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    Lucky Red: A Novel
    Lucky Red: A Novel
    Lucky Red: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    Lucky Red: A Novel

    Written by Claudia Cravens

    Narrated by Elena Rey

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A thrilling, raucous, and gloriously queer debut about a scrappy orphan bent on making her own luck in the American West—and finding friendship, romance, and her true calling along the way, now in paperback.

    “A powerful feminist battle cry . . . [and] rollicking good fun.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
     
    LONGLISTED FOR THE VCU CABELL AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Autostraddle, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal

    The heart wants what it wants. Saddle up, ride out, and claim it.
     
    When Bridget arrives penniless in Dodge City, already disillusioned by feckless men and the uncompromising landscape, she has only her wits to keep her alive. Thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, she’s recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow “sporting women.”

    But with the arrival of some infamous outlaws at the start of winter, tensions in Dodge City run high. When the Buffalo Queen’s peace and security are threatened, Bridget must decide what she owes to the women she loves and what it looks like to claim her own destiny.

    A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a masterfully crafted, propulsive tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
    Release dateJun 20, 2023
    ISBN9780593740941

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    Reviews for Lucky Red

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    • 4/5

      Jul 11, 2023

      fiction - orphaned young woman from Arkansas wanders into Dodge, finds work in a saloon/whorehouse, falls for a mysterious gunslinging woman (TW: snakebite death, sexual violence)

      lots of interesting female relationships and strong characters, a very readable Western adventure.
    • 4/5

      May 17, 2023

      Thanks to Dial Press/Penguin Random House for the ARC.

      80% of the way through my #ARC of LUCKY RED (Dial Press/Penguin Random House, June 20, 2023), I thought, if debut (?!?) author Claudia Cravens sticks this ending I’ll have no option but to rate this book five stars. The character development could be deeper but the novel is well nigh flawless. The pace and the turn of phrase are stunners. These similes, these metaphors, this just-exactly-enough description. And guess what. Cravens sticks the ending, shoves a claim flag into it and rides off into the sunset in a ten-gallon hat.

      The main character, Bridget, having lost everything but a skinny mule and the ragged dress on her back, wanders into the middle of nowhere in 1877, casting herself upon a merciless wilderness. Bridget is a first-person narrator and a good one. I read another #ARC recently with the same plot, THE VASTER WILDS by Lauren Groff (Riverhead/Penguin Random House, September 12, 2023). Again, love it, except for the ending.

      Bridget puts the work into sex work when she lands in a brothel in Dodge City with two madams where law enforcement gets freebies and looks the other way. Bridget makes friends with Caroline, who is educated and high-born. Bridget likes the brothel because for the first time in her life, she has money and enjoys creature comforts. As in A DANGEROUS BUSINESS by Jane Smiley (Knopf/Penguin Random House), December 6, 2022), the job is quite workwomanlike, platonic and perfunctory, except when it’s dangerous. However, most dangerous for Bridget is the women she becomes enamored with: first, Sallie the actress, then Spartan Lee, the infamous outlaw and bounty hunter. But no one really knows Bridget, whom Spartan nicknames “Red.” That steely, starving orphan is still underneath the lace and satin and capable of anything.

      Bridget never imagines that a terrible betrayal and brutal crimes might drive her and other members of her found family to dress like men and become desperadoes on the Kansas plains. -from my blog