Great western book without the bodice ripping scenes; so refreshing! Strong female protagonist in a story that tells of hope and healing.

I have tried for weeks to get through this book. The idea that this woman with a mysterious and dangerous past is going to save the love of her life while on the road to self discovery, peak my interest and it was something I was looking forward to with extreme excitement.

But this book was slow, the tone/voice was so monotone it made reading the book difficult to read. I was hoping that the book would be more badass and just some overall personality but nothing was there for me.

1 Pickle

3.5 stars ~~ Thank you to NetGalley and Sparkpress for allowing me to read this in exchange for a review ~ publication September 12, 2017.

During the Colorado gold rush in 1860, Briar Logan is in pursuit of the dishonorable men who kidnapped her husband, Porter, for his ability and knowledge of dynamite and being able to blow open veins in mines, in their elusive search for riches.
Briar, always a loner, ends up in the company of two strangers during her pursuit. Jack, the boy-man, one of her neighbors, who insists he go along with her and Percy, a homeless horse breaker, who just happens to meet them on the road. Together these three endure hunger, snow storms, days in a cave, and injuries and all without rescuing Logan.
Change is always present, but being able to change is not always easy. It takes courage and sacrifice to open your heart. This story takes us from three very isolated, lonely people to a trio of concerned, caring and sharing family members. This is an adventure story - a western, of sorts - full of hope, family and love.

This is a very detailed novel that focuses on Briar and is told from her perspective. We learn about her and her relationship with her husband and other loved ones through flashbacks. The language is poetic, and Briar is definitely a strong female character. However, I didn't really enjoy the story. It moved a lot slower than I had expected and it was hard to tell what this novel was: was it a love story? was it more of action? It felt more like a mashup of 2 novels than one independent story. I also found that the poetic language and the flashbacks impeded my reading experience and detracted from the plot. The other characters were interesting but not so much that I felt drawn or connected to them. While I appreciate the author's attempt to showcase a strong female as the lead, the rest of the story didn't work for me. For those reasons, I'm giving it a 2/5 stars.

If you like westerns, especially ones with a strong female main character, I think you will enjoy "A Dangerous Woman from Nowhere" by Kris Radish. This is technically a love story, but not in a smutty, naughty romance sort of way, this book isn't in that genre (not there is anything wrong with a nice trashy romance set in the American west).

Set in the 1860's in the Colorado territory, right in the middle of the western gold rush, overnight Briar's life is turned upside down. Her husband is kidnapped, a former demolition expert. A mining company abducts him to work in their mine way up in the mountains. Desperate to get her husband back, Briar sets off on a dangerous trek across the rugged countryside to find her husband before it is too late.

The story is told from the perspective of several key characters. Briar makes some unusual companions along the way, each with a complicated past. But they are all dedicated to getting Briar's husband home. The underlying theme of the whole book is how love can overcome a lot of obstacles, and how it can form life-time bonds.

I liked this book, I really did, until about 2/3 of the way through. And then it sort of fizzled out. All the momentum sort of just went out of the story, and there was a lengthy wrap up of how each of the characters lived out the rest of their lives. I guess I just wanted there to be more. It isn't a bad story by any means, but I think the ending could have been much better.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I was very disappointed in this book. A 'dangerous woman' Briar Logan was not, unless you count being in danger of putting me to sleep with endless flashbacks and rambling descriptions. She always sounded like she might be going to be dangerous, but she never was. Right at the point where she could prove herself to be dangerous, she gets hit on the head by one of the bad guys, and is invalided for some considerable time after that, so where exactly was the danger she posed? Maybe it popped up at the very end, but I gave up all hope of it and never made it that far.

Plus one of the main characters was named Jack. That's a huge no-no for me. I detest novels in which one of the main characters is named using the most over-used 'go-to-guy' name in the history of literature. If I'd known there was going to be a Jack in this novel I would honestly never have requested to read it on that basis alone, so tired am I of seeing the trope 'Jack' in any sort of action-adventure story.

The rambling parts would not have been bad had the story been a rambling kind of story. Had the woman been on a road trip or was 'finding herself' or something along those lines, the diversionary descriptions would have maybe felt more appropriate, but when the story starts out with a sense of urgency - Briar Logan's desperate need to follow her husband who's been kidnapped by desperadoes - and yet the entire tale lapses into a sedentary, drifting, teetering, slow-paced meander, it fails for me because the main character seemed more like she was out on a nature ramble than ever she was interested in pursuing her husband. I simply could not get into this story no matter how far I read, and the author didn't offer any help.

The wandering sentences were of the nature of: "Even with the seriousness of the mission, it is impossible to watch the dew slip from the tops of the trees and cascade through the canopy of leaves that are on the brink of turning into the bold colors of fall without thinking how beautiful it is this time of day and year."

And you know, even in those circumstances, had the descriptions been related to the pursuer's state of mind, they might have worked, but they felt like they had been lifted from a travelogue rather than from a story where this woman's mind should have been, if we were to believe her attachment to her husband, worried sick about him and providing her only with a tunnel vision getting to him as fast as she could. I did not feel form her any sense of worry or fear, or of losing hope or losing heart, or of desperation, or of anger, or anything associated with what she ought to have been feeling! Consequently, it rang false throughout.

There were also oddly contradictory passages. For instance, at one point, and during a section which I initially thought was a flashback because it seemed so out of place, Briar is talking about gleefully strangling chickens, and then right after that, I read, "...been determined to treat him, and all the animals on the ranch, with a kindness she has come to realize is deserved by every living creature."

This was so completely contradictory of what had gone only just before that it brought me right out of suspension of disbelief. That's not to say that people can't have conflicting views, but this one came totally out of left field and for no reason at all. There was nothing to trigger it, and it was one of many passages I read that that made me think the author was more focused on turning a phrase than ever she was in actually telling a realistic story.

It wasn't only rambling, florid descriptions which tripped up this tale; it seemed like everyone and their uncle had a flashback, and if they had one, then they had a dozen. Every time one popped-up, it robbed the story of momentum and immediacy. I soon began thinking that if this woman really doesn't care about reaching her husband any time soon, why should I care if she reaches him at all? I gave up on it about eighty percent in because it simply held no interest for me at all. I cannot recommend this one.

We meet Briar Logan, aka Mika, the protagonist of Kris Radish's A Dangerous Woman from Nowhere (Amazon Sept. 2017) as she peers out the window of a dark room, watching her husband dragged down the street by armed ruffians. The story is told in present tense so we don't know if she's happy or sad about these circumstances, whether she's a victim in hiding or a savior preparing to ride in on a white horse. We do know she's come to this 1860's western town for a reason important to her but now saving her husband will have to go first. She is a self-described 'dangerous woman' and as she prepares for battle, collecting a wide variety of deadly weapons, mentally shifting from ranch wife to remoreless killer, we see why. Radish builds the drama relentlessly and effectively by describing Briar first as a victimized child in a hellhole of an orphanage, then as the willing student to the loving Ute couple who teach her to survive anything, and finally as the mature adult who allows herself to believe in love only to have it dashed.

"... she has been determined to treat him, and all the animals on the ranch, with a kindness she has come to realize is deserved by every living creature."

It's a character driven story filled with introspection and emotion and unlike any other western you've read. I have to admit I fell in love with the book in the first ten pages and was hooked when Briar took time from preparing to save her husband to promise an abused dog that she would free it once she finished this rescue task (no spoilers--you'll have to read the book to see if she followed through):

"Briar’s husband has told her animals smile, and she sees the dog smile, its lips moving just a tiny bit, the second it smells the bread, and in spite of her present condition and what awaits her, she wants to laugh again. “There,” she says one more time, quietly. “Have the bread, and I promise we’ll come back to save you.”
Overall, a worthy read, one that will entrance you with its emotion and feeling.

--will appear on my blog, WordDreams, Oct. 15

Set in 1860s Colorado, A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere’s intriguing opening sees Briar witness her husband’s kidnap by a group of men. It seems Briar and her husband, Porter Logan, have been expecting this eventuality and have done all they can to avoid it and the disruption it will bring to the hard-won peace of their life together. Logan has knowledge and skill that is of value and his kidnappers have riches in their sights and won’t stop at anything to possess it.

Providing hints of just why she is the self-styled ‘dangerous woman from nowhere’, Briar sets out to rescue Logan, armed with an impressive array of weaponry, dogged determination and the survival skills taught her by the people who took her in as a child.

‘Briar didn’t know it then, but she was headed to a place where she would learn to shoot to kill, throw a knife so expertly she could slice a dried apple in half at sixty paces, ride a horse as if they were one, and where she also learned lessons of survival and life...’

Consciously throwing off the woman she has become, Briar channels the inner spirit she calls Mika, identified with the characteristics of the raccoon – intelligent and who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
As Briar sets out on her journey, we gradually learn more about her traumatic childhood, the emotional scars those experiences have caused and the role of Porter Logan in helping her heal to the extent she has. We also see just what a resourceful, fiercely independent and determined person she has become.

‘Her life had been and would always be about survival, and Briar knew she wanted to live, to experience the world Logan had opened up to her, to try to understand the ways of the heart more than she ever had in the past.’

Briar is just one of the powerful female characters who are the driving spirits of this book. There’s Laurie Eberhardt, an example of the strong pioneer women who matched their menfolk in battling the elements to grind out a living on the ranches of the period. And there’s Grace Perry, horse-breaker and crack shot, another loner who’s had to live by her wits to make her way in the world without the succour of home and family but who cannot resist the instinct to help Briar in her quest.

“You need me, Briar. It is impossible for me not to help. It is especially impossible for me not to help another woman.”

All three of them have experienced hardship, cruelty and loss in their lives but survived through a combination of grit, determination and by acquiring the skills necessary to defend themselves as women alone in a brutal, often lawless environment. And there’s Jack, a young man with his own traumatic history who has had to learn to survive on his own from early childhood and is seeking redemption for perceived past failures to act. Together, Briar, Grace and Jack embark on the dangerous journey to rescue Logan, each contributing their various skills and becoming in their own way a sort of family. As Jack reflects, “There are different ways to find a home and many people who might be called family”.

There is danger along the way despite the deceptive beauty of the landscape: ‘The sprinkling of red, gold, yellow, and orange leaves is slowly creeping higher each day, as if someone were moving from ridge to the next with a box of paints.’

A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere is an exhilarating combination of Wild West adventure story, moving love story, powerful evocation of the wild landscape of North America and celebration of female power and solidarity.

This book would have been complete perfection for me but for the epilogue. Suddenly the gritty, authentic feel the author had created throughout the rest of the novel seemed to give way to something out of ‘The Waltons’. I didn’t want to know all this stuff, I wanted to be left to imagine it for myself or read about it in a sequel. If I could presume to give the author advice, I would say dump the epilogue; the book finishes quite perfectly without it. For this reason, I rate it 4.5 stars.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, SparkPress, in return for an honest review.

A Dangerous Woman from Nowhere is one of the most unique stories I've read in a very long time. I don't know if I've ever read a wild west style novel that had female protagonists that weren't portrayed as bodice ripper romance novel with "heaving breasts." I definitely enjoyed reading about strong women who did whatever they had to in order to have what they wanted in life. I wish the author had gone a bit more into detail about the events leading up to what made Briar into the isolated, independent woman that she became. We get some details about an orphanage and some vague descriptions of abuse she suffers at their hands before she's saved by an Ute Indian and his wife, but not enough to really explain why she's so withdrawn and wants nothing from life but peace and solitude. This didn't detract from the story at all though. The characters were well thought out, the plot line flowed well, and it was an enjoyable read.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Kris Radish, and SparkPress in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

This historical novel, covering the years of the 'gold rush' in Colorado and then California, is filled with characters easy to understand, easy to care for. Kris Radish is an author I hadn't read before - thank you Netgalley for this exposure to a writer I will follow. You will love these protagonists - Briar (Mika) and young Jack, both raised and abused in a Colorado orphanage, and Percy, a woman who couldn't fit into the cookie cutter mold of nineteenth century womanhood. Logan is also a good guy, but we don't see much of him - just enough to understand why Briar will follow him anywhere. I look forward to reading many more of the works of Ms. Radish.

While reading this book I began writing down my initial thoughts. I wrote that it was ‘refreshing’, that the characters were probably more real than the romanticized versions you usually get in Western Historical Fiction. And I still feel that way; a strong element of this book is the description of the people in the story.

My Kindle tells me that this is how I felt for 87% of the book. The plot moved slowly at times, but I marveled at how specific and detailed the writing style was. In fact, that 87% only covered about 9 days. I say kudos to an author who can do that and still hold the interest of a reader.

And then, just when you are wondering if one of the main characters will make it through his ordeal, the tone of the book changes. Suddenly and amazingly, everyone is happy and successful and 30 years or so have gone by.

I felt cheated out of two books, the one I was reading and another to read in the future. The story of those cleverly-crafted strong characters ended abruptly. I would have liked the author to finish what she had begun, to unfold the ending, just as she had the hardships. That last 13% of the book (according to my Kindle remember) read more like the outline of her next book, one that could have turned into a very good saga.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Excellent characterisation and Briar was an amazing lead character. The setting in Colorado was very authentic, as it should be in a Western. The book is about love, trust, courage and friendship. Fans of women's fiction will enjoy this book. Many thanks to Net Galley for my copy. I reviewed on Goodreads.

A Dangerous Woman from Nowhere by Kris Radish is one of those hard to put down books. So hard to put down that I am writing this review after only getting four hours of sleep. A definite five stars, recommend to everyone book.

Kris Radish is a storyteller and I love all her books, so I guess it is not surprising that I liked A Dangerous Woman from Nowhere. What is surprising is the theme. Unless I've missed one or two of Kris' books, this is a departure from her usual books. In a way the book reminded me of several of Sandra Dallas' books, another can't miss author.

Brair is a damaged woman. On her own, at a very young age, after escaping a very abusive environment, she's found half starved, in a cave, by Joseph and Nora. They take Brair in and teach her how to survive and what it is to be loved. Joseph sends Brair to take care of Logan's ranch in his absence and when he returns they fall in love and run the ranch together.

One day while Brair is in town, the owners of a gold mine kidnap Logan and Brair vows to get Logan back. The book follows the Brair's journey to the mountains and into the mines and the people she meets who help her and those who are against her.

I cannot recommend this book more.

Kris Radish's work always incorporates strong female characters. Pushed to their limits, they prove their worth in the face of extreme adversity. Every woman in the story has an important role in the survival of each other and Briar and Percy are no exceptions to this premise. I have liked her writing since the first book I read, The Elegant Gathering of White Snows. It's hard to believe that Kris is terrified of horses since Briar has a special relationship with her horse, Willow. This is a story of survival and love. Escapism at its best.

The star rating is really tearing me up. I'm stuck between 3 and 4 stars, so 3.5 stars? Here's the thing: there are some things this book does really, really, well, and there are some places where I think it could use a little help.

I'd like to start by congratulating this book/author on being different. I haven't read anything with this style in a long time. It's written in the present tense, which I almost never see, and gave the book a different feel. The whole book also feels like one long stream of consciousness from the characters. Like, Briar is riding in the mountains and she feels snow in the air, and she begins to recall the first time her husband taught her to smell the snow, and when that little anecdote is finished we are moving on to a different subject. It gave these characters a strong sense of authenticity in a new and unique way.

The setting also felt very authentic which I think is important to a western. This takes place mostly in the San Juaz Mountains, but we also see the small gold mining towns and ranches surrounding the mountains. The seasons change, the weather changes, we see cabins and caves and brothels. It felt dirty and gritty and beautiful all at the same time.

The women in this book were both exceptionally strong. They are women, struggling to find their place and the respect they deserve in a very male dominated world. They shoot guns, they ride, and they don't take no crap from nobody. They are fiercely independent and Briar is filled with shades of gray, struggling between a softer, more feminine nature her husband has brought out in her, and the woman she knows she must be in order to save him from the men who have abducted him. Percy is 100% bad ass and I absolutely loved her.

That said, I do have some hesitations about this book. The first, is that there is very little action. 90% of this is jumping in the heads of one character to the next, while they meander through the mountains and struggle with their inner demons. I really wanted to see a daring rescue with our dangerous women from nowhere riding in in the middle of the night, guns blazing. There is some of this happening in the middle of the book, when they finally start reaching the camp, and those were admittedly the parts I enjoyed the most and had me glued to the page.

My only other critique, is that sometimes the characters very often felt the same or seemed like they were saying the same things. For example: most of them have very tortured pasts. Understandable: it's the lawless west. But as a result they all: enjoy solitude above all other things. Jack might be the only exception to this rule. Logan, Percy, and Briar all state at some point or other, their need for silence and solitude. Many of the characters say things like: "We must do what we must do," "We must be what we must be," and "It is what it is." In terms of dialogue, just reading a line you'd never be able to look at it and say, oh that's definitely Briar speaking.

Ultimately, this is a book about love and trust and the lessons we must impart to our children and the obstacles we must strive to overcome and the strength of women. It was a good story and I loved the ending and the poetic justice that was done. It is a historical fiction novel, but I'd recommend it to fans of women's fiction.

Thank you to SparkPress and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I DNF this at 30%. A Dangerous Woman from Nowhere made me feel as if I were being dragged behind a horse because of weird phrasing, repetition, flat characters, and this sense that this isn’t the first book in the series.

Examples of weird phrasing:
“The wooden floor above her was also the ceiling, and when Briar looks up, she can see the outline of everything in the room above.” Just, what? Does she have x-ray vision?

“Her long brown skirt rides to the floor.” Shouldn’t her skirt slide to the floor. When clothing rides, it typically rides up.

“He tells her they ride fine horses and have silver spurs and hats of thick felt that cause envy…” This is so corny. I cannot imagine anyone talking this way to a woman who has shot them… or rather grazed them with a bullet.
Briar has a bad habit of repeating herself when she is talking to animals. I get that people do that in real life, it’s just a pet peeve of mine. It probably won’t bother many other people.
It feels like there’s a lot of telling. I don’t get a good idea of who Briar is other than a boring version of super girl. I don’t feel a real sense of love connection between her and Logan in her flashbacks. I feel like this is the first time Briar and Laurie. I just read these characters as cardboard cutouts of the people they could be.

I continually felt like this is a second book. Radish keeps eluding to major backstory between Logan and Briar that doesn’t get really revealed till chapter three, which is okay. But they way she addresses it, she makes it seem like I should already know this information. Also along these lines, is Briar’s past. Radish talks about this backstory, in mentions like one would in a second novel. I did some googling, and it appears this is a standalone. Is this correct?

Overall, this just wasn’t my cup a tea. I want to thank Netgalley for allowing me to give it a try.