RATING: 4 STARS

I loved Melissa Lenhardt's western series, Sawbones so when I saw there was another historical fiction I had to read it! This book is a standalone (so far), but it does have some small cameos from previous characters (from Sawbones). As soon as I started this novel I was hooked. I loved the characters and the story, and that it doesn't shy away from being a western.

The novel is set post-civil war in America, where a "family" of women turn to a life of an outlaw gang to survive. A British widow (Garet), a former African-American slave (Hattie) and two uneducated young sisters running from their former life make up this family of outlaws. On their last job they pick up a woman (Grace) traveling the West to write about her adventures...but not everyone agrees to this newcomer joining them. They have managed to avoid the law because no one wants to admit they have been held up by women. When an another outlaw group returns to town, after escaping to Mexico, the gang might just have to pull off one more heist before retiring...but at what cost.

The novel is narrated by a three of the women - Hattie, in 1930s, as an old woman tells her story to a research assistant, Margaret (Garet) in 1877 through a diary, and Grace also in 1877 through her own notes. Each woman brings insight of the time, place and social norms and pressures. Despite this being a fictional account of women who become outlaws, this is also a realistic stories in a lot of ways. It is told with compassion, humour and action. I read this one slower than I would have liked as I wanted to live in this world for awhile. It was bittersweet finishing the last page. I really hope Lenhardt does another historical fiction as I am officially hooked.

Who would have thought that Margaret Parker and Hattie LeCour would ever meet, much less become good friends? Margaret, known as Garrett to everyone was born in England and married a nobleman. Hattie was born a slave in America and after that, supported herself in a variety of ways, often as a prostitute. But after Garrett and her husband migrated to the United States, the two women did meet out West. After Garrett's husband died, the women decided to use the ranch Garrett and her husband started as a refuge for women fleeing vicious husbands or family situations.

The women were both excellent horse trainers and the farm was thriving. They broke horses, did transport and were outearning the male ranches in the area. That put a lot of noses out of order and the men grouped together to run the ranch out of business, refusing the women loans, putting a blacklist on their horses and anything else to ruin them. Eventually the ranch had to be sold for pennies on the dollar and the women who lived there were left penniless.

What could they do? What else except form a gang and start to rob trains, stages and banks? Garrett always made sure they were targeting locations tied to the family that led the events that took their ranch and livelihood. The women flew under the radar as men refused to admit that they had been outsmarted and robbed by women. But eventually the truth came out and the law and the Pinkerton detective agency started to track the women, determined to bring them to justice.

This is a fascinating look at the Old West from another perspective. The women's characters are all different and fully developed. The love between the women who formed a different type of family was real and their friendships allowed them to do things no one would have expected. This is a side of the Old West that hasn't been discussed and Melissa Lenhardt does a great job doing so. This book is recommended for women readers and anyone interested in the Old West.

5 STARS!!!

One of my top 5 reads of 2021! Listened to the audiobook version first provided by NetGalley, then absolutely had to get my hands on a physical copy.

What a great story! Queer, tough, kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Give me a prequel to this book and I WILL READ IT with pleasure and exuberance!

Comparable to Sarah Gailey’s Upright Women Wanted, yet uniquely different. This theme of strong, Western womxn, trans, and non-binary folx just does it for me, every time.

Would recommend to anyone who appreciates kick-a$$ queers and females causing all kinds of trouble with a Western twist. Yee-haw!

For quite some time I have been wanting to read a story set in the 'Wild West' and where better to start than with a female gang!

Here we have a story about the Parker Gang led by Margaret ‘Garet’ Parker and Henrietta ‘Hattie’ Lee who robb banks and stage coaches.
Later on the gang is joined by Grace Trumball ostensibly a journalist brought into the gang in order to give an account of this gang of women that no one believes exists because ‘women aren’t capable of such exploits’

The narrative is framed as a faux true-story using ‘modern’ interviews, newspaper headlines and journal entries to tell the story.It wasn’t completely unsuccessful but it also was completely successful.
A book written as a journal can give a very personal point of view and using the journal entries from several of the characters has the advantage of presenting several different POVs but also it requires going back of the timeline, repeating events that had already ‘happened’ once.
In this case the narration style seemed to suck the pace out of what should be a very exciting story. It was most enjoyable when the narrator seemed to be swept along with the action but in general there was too much telling and few moments when the reader felt part of the story.

Also I was a little confused that the person being interviewed in the 'modern' timeline was not the POV narrating the main story. It seemed a strange choice not off-putting just a little odd.

I listened to the audio version. At first it was fine and I can’t pinpoint the exact problem but the English accent was a little strained and occasionally the voice sounded robotic. I didn’t actively dislike it but it definitely had a soporific effect which dulled my enjoyment of the narrative.

Not a great read but not bad either
3 stars for the story
3 stars for the audio

After a bit of a cold start I got completely hooked on this one and ended up in tears at the end. I fell in love with the whole posse and was enthralled the story. "Garet" is never unbelievably amazing. She is intelligent and strong but makes mistakes and pays for them which sounds bad but I love a believable character. Her posse is equally as fantastic but believable. They're exploits all fall into perfectly believable things women would do and think.
The only draw back for me was that the LGBT themes were a little forced at times. It wasn't terrible but just took me out of the story a bit sometimes.

The narration was beautifully done and easy to listen to!

This is a wonderful book that for me really blurred the lines between fiction and nonfiction. I knew when I requested it that it was a fiction book but the set up of the story and the author's writing absolutely gave it a feel of history and reality that was incredible.
The crossing of the diary of Margaret Parker and the oral retelling that Hattie LaCour participated in was excellently done and really enhanced the story. The sprinkling in of other historical anecdotes like newspaper clippings and quotes from other books really created an atmosphere of believability that really blurred the lines between non-fiction and fiction.
This audiobook runs about 14 hours and once you start it, you don't want to pause it. You can feel your heart race as the narrator talks about the heists that were pulled off and the contrasting of the stories by the two different narrators shows how each person has their own story of the same events and how that can happen.
There is a feeling of sorrow and sadness that permeates the stories that the narrators tell as they are speaking about a time that they know will be coming to an end soon and that they knew would never last. As women in the west, they were free in a way but it could be gone in an instant and for them it was.

I love the idea of a female outlaw gang. Especially one that acts like Robin Hood and shares the wealth with the townsfolk.

As the story unfolds, I ended up adoring each of the women gang members for their grit and determination and the path they had to take to become these strong women.

The characters were wonderful, the story entertaining and the wild west from a female point of view is such a great story! I would love to see this turned in to a movie or TV Series.

And can we talk for a moment about how so many authors are finally embracing diversity in characters! Heresy has both POC and LBGTQIA+ community representation and I am loving it! A big Thank You to the author for their inclusiveness.

The narrators were fantastic and if you like audiobooks, this is definitely one to add to your list!

The only detractor for me in this story was that it was told from a researchers perspective. Interviews and journal readings. Every time the story would come back to the researcher, even if only for a minute or two, it pulled me out of the past and I wasn’t a fan. I loved Hattie’s retelling in the interview process and of course the journals of both Margaret and Grace but if it was written as just a regular story, I would have loved it so much more. That’s just a personal choice and I’m sure other readers will really like this storytelling method.

If you like the Old West, strong female leads and adventure, definitely pick up a copy of Heresy!

Thank you to #HachetteAudio, #Redhook and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book during a cross country road trip. I couldn’t have chosen a better book! As I traveled through towns I’d never visited before while listening to this book, it gave me the feel of being in the western itself. I love, love, love that this book focused on strong FEMALE characters, albeit OUTLAWS, who were witty, wily, and wonderful in the ways of the Old West. The narration is told from three different POVs and that made the story interesting as details were filled in from the different character perspectives. These women made quite a name for themselves, upsetting rival male outlaw gangs and, of course, the authorities.

I enjoyed this book from beginning to end and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about tough women making it on their own.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

I loved this book so much. I listened to the Audio book and it has a full cast, which really brought this book to life. The cast was just perfect to create the most brilliant sense of atmosphere. It almost seemed and felt like a non-fiction book, the author claimed the this story was found by a friend at an antiques fair. Which told the story of an all woman outlaw team. It was wrote as a set of interviews telling this story which I found very interesting element of the book. It made the book exciting, gripping, with a brilliant sense of atmosphere and tension. The story-line was brilliant from the start all the way until the very last moment. The author really does have a knack for adding those little details that really bring the story to life. I could not put this book down (or at least press pause lol) sleep felt less important while reading this book as the level of action just captures you, ensnared the mind, its such a brilliant historic fiction / western. It was amazing that it follows a group of women outlaws, who found it too embarrassing to admit that they did a better job than the male counterparts. I will be looking forward to reading more books by this author in the future.
Already listed on amazon,goodreads, kobo, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble and on my book blog
https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/heresy-by-melissa-lenhardt-hachette-audio-5

Basically everything you could want based on the cover and description. It definitely lives up to the promise it sets. If you're a fan of westerns but wish the women in them had more to do, this book delivers in spades. I do think it was strange to have three overlapping POVs, which meant that important events were sometimes repeated, or the story was told out of order. It wasn't enough to call it a flaw, it was just a choice I didn't particularly like. I also didn't like the framing device of "this is a book about real people, it's really just a transcription of an old dusty diary I found." I really dislike that trope. I think I consider it a little cheap, like the author is trying to earn credibility for everything that comes after with a "hey this is just what the journal said happened." I don't know. It's a personal thing.

Many thanks to Netgalley for the audiobook version, which I feel really enhanced the experience.