This is a well written, magical tale of life in Wyoming in the late 1870's. The characterisation is strong, with Cora being a bit dippy at times and reliant on the strength and fortitude of Nettie Mae. I loved the descriptions, the plotting and the insight into life in the Wild West but the book just ended too quickly for me. It's a good story though and one I would recommend. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

When I first started I was overwhelmed and had no idea how this worked. Sorry I did not have time to read this one. I am doing better at reading and reviewing, now that I know how this works years later.

I was so impressed with the poetic and lyrical prose in this beautiful novel. The story was stunning, captivating and I had hoped for a few more chapters. I loved every moment of this magical story.

Such a beautiful story of resilience and survival. Set in Wyoming in 1876, the Bemis and Webber families have always relied on each other to survive their harsh living conditions. That is, until the wife of one family (Cora Bemis) and the husband of the other family (Substance Webber) are caught by Cora’s husband in a compromising position. When Cora’s husband, Ernest, kills Substance in a fit of rage and he ends up in prison. With Ernest serving time and Substance gone, the two wives and their children must work through their feelings of anger and shame in order to get through the winter without their husbands. From tending crops, to milking cows, herding sheep, cooking meals, and caring for their children, these two women were able to find the strength to keep their families alive. It brought up so many emotions as I read about their struggles.

Olivia Hawker is a wonderful storyteller and her writing really drew me in right from the beginning. Her ability to describe life on the prairie and the hardships these two families endured kept me captivated throughout. This book was one of my all time favorites and I highly recommend it to you.

Very good book and pleasantly surprised since it was a atep outside the comfort zone for reading! However, I would not be adding it to my classroom bookshelf, but possibly my home library!

Thank you Netgalley for the e-book of One for The Blackbird, One for The Crow by Olivia Hawker in exchange for my review.

From the blurb “Wyoming, 1870. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn’t think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse.”

This is my first read by Olivia Hawker and she is a fantastic storyteller. I was pulled right into this book off the get-go. It’s a story of love and betrayal, infidelity, survival, and forgiveness. What more do you need in a book? This story is really detailed and some of that could have been omitted (I admit, I did skim over parts of the details). But it’s just a great story, I was sad when it ended.

In the Northern Wyoming prairie in the shadow of the Bighorn Mountains, the Bemis and Webber families are the only settlers for miles, with the nearest town 20 miles away. It is 1876 when Ernest Bemis comes across his wife, Cora, with the neighbor, Substance Webber. In a fit of rage, he shoots and kills Substance. Now with Substance in the grave and Ernest in jail, both wives are without husbands and left alone with the responsibility of the farms and their children. Life is harsh on the prairie, so with winter looming and the harvest not gathered, the loss of the men is devastating. Nettie Mae Webber is consumed with bitterness and hatred over Cora Bemis’s betrayal. At the same time, she feels relief at losing her brutal and uncaring husband. Cora is consumed with guilt and regret. It is 13-year-old Beulah Bemis and 16-year-old Clyde Webber, both resilient, likable characters, who try to carry the workload. They realize the real danger their families face with the coming winter. Nettie is hard to convince of the necessity of working together and moving the Bemis family into her house. When they join households, her animosity towards Cora creates conflict. She does everything to keep Clyde and Beulah separated, out of fear of a romance blooming.

Hawker’s language is very descriptive and poetic, but the extended flowery prose gets very tedious and adds unnecessary length to the book, while overshadowing an insubstantial plot. As Beulah, Clyde, Cora, and Nettie Mae each tell their stories, there is often overlap and repetition. This is a story of life and death, the beauty of nature, and healing, sorrow, and redemption. Readers who like extensive, descriptive prose and less plot will enjoy this book.

-- Historical Novels Review, November 2019

Two fatherless and husbandless families in the need to survive. But how can the two women cooperate; when one’s husband killed the other one’s husband? For adultery with his wife, nonetheless?
Yet, life must go on.

Mixed feelings. On the one hand, this is beautiful, lyrical prose! Ms Hawker is enormously gifted writer who can see the miracle of life even in the smallest things (even in the seemingly ugly things!) and her patience and understanding that the change and growth takes its time is very real and believable. Yet, it is precisely because of her understanding of small things and the time needed for the change that the novel is also very slow and practically nothing ever happens (things do happen here, but there is very little action and too much descriptions, albeit beautifully done ones). Honestly, the shortening/cutting of the too descriptive parts could enhance the story, I think.
I like the wives’s characters. Cora and Nettie Mae are both understandable - and even if Nettie Mae took her sweet time to grow, I can get her perspective of hurt woman in the harsh environment. On the other hand, Beulah and the magical realism she represents sometimes were hard to believe.

I think that this novel needs its reader to be in the mood for such a book - quiet, reflective reader who has seen some life and who enjoys the slow pace. I was not that reader this time, but I am not saying that I would not enjoy the novel in the other times/periods in life! Because having said all that above, the beauty of the writing is great here.

The book is fascinating very poetic and with a lyrical prose.
You will be swept back in time to the Wyoming frontier of 1876.
The two farms next door to each other are all either of the neighbors have and the families have always relied heavily on each other for survival.
Survival that is until the unthinkable happens and the wife of a man is caught in a compromising position with the neighbor man.
Before you could blink an eye shots ring out a man is dead and the other is in jail.
The families have now come to hate each other but the men from the families are gone and the eldest in each family are only young teens themselves a sixteen year old boy and a young teen girl.
Tells a story of working together,forgiveness and compassion after the bitterness subsides.
Strong story line.

Published October 8th 2019 by Lake Union Publishing
I was given a complimentary copy of this book. Thank you.
All opinions expressed are my own.

Spectacular writing of survival and sacrifice on the American frontier. An amazing story born on the frontier and it feels as if you are living it. Well developed characters and a piece of fascinating historical fiction. A verbose read and well written piece that you'll immerse yourself into.

This is a beautifully written book.
It is about two families who are neighbours but are forced to live together even though there is much hostility between them in more ways than one. Clyde and Beulah are the central characters and it tells of their developing relationship despite the opposition of their families. It is also about reconciliation and acceptance and finally friendship. Beulah sees and senses things that no one else does and is much older than her years.
It also describes the prairies and the Bighorn mountains of Wyoming perfectly. The loneliness and desolation that the pioneers must have felt when they first settled on the land.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Thankyou to Netgallery and the publishers for the advance copy.
Four and a half stars.

One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow is set in Wyoming in 1870. It follows the aftermath for two families after Mr. Bemis shoots his neighbor, Mr. Webber after having an affair with his wife. Mr. Bemis goes to jail leaving his wife, Cora and children alone at their farm. The neighbor’s farm is left with Nettie May Webber and her son Clyde, age 17 - no her husband to run the farm.
The story is told through the eyes of Beulah Bemis, Cora’s 13 year old daughter who has a strong insight into people and nature. The two families must exist together in order to survive the coming winter. Clyde Webber and Cora Bemis must work together in the fields and with the animals so the families can survive. Their mothers hate each other but must also work together to survive.
The conflicts make a great story as the characters are developed and the difficulties and dangers of farm life were well documented. Those that enjoy historical novels that are set in the developing west will enjoy the twists and turns in the book. Thanks to Lake Union Publishing and Olivia Hawker for giving me the opportunity to read and review the book.

2.5★
“Beulah, he said, I done something wrong.

I said, I know it, Pa.

He nodded. Pa never questioned this way I have—the knowing that comes to me from the movement of wind or the scent of blackberries, or the sound of a gunshot by the river.”

There are some wonderful descriptive passages and an interesting premise to this story, just enough interest to keep me going as far as I did until I began skimming. Two mothers, one widowed, one with her husband in jail, face a bleak winter on neighbouring farms in northern Wyoming in 1876. They are enemies.

The 16-year-old son of one and the 13-year-old daughter of the other join forces in an attempt to handle the farm work on each holding without the benefit of help from anyone else.

“The prairie was nothing but death, season in and season out. Dry grasses, gray sage, the hawks falling from the sky to seize whatever small lives struggled in the thin shadows below. Wolves howling at night, eager for the hunt. The brown water racing down a hill face, the sterile winter snow six feet deep.”

I was really looking forward to this one, as I had a family member who lived in the area where it takes place, but even that wasn’t enough to keep me connected.

The chapters alternate between characters, which gives the author plenty of scope to view the day-to-day chores from different perspectives, but it’s obvious the main character is Beulah, who has “the knowing”. She’s called dreamy and distractible by her mother, but strange and unnatural by the neighbour.

She can walk through a pen of lambs, and they will come to her. The chickens, and even the rooster, will gather at her feet quietly. If someone is ill, we know her thoughts about the outcome. At one point, she’s standing by a heavily pregnant ewe.

“Brief as my encounter with that ewe had been, I had seen with vivid clarity the sacred shadow hanging over her back, darkening the curve of her poll. Death was waiting, already drawn close beside her.
. . .
Death comes when it comes. You can’t do a thing to change it, once the great and final decision has been made.”

There are so many instances of her responding to the wonders of nature and the foreboding of death that I kept waiting for the story to move along. About halfway through, I began skimming sections, dipping back into it when something happened – flood, storm, blizzard – anything.

I decided to persist, quickly, to the end, and then discovered in the author’s notes that this is a true story. It’s inspired by the lives of her great-grandparents, who experienced a lot of what happens between these two families, including the two women enemies who shared a home for the winter.

I feel certain the author has used her artistic licence very enthusiastically in describing the relationship between the teenagers, Clyde and Beulah. In her acknowledgements, she writes:

“In fact, Blackbird almost seemed to write itself, pouring out of me in an ecstatic rush whenever I sat down to work on the manuscript.”

I wish there had been a sterner editor to stem that rush so it would be less repetitive and about half the length. I kept thinking of the quote I read from Kwame Anthony Appiah, the Chair of the judges of the 2018 Booker Prize, when the judges were commenting about the need for better, tighter editing.

“We occasionally felt that inside the book we read was a better one, sometimes a thinner one, wildly signalling to be let out.”

I’m sure there are other readers with more patience who will enjoy this. For me, the length, repetitiveness and ‘magic’ affected my rating. I thank NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.

P.S. For readers who are sensitive to style, this is another book that often doesn't use quotation marks and in which whole chapters are in italics - just so you know.

This is a story of just how strong the human will to survive is. Ms. Hawker dies not romanticize the American West in this story. The book opens with a murder of a neighbor and goes on to tell the story of how that one act affects two families who are bound together by it. Winter on the plains is harsh and both families must find a way to survive the coming season while working through their own griefs and prejudices. Neither family is guiltless in this telling. The Bemis's because they start the tragedy nor the Webbers because the matriarch cannot release the secrets that she carries deep inside her. The author is able to tell all of the stories that are both hidden and open in each of the characters in her story. I especially liked how she was able to do this. When I finished this book I wasn't sure how to categorize it. Was it a tale of human resilience over the elements? Was it a tale of buried secrets ? Some so deep that they threatened to destroy the life of the person that held on to them so tightly ? Or was it a love story ? I came to realize that this is a love on every level.. A story of t he love between the husband and wife of both families, and the children of each family. The author tells their stories without prejudice and the reader is lead to discover how it started and how it all turned out. I really liked this book and will look for more from this author

I personally don't care for cozy mysteries, but instead I enjoy what I would call cozy western novels. I mean, sure there's murder on the first page, adultery, orphaned children and widows, and a husband who may be facing a hanging due to the murder, but still...I label it a cozy western. The vivid Wyoming descriptions, plus a female survivor story about hardships on the frontier...sign me up!

A beautifully written novel that encapsulates themes of family, love and community. It wasn’t particularly thrilling but for a simple read, I recommend

This was a wonderful novel! I enjoyed how the characters were brought to life, the way that their stories were told, their emotions, and the relationships between each other. I was engrossed in the story from the first page. There are two families living out secluded on the Wyoming prairie in 1870. When one man kills a man from the other family, both families are destroyed and left full of loss. When winter gets closer, the women realize they have to somehow work together to keep their farms going. Nettie Mae has to deal with the other woman Cora who was sneaking off with her husband. At the same time, their oldest children are working easily together to take on all the work that the farms require. What each of the characters learns from the others will change all of their lives.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this. I will be posting a full review to Goodreads, Amazon, and Instagram.

This for me was one of those books that the story was pretty decent but I got bored reading it. It should have been good but as I sit here thinking about it I just can't find a reason to say it was.
The story line is that prairie neighbors the Bemis and the Webbers live out miles away from town. One of the dudes decides to bonk the other one's wife and ends up dead. Other daddy goes off to jail. Leaving the two women and children on their own. That's a pretty big deal in the time period...several things can kill you. Freezing, starving, your neighbor....
The two women have to make it on their own. But honestly in my mind only one would have. Nettie Mae (the one who was cheated on) is the only one that had any dang sense. The other woman kinda pouts around and makes stupid decisions. Her daughter Beulah does most of the work but they keep talking about how flighty she is. I was confused.
ANNNNDDDDD a major pet peeve- this author repeats half the story over and over and over again. I can't even with that.


Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

Unfortunately I didn't have opportunity to read/review this one due to other commitments, but I did feature it on my page. If I get the chance to review this one I will make sure to come and update it here. Thank you Netgalley and publisher for my gifted copy.