Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for a chance to read and review this book in exchange for an honest review. I loved how this book was based on real people and it included real photos that accompanied the story. It was a little long and I think it could have been cut down a bit, but at the same time I thought it was well-paced and I was interested in where the story was going. If you love historical western romances and courageous women then you will love this book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced ecopy of this book. I found it very helpful and enlightening to read the prologue to understand more about the historical background of the characters. Even knowing the background of the story and realizing it’s fictional, based on true events, I still wasn’t prepared for the poignancy with which the story of Tempa and Henry was told. Theirs is portrayed as a once-in-a-lifetime love that spans decades, together and apart, never fading, and often enough, hurting. It’s the only thing that makes it worth reading the misery that is Tempa’s life. That, and the prose, which is so beautiful and evocative, I had to pause many times to let the words wash over me. In fact, these lines really spoke to me, and I hope the author knows that her writing had the same effect on me. “She glanced up at him. The book sat idle in his lap. His face was a display of total wonderment. Her hands went limp. She knew that look. That sentence had grabbed him by the lapels and demanded he stop to admire its beauty. How often had a sequence of paltry lines and curves inked on paper held her in thrall while the rest of the world carried on without her?” I can’t help but feel that Bruggeman poured her heart and her soul into the writing of this book, leaving everything on the page.

We meet Lou in the aftermath of her family’s deaths in the space of mere days from an outbreak 0f Yellow Fever. The soul survivor, not yet fifteen, she wanders about her home in a daze. “To Lou, this house she had loved so well had always seemed a living, breathing thing. Now the life had gone out of it too. Suddenly it seemed as if she were trapped in the belly of a rotting carcass. The squirm of maggots against her skin sent her into a fit of squeals.”

The first time Lou is raped, the visual is almost childlike its characterization—in that it demonstrates the destruction of her childhood—reflecting her age and state of mind and the unfathomable pain she experiences. “Her limbs were flung out haphazard. Her stitches began to pop. ‘No, no…please, no,’ she pleaded through the fingers barred across her mouth. Then she was being torn straight up the middle. She was sobbing now, sucking air. He was ripping her apart at the seams. Her stuffing was springing loose, spilling out, on and on until she was but an empty sack… She felt the Platte running over her feet as it moved toward the Mississippi River. She squeezed her streaming eyes shut and imagined the water sucking the last of her spirit with it, carrying her soul out to the Gulf of Mexico. If only she could melt away with the water, never to be seen again.”

Her life is a daily misery after that as she does her best to avoid the man responsible for destroying her. “Since the fever took her folks, Lou had been walking through life as if she was barefoot and the days were strewn with broken glass.” “Rescued” by her sister and husband, aka. her rapist, she seeks retribution in small ways, as the abuse she suffers continues. Eventually, things go from bad to worse and she finds herself on the doorstep of a brothel, tricked into asking for work. Along the way, as her soul flees her body piece by piece, and as she shucks away the remaining bits of Lou, she becomes Tempa, no doubt, for her temper.

Tempa loses herself in the stories she reads. For example, when she meets the madame at her first brothel, she sees her as the Queen of Hearts. “Crimson paint had bled into the lines around her lips like little tributaries of blood.” If you think the Queen of Hearts was a monster, at least, she chopped off their heads rather than putting her victims through daily torture. Initially, Lou’s stories are those of a child, seen through a child’s eyes. Even when she enters the brothel, she still sees them this way and applies them to her life. Later, she still reads some of her favorites, but now she recognizes them as an escape from her life that she craves more than anything.

The moon is a frequent character, personified in various ways. “The moon squeezed between the branches and peered down at him with a look of condemnation.” “That night the waxing moon smiled down on her with a crooked, crescent grin. But soon heavy-bellied clouds rolled in, covering the satisfied smirk, and the heavens bowed under the weight. Then God pulled the plug in the sky, and everything changed in a flash.” “The moon leaned in through the window and brushed a translucent kiss on her forehead.”

A little girl and boy befriend Henry. They add necessary comic relief to this tale. While Rex is more soft-spoken and serious, Betty always speaks her mind and says the funniest things. “‘I just knew you was a good neighbor, Henry…even if you do have an ugly face and smell like a dead dog in an outhouse,’ she said in that butterscotch voice. Then she flounced away. ‘Betty’s bossier’n an old crow,’ Rex said in a conspiratorial tone.” For the record, Henry does not have an ugly face. He is recovering from a beating; we find out more about that later. Several times, Betty refers to someone named Mister Sam Yerrington,” and we find out she means the good Samaritan. I also laughed when someone else, commenting on the weather, said, “It’s so dry the trees are bribin’ the dogs.”

Guilt is a reoccurring theme, with new metaphors introduced each time. Some of my favorites include: “Guilt was like boiled cabbage. It stank, and the stench lingered forever.” “Guilt was like a stray dog that was always at your heel no matter how many times you kicked it.” “Guilt was like the French Pox. The flare-ups were excruciating, and it never went away.”

Little by little, we learn the landscape of Tempa’s life, and the one constant: Belle. At the age of fifteen, she meets Belle at the brothel and they become sisters of the heart. Now, so many years later, Belle has aged well beyond her years and has become feeble and frail, clearly, close to death. Tempa cares for her as best she can on her bad days and Belle shows the optimism hidden within her from time to time, reminding Tempa of all the happy memories they share, despite the terrible ones. Belle’s final words to Tempa are written in a note: “The best part of my life was you. Love, Belle.” I’ll be honest, when Belle dies, I had already experienced so much of Tempa’s sorrow, I was in tears as I read of Tempa’s inconsolable loss. When she tenderly and reverently cleans Belle’s body for burial, I read through blurred vision.

Tempa has been beaten down so much by life, with one disappointment and tragedy after another, she has come to believe she doesn’t deserve any better. She keeps pushing Henry away; each time it leaves her “feeling as black and foul inside as the contents of a brothel spittoon.” At one point, when she and Henry part to go their separate ways for work, the narrator paints the picture of “Henry trudging further up the mountain to work in the dark underbelly of the earth, and she, going down the mountain to work in the dark underbelly of society.” At first, Tempa wants to deny her feelings for Henry, but as her feelings deepen, she wants to protect him from her filth. She thinks he deserves better and refuses to believe he will continue to love her as he says he will. Henry’s sorrow over losing her is tangible and unrelenting and also had me choked up.

After the uncountable number of times Tempa has relinquished her body to satisfy a man, when she and Henry FINALLY make love, the description is almost ethereal. “She locked her gaze with his as his arm came under her. Then he clutched her beneath him and carried her away to a more exalted place… Tempa died in a glorious show of flames, and like a phoenix, a new creature arose from the ashes. Lou.” And this was the clincher: “Henry wasn’t like other men; he hadn’t just taken a piece of her, he’d taken all of her—of which she’d been empowered to freely give…but what he’d taken, he’d given back one hundred-fold.”

This story, but especially the telling of it, brought me to tears several times and left me wallowing in them at the end. It was tragic and despairing and beautiful and hopeful. At times, the remembrances of abuse were palpable and stopped just short of descriptions that would have created lasting damage to my mind. They will be hard to strike from my memory, though. The rapes were bad enough; some things were best left unsaid. But it ends on an uplifting note of love that rises above everything ugly in the world. It was almost a storybook ending, but it was worse than any (original) Grimm fairytale to get there. Suzette Bruggeman is going on my list of authors to watch and this is going on my favorites list. Truly outstanding.

It is hard to imagine how life was in the times of our ancestors. Things we take for granted now were unimaginable. Lou lost her family and was forced into a life she didn't want. Her kind and healing nature could not be squashed. I like the fictionalizing of her story. It was not an easy life and did bring tears to my eyes a few time.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley the opportunity to read and review this book. All thoughts are my own. From the start of this book, you can see the author has a personal stake in the book, including family pictures to help the reader connect. Tempe, 15 years old life is changed forever when her family dies in a pandemic, she goes to live with her sister and her husband. This book is rough, tells the tough truths of this time. The story between Tempe and Henry is one that this reader will never forget. I totally recommend this book.

You can tell the passion that Suzette Bruggemam has for this story. It is inspired by true events and reads like a historical fiction with the romance added in. Tempa has a heart of gold, and is just trying to carve out her own little piece of happiness in the lawless Gold Rush Era. When she meets Henry their lives become forever entwined.

I sadly didn't finish this one. I kept hoping for a positive turn or outlook, but I felt like it was too realistically negative.
It was also a little bit too much in the scenes for me...

Inspired by true events, this book was a great reminder that struggles can lead to triumph. Love, redemption, and resilience are themes highlighted in this book. There are some graphics scenes, so reader beware, but they are relevant to the story.

Tale of a truly badass woman surviving the Wild West. Thoroughly entertaining and eye opening love story as well.

Thank you to Skinny Leg Press and Netgalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

This book! Inspired by a true story is always a fun read. Because not only is the book great, but it is real. This really happened. I thought it was a fascinating read and I would highly recommend!

I loved how this book was based on real people and all the real photos that accompanied the story (tip: if the photos look distorted on your Kindle itself, try viewing them in the Kindle app on your phone!) It was a little long and I think it could have been cut down a bit, but at the same time I thought it was well-paced and I was interested in where the story was going.

I am glad that the author’s note about Henry and Tempa being real people was at the beginning of the story rather than the end, because you know immediately that they both live to end up together. That knowledge helps the reader get through some tragic events in the middle. I normally struggle with books that have too many sad events in them, and particularly dislike when they also have sad endings. The happiness of the ending here outweighed the hard stuff in the middle.

I enjoyed the characters and particularly loved Tempa’s love for books. This was a different perspective on an “Old West” story that I really liked for its uniqueness.

Thank you to the author - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A heart wrenching and beautiful story! Beautifully written. All the grit of living in the mining towns at the turn of the century when life was cruel to the most unsuspecting people. Out of that comes an unconditional love that knows no boundaries. This is a difficult read. Life was cruel. Finding the love and hope in this true story will stay with me for a long time. I read it in 2 sittings.

Such a beautiful, heart-wrenching story of bravery, survival, and love based on a true story. I was drawn in by the blurb - Tempa was sold into prostitution after her mom, dad, and brother die from fever. Many years later she meets Henry who is dying in a river bank and nurses him back to life. They soon strike up a friendship which slowly blossoms to love. But not without all the trials and tribulations of life in the Wild West.

This had so many things I love - fierce but down on her luck lady, cinnamon roll man who is head-over-heel in love with said lady, slice-of-life as a Pioneer on the American frontier in the 1800s, gold mining, cowboys, farming, friendships with the neighbor children, Little House on the Prairie / Redeeming Love vibes -

Honestly could have done with the super villain side plot, but otherwise loved it!

I want more! brb while I go on a Pioneer / “Little House on the Prairie” reading binge

Tempa and Henry's story of love, hardship and sadness was engaging and kept my interest throughout. The photographs of the characters and their descendants throughout made it realistic and a reminder that it is a true story. Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me access to this book.

I loved this book. Some of the bad reviews missed the point, I’m afraid. Readers expecting a standard historical romance were bound to be disappointed. This book is a love story, not a romance - there is a difference. That said, I can’t fault it on the historical side. Well researched and deeply evocative of time and place, Desert Phoenix is as good an old fashioned period novel as you’ll ever find.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

Very good Western set in 1901 in Nevada where a young German man meets an older woman prostitute. They develop a friendship that grows into love.but circumstances keep them from being together. The story goes through their long lives. This book is a great love story that brings tears to you. It’s also a good story of the Wild West.

This book was too heavy for me to finish. I love the main character Lou (or Tempa). Awful things happened to her, and they continued for a long time (eighteen years). She lost so much of the person who she was, and I pitied her.

I am a fan of Westerns and romances so Desert Phoenix was a true pleasure. The heart-rending true-life story of Lou/Tempa abandoned to the cruel fate of a prostitute in the mining towns is a reminder that the old days were not always so good. When she meets young Henry, an immigrant boy on the lam from a vengeful cattle rustler, an impossible twelve years age difference and a lifetime of harsh experience stands between them. Determined to love her no matter the cost, Henry embarks on a star-crossed romance that withstands all the ups and downs of their lifetimes. This was an engaging story that will keep you turning the pages for more and hoping for the best before the story ends. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you Suzette Bruggeman for sharing this story and Net Galley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Oh my goodness, this is such a good read. Tempa (Lou) and Henry’s love story is heartbreaking and heartwarming over the years of their life together. The trials they endured to be together is overwhelming at times. This book has it all. Romance, love, friendship, righting of wrongs, trials, suspense and joy. Must read. I was given an advanced reader copy by NetGalley and I am freely leaving my review.

Desert Phoenix, by Suzette Bruggeman, is like no other book I've ever read. It is the fictional account of a freighter, Freel Lyle, and some of the people he met on his trips to mining camps in Nevada and Utah. There is Henry, a young German immigrant who worked in a mine, but wanted to own his own ranch. There is also Tempa, a one-eyed prostitute who was delivered to a brothel by her brother-in-law after he repeatedly abused her. A host of other characters fill in the story of cruelty, despair, friendship, family, hope, and love.

This is definitely not Christian fiction, but it is a realistic tale of life in the boom and bust mining towns at the turn of the twentieth century.

Nevada’s gold country, 1901. A young woman, Tempa (previously known as Lou) finds the world is changing for her, her friend Belle and many others who are choosing unsavoury ways to get by in this crazy world they live in. Tempa finds peace in literature which she loves to share with others.

This is her story, a story of life, change, love and finding your way in a harsh environment. it is a story that flows well making it easy to read yet there are some parts of this book and story that are more intense and Tempa's story is pretty full on which does make you sit up and take notice.

This is an historical fiction, which I love, but in a different vain to what I normally read and this I found very interesting and intriguing. The story and the characters are well balanced, it is a bit long but I didn't struggle too much with that as it held my interest and attention.

A good book of a genre I love but of a different style and place than what I am used to. Great read.