Reviews

Worth a read if you enjoy westerns, historical fiction and a fair bit of angst and anxiety in your reads. The description of scenery and details of daily life on the trip west were very enjoyable.

eddiereid's review against another edition

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slow-paced

3.5

aljj's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It's a queer Oregon trail story, what more could you ask for?

leah_haskett's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.0

lezreadalot's review against another edition

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4.0

“I don’t want you to act like a woman or a man. Don’t act at all—just be yourself.”

3.5 stars. Gah, I enjoyed this so much. Looking at it as a whole, this could have turned out to be one of my favourite historical romances ever. All of the elements are there. There were a couple little things that impeded my enjoyment, but I'm happy to say that this is my favourite Jae book to date.

Luke Hamilton has been living as a man since she was 12. Once a soldier, she's looking to set up as a rancher in Oregon, and figures the journey west will be easier if she has a wife to legitimise her position. She proposes to Nora, a single mother prostitute working at her friend's brothel, and they begin the 2,000 mile journey together as a married couple. Easily my favourite thing about this is the slow burn. There are few things more satisfying in a romance than getting to see feelings slowly, organically, and realistically develop. Jae does her pacing really well, and there are enough tender moments and enough romantic tension and sexual tension to keep us interested in the relationship and rooting for them. They begin their marriage as strangers, and slowly become more comfortable, and then become friends, and then romance starts to develop, and it's sooooo so good. So many moments where I was smiling like a fool or wanting to shake them both. There are obviously obstacles to the romance, and they're both keeping secrets from one another; Luke's secret, o0f course, being that she isn't actually a man. Secret-keeping is something that can really kill my vibe in a romance, and this particular secret was keep for a liiiiittle too long, imo? But not by too much, and the revelation and fallout and everything that followed was perfect.

It's obvious that Jae did a lot of research for this book, and it shows. It's super immersive, and I was absolutely swept away by all trials and danger and action and the details of the journey. The story does include a trope/plot point that I don't love reading about, but it didn't bug me as much as I had anticipated. I love seeing gender nonconforming women in historicals, so I really liked Luke! She doesn't really read as cis. AFAIK the author hasn't said anything about this, but a case could definitely be made for her as a nonbinary lesbian.

The biggest thing I didn't really like is how the book talked about sex work. Nora is a former prostitute and Luke [mild spoiler] grew up in a brothel. Any woman can, of course, feel however she wants about sex work, especially if it wasn't her choice to begin with, but the book really went hard on treating Nora's former life like something she had to rise above/grow out of in order to get respect, rather than just a fact about her. I understand why other characters would be shitty about it, but both Luke and the narrative seemed low-key judgmental. Sometimes Luke would get frustrated about Nora "falling back into her role as a prostitute" or think about the fact that she was "more cultured and smart than the average prostitute" and it was really annoying and made it seem like Luke wanted to completely erase that part of Nora's past? Which was weird, since Luke was so awesomely accepting about everything else? IDK, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it was irritating. Additionally, this got a bit gender essentialist at times. I'm also beginning to realise that something I dislike in romances is when the love interest is continuously compared to other people. Especially in a "she doesn't wear makeup... unlike OTHER women!" type of way. No matter how benignly it's done, my eyes start to roll out of my head.

ETA: I would be remiss if I didn't mention: that whole bit with the Sioux braves being so enraptured by? Nora's hair? That they became overcome with desire and were willing to trade anything for her? Haha what the fuck.

Listened to the audiobook as read by Hayden Bishop and I REALLY loved it. At times she was slightly wooden and some of her pacing was a bit off, but there was all the emotion and heart that you could ask for. Also, Nora's 3 year old daughter plays a pretty big part in the book. I don't always love how narrators do children's voices, but Bishop's rendition of Amy was soooooo cute. T__T I loved it. I'm looking forward to continuing this series and hopefully loving those books even more.

Content warnings:

Spoiler

violence, rape, attempted rape, sexual harassment, domestic abuse, miscarriage, drowning

“I decided to take the risk and let myself love you.”

denjzen's review against another edition

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3.0

I often have a hard time finding lesbian writers who can actually write. This book moves quickly and has an actual plot. A quick and fun read.

rachelslacey's review against another edition

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5.0

I am so late to this party, but yes, this book is wonderful - Jae at her best! I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

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