“Lone Women” by Victor LaVelle

Adelaide reads about homesteading opportunities in Montana. She knows that it is time to leave it all behind in California. So she wraps up loose ends and sets out alone, at 31, to start a new life with only a bit of money and a heavy trunk to her name.

After experiencing more than her fair share of challenges just getting to her homestead, Adelaide finds that it is an empty run-down property in a desolate part of Montana, with no potable water, far from town.

Time to settle in for yet another 1900 Western story about how a tough woman overcomes all odds, finds a man, builds a family, and lives happily ever after? Not so fast; that wouldn’t be a Victor LaValle novel. You see LaVelle has taken his inimitable talents out West for “Lone Women” and Adelaide and the rest of us are in for a wild ride.

Adelaide’s mother taught her to always remember that “A Woman is a Mule”. We root for her to overcome hardships including being one of the very few non-White settlers, much less women, in a fully hostile place where the chances of surviving, much less thriving, are extremely low. It’s not just the constantly life-threatening elements that need to be overcome. It seems that Adelaide is not the only one that came to Montana with secrets to hide. Everyone has something that they best conceal. Combining them can only lead to a volatile outcome.

As always, LaVelle is amazing, conjuring a cast of characters that take your breath away. “Lone Women” segments are short, propelling the narrative, while never leaving the reader with the vaguest idea about what may come next. There is a whole lot to learn about what was really going on in the Wild West, content that you were unlikely to learn during your Social Studies class.

Thanks to One World and NetGalley for the eARC.