former sex workers themselves, but just because they're women doesn't mean that they're also not complacent in the trafficking. Sure you can argue that they're better than the saloon down the street, but there's really no lasting effects for them just telling a man in the room to "break her in"? There also wasn't a lot of talk about STDs and surprisingly not that many people got pregnant either. I would've liked to see more discussion of the issues that certainly surrounded this industry in the wild west instead of trying to discreetly sweep them under the rug under the guise of writing a light hearted gunslinging western. I think my main point on this paragraph is that it felt too light hearted for the subject matter that it was dealing with.

And I was also a little disappointed by the "romance". There were definitely some strong female friendships that I appreciated and were the saving point of this book. But Bridget's encounters with women...I don't think I can go into it without being spoilery, but it just felt unsatisfactory in the end. Kind of like we as the readers were also being led on by being told it was a sapphic romance.

Overall though, I did think this was a good read with a unique perspective, I just wish its tone matched its subject matter. The conclusion was also good, but felt like our beginning didn't set us up effectively for it, so I couldn't decide exactly how I felt and had to think about it for a while, hence the moderate three star review.

Bridget lost her mother during childbirth and her father was a drunk. She grew up fast and they decided to go towards Kansas. They ended up in Abilene where her Dad met his demise from a rattlesnake bite. Bridget then moved on to Dodge City. Unfortunately, she became a woman of ill repute. The sheriff’s deputy Jim Bonnie was her faithful John and he became quite smitten with her. He was not in her eyesight to be her beau, but a certain gunslinger named Spartan Lee was.

One night Bridget had a filthy disgusting man that wanted her goods but Spartan Lee to the rescue. Bridget could take care of herself pretty well because when a John tried to steal her monies she finally got the best of him. Then these mysterious brothers come into Dodge City and the gunslinging starts.

I received this ARC from Netgalley for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Lucky Red is a historical fiction western and a coming of age story. The setting is 1877 and Bridgette has been raised by drunkard father. He isn’t unkind but never has money. He dies while they are on their way to start over at a new homestead leaving the 16 year old penniless as she arrives in Dodge City. She is taken on by a madam and for the first time has regular food, pay and friendships. The story covers less than a year but in her time as a sporting girl she befriends the town deputy, learns from the women around her and even meets a female gun fighter.

I honestly kept waiting for something more to happen. It kind of reads like here is my daily life and a few things learned, then bang something exciting happens and it is over. Considering most of the book takes place in a brothel this isn’t titillating and nothing is graphic. I did like the strong females (the brothel is owned and run my women), the friendship between woman and there is a sapphic connection as well. But this is not a romance.

I appreciate being offered the ARC from Random House Publishing Group via NetGalley and am leaving a voluntary review.

It’s 1877 and Bridget is orphaned. In order to survive she travels to Dodge City. With only her wits to keep her alive, she is recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen. Her bright red hair gets her the job at the only female run brothel. She does well at the brothel, it has good food, friends and pay.

As winter approaches Bridget learns just how fickle the season can be. When some out of towners arrive, Bridget is drawn to the legendary female gunfighter. With tensions running high, the peace and stability she has come to know is threatened. Bridget must decide how much she is willing to give up for the people she loves. Will she survive the cruel times?

This was such a fun debut. I don’t think that I have ever quite read a book like this. Sure I’ve read book set in the wild west, but none of them had this take on it. It was so fun reading about Bridget and how she came to work in the brothel and what that entailed. I loved the sapphic romance that occurred and was shocked at the twist – it was so well written. I really enjoyed how the brothel was run by women and feminism was prevalent despite their jobs. This book will appeal to mystery seekers as well as those who enjoy historical fiction and romance. It has so much going for it. I loved how captivating it was, and it just sucked you right into the story. I didn’t want to put it down!

If you are looking for a delightfully queer book set in the wild west of the USA, then grab a copy. This one was published June 20th.

Thank you so much to Random House Publishing Group, The Dial Press, and Netgalley, @netgalley, for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Additional links will be added once posted.

A young girl who has only known starvation and poverty is recruited to become a prostitute in Dodge City and ends up as a revenge-seeking gunslinger.

Kicking off pride month with one hell of a book that now holds a very dear place in my heart.

To say this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2023 is vastly underselling how excited I am, was, continue to be, for this book. Queer Westerns aren't something I see very often, as a matter of fact the only other Queer Western I'd read up until this point was Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp which was more in the fantasy vein of it.

Lucky Red falls more into what could be considered a true western: a character down on their luck that makes a name for themselves, falls in love, and get some revenge. Westerns were always something that intrigued me, from books, to movies, to shows, but I could never truly enjoy it. And, being honest here, a lot of the western classics are not made for women (or at least not with them in mind), and especially not for sapphic women who envisioned themselves in that hard won role, as the gunslinger, getting the girl. At least I know I did.

And it's funny to have it so skewed this way, considering how queer the wild west was.

But all that aside, this book plucked all the right strings for me and was refreshing as it did so. Lucky Red set the Wild West genre down exactly where it needs to be. It's queer, features a main character who is in sex work and does not actively shame her, and is actually friends with the women she works beside. Not to mention seeing Bridget slowly realize the hand she's been dealt in life, the hardships she's faced due to her gender, the desire to freedom, burned a hole in my chest.

I wanted Bridget to be free, too, even as she tripped and stumbled and burned a few bridges along the way. I loved all of the character, even if they weren't as fleshed out as I would've liked them to be, I just like when the background characters are richer, but that falls on personal taste and not on the skill of Cravens' writing ability. Which is stellar, by the way.

I found myself falling in love with Spartan Lee, right beside Bridget. The skillful writing and pure SAPPHIC essence that was carried throughout each of their interactions, the beauty and skill that it takes to really encapsulate exactly what it's like to be taken by storm by another woman. Ugh. I hate that I loved it so much.

And the end! Oh! The end... chef's kisses all around.

Anything else Cravens decides to write, I eagerly await. Her skilled way of writing complex queer women will have eating out of the palm of her hand for a while. A talented and stunning debut!

Wow, stellar debut with a fascinating, well written main character (Bridget) who manages to be an astute blend of indeed world weary, and yet confident and assured in many ways, while also being young, perhaps a bit naive (and at sixteen you are young no matter the life struggles). The plot is also an intricate balance of humor with notes of Western domestic thriller if that is a genre (it is now), set in a brothel yes but done so with a great blend of strong writing, powerful pacing, and a strong conclusion. A welcome read as well for any month but noted to be a great read for Pride month with the inclusion of Bridget's exploration of her identity and feelings of attraction to another woman (nicely developed within the life of a brothel and in the late 1800s timeframe!).

I just love a book that turns out to be so much more than expected, a little genre bending/expanding, some excellent feminist subversive vibes, and memorable characters who are vividly written.

Thank you random house for Lucky Red (via NetGalley); this is a great read and perfect for anyone who just read Ivy Pochada's new book Sing Her Down and for readers who like confident feminist themed action plots (again it's a thing, trust me).