In 1916 Ellen Webster moves to Wallace, Wyoming where she has accepted a position as the new teacher in this two road town. It was not what she expected, but soon falls in love with the children, and a handsome cowboy by the name of Charlie Bacon.
It is a well written story with interesting characters and a lot of drama.
When Ellen and Charlies move to their own homestead she sees what it is like to live on the high plains, far from neighbors and in an unforgiving climate. Blizzards in the winters and dry parched land in the summers where it was very hard to grow anything, or feed their cattle. The spring was the the only time where you could see the beauty of the flat endless land.
Out here Neighbors, would help each other when needed, but a lot of families just couldn't take the quiet, or the howling of the coyotes at night.
I liked the book, but found it a bit too sad. A lot of hardships and losses, but maybe that was the way things happened for homesteaders.

Wow! Very good read! This book is a very emotional read. The characters are each well defined and mesh well. True account of the hard life in the Wyoming territory. This book has it all. Romance, trials, friendships. Must read. I was given an advanced reader copy of this book by NetGalley and I am freely leaving my review.

I wish to thank NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This historical fiction is set in the early 1900’s as a young school teacher, Ellen Webster, arrives in the tiny town of Wallace, Wyoming to begin the school year. She traveled by train from her Eastern home and family. Wallace welcomes her and her life changes as she meets the local families and adjusts to the hard life. The story is well defined and draws the reader in very quickly. I feel the history of that era was fully researched. Life at that time was very, very hard. The farmers struggled with loneliness, weather, crop failures, births, marriages and death. To the point that many settlers simply abandoned their home and moved on or died. How the families faced their difficult life especially women is fully described and made me so grateful to be living in these times and not at that time and place. I highly recommend this book as informative, romantic and a pleasure to read I look forward to reading more books by this author.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an Advanced Reader Copy of Where Coyotes Howl by Sandra Dallas.

This was my first Sandra Dallas book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Where Coyotes Howl is a story of hardship in the early 1900s American West, marriage, gender roles and bias, and the lives of ordinary folks just trying to carve out a living from nothing. Ellen Webster arrives in Wallace, Wyoming anticipating new and great adventure as the town's teacher. What she finds is dusty, primitive streets with desolate landscape and people hardened by their circumstances. Luckily, she meets Charlie Bacon, a handsome cowboy from a nearby ranch just outside of town. Their courtship and marriage over the course of the next years paint a realistic picture of the tragedies and struggles homesteaders faced during this time, as well as the grit required to persevere in a time where all you had to rely on was each other.

I really liked this book because Dallas did not sugarcoat the hardness of living on the plains during the early , nor the sad reality of how terribly women and those considered "different" were often treated. Dallas' characters are both endearing and despicable. Great story that will not leave you with a Hallmark ending! I highly recommend!

Interesting story. The characters were unidimensionnel at times: all good or utterly bad. No middle ground. You need to be a comfortable state of mind to read the book with all the sad events happening one after the other. The end seemed a bit rushed.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of Where Coyotes Howl by Sandra Dallas
I really enjoyed this novel, the author delivers a great story set back in the early 1900's in a town called Wallace.
Ellen moves to Wyoming to be the new teacher, she secures a room with the McGinty's only to find that Mr McGinty is a horrible person, although she does connect with Ruth, his wife. Ellen enjoys her teaching job and soon meets a cowboy, Charlie, that she ends up marrying and they build a life together. Although life throws them alot to deal with over time, the harsh winters are a struggle, food shortages, and problems with crops in the summer also make life hard.
Ellen has the biggest heart and shows us not to judge people, accept them for who they are, we see the sense of community in this little town, the farmers helping each other and the wives befriend each other.
This story tells about the strengths, joy's, weakness, sadness, perseverance, the beauty of the prairies, and struggles of living on the land. I enjoyed reading this novel, and although there was sadness, that was reality back then, the bond between Eleen and Charlie and the friendships she made with other women have stayed with me. To see the strength the women had to have back then, whether it was tending house, raising children or dealing with their husband and back then they were the husband's property.
The author has written a lovely story with a good plot and well developed thought out characters, some more likeable than others. I would recommend this novel, it was one I didn't want to put down

Thank you to NetGalley and Martins Press for a copy of this book to read for an honest review.
I enjoyed this description of what would it be like to live in 1916 in Wallace, Wyoming.. Sandra Dallas, the author, painted such a good picture of the open, wide prairies of the area. The small town and how everyone knew everyone and relied upon each other for help and friendship. Especially out in the prairies where the shacks were long distances apart.
Ellen Webster came to the town to be a teacher. She meets a handsome cowboy, Charles Bacon and they fall in love. He builds a shack on the prairie for them to live. Ellen quits her teaching job to become his wife. She is not prepared for the requirements to be the cowboys wife. However, she endures every hard ship.. Their love gives them strength thru the joys, hardships and even death.
She becomes a good neighbor to those around her.
It is not a happy book because there are moments of sadness but it’s expected in such an environment.
But the love, friendships and animals help people to endure.
It is a historical fiction and if you are at all interested about life in the early 1900’s,where folks were leaving the East to find a life in the country ; then by all means give this book a read.

This is a first time read by Sandra Dallas, new author to this reader. It was an okay read for me. There were parts that I loved and parts that I didn’t. It's a realistic take on the west in the early 1900's. The good and bad that comes along with that.

Where Coyotes Howl by Sandra Dallas is one of the best told books about the west. The story was about how hard their live was, but they still looked forward to marrying and having a family. The women had hard lives ranching, helping husbands, caring for their children, cooking and baking. Children and adults died many times of illnesses that we take for granted such as a cold.

I really wanted to give this book 3.5 stars but we all know that isn’t an option. This is a simple book in a lot of ways but there are enough sharp left turns to keep me interested to the end. This book is about the settling of the new west. It was a difficult time in the history of our country. I don’t think I could have made it ~ I like my creature comforts to much. Yes the storyline could have been better developed. The characters could be more realistic and diversified. But still it was a pretty good book and I am glad that I was given the opportunity to read it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book for my honest review.

I liked it. It wasn't quite what I was expecting but if you're in the mood for it Where Coyotes Howl is top notch. It's what I would call historical romance, heavy on the romance light on the history.

The story follows Ellen Webster who head west to Wyoming for a teaching position. As she becomes ingrained in this tight knit community she meets and falls in love with the sweet cowboy Charlie Bacon. Through the book the face many trials relying on each other and their community not only to survive, but to thrive.

This was a beautiful love story. I completely loved it! Looking forward to reading more from this author. Fantastic job in writing, was not expecting the story to affect me as much as it did.

Ellen is the new schoolteacher in a tiny Wyoming town, 1916. From the moment she gets off the train and sees scruffy-looking men lounging on the grass under a tree ("stove-up cowboys down on their luck,") we know this isn't going to be a Hallmark story. She is housed in a shack with a leering wife-beater and his hopeless spouse. Within a few months, she and Charlie are courting, and soon they're married. Charlie's a good man, a young cowboy working for a nearby ranch, but he owns a piece of land and builds her a wooden house because she's terrified of snakes, a common feature of the soddies everyone lives in at first. Ellen quits her job to be his wife, but that's not as sexist as it sounds--in this circumstance, life was so hard, a wife needed to do everything she could to support the life of the family (even if it was only the two of them at first). Two examples: the walls of the house couldn't keep out the snow, and their water had to be ported in barrels from a mile away. As Charlie and Ellen live their lives, alternating happiness and hardship, we see the life of a young prairie couple.

If you've ever driven through the Plains states and wondered about the remains of old shacks, trying to imagine who lived there and how on God's (brown, dry, windblown) earth anyone could make a life here, this is the story for you. Sandra Dallas makes these people come alive, and I was riveted. It's not a happy-ever-after, but there is joy as well as heartache in this realistic portrayal of Wyoming over 100 years ago.

Thank you, to NetGalley, for an advanced copy of this book for an honest review. This book, was one of the best I’ve read this year. Set in Wyoming in the early 1900’s, I was transported into Ellen and Charlie’s love story. Charlie was a young cowboy who falls for the new teacher, Ellen. It was an every day love story for the time, with joy and sadness. This book did not sugar coat the trials of those trying to make it in the plains and at times, the sadness of the characters lives was palpable.. It was raw and honest. The author did an excellent job of following all of the characters throughout the entire novel. We heart about Lucy up until the end. I didn’t want this story to end.

This was a fantastic read, although there was a lot of heartbreak to take in, it never felt so dark that I didn't want to continue. The writing was lyrical and practical, the pace kept me interested and turning pages. It's a really well presented story of a hard and heartbreaking life, but there was a lot of love and community and ideals and skills that are lost in today's world. Sad how far we've come but how much we've also lost along the way. I really enjoyed the practicality, the lending a hand and the acceptance of neighbors, even those that might have been thought of as less than desirable. I would read more from this author and look forward to doing so. There are some details that some readers might have a hard time absorbing, domestic violence, illness and death of children and miscarriage but it was done well and didn't feel oppressive. Thanks to the Author and Publisher for the opportunity to read this in advance.

I have read a few works from Sandra Dallas before, and enjoyed them. I was really looking forward to this book, but honestly I struggled through it. First, I would say you should be in a good headspace to read this book, as most of the story is one sad event after another. There was not a defined plot line, which made this book drag along in my opinion. As the story started picking up toward the end, it seemed to just accelerate through all the tragedies. I felt like the author was trying to fit in as many of the hardships of the prairie in that time frame, at the cost of character development and having a well thought out plot. I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading this book who is interested in this period of history or who has enjoyed previous works from Sandra Dallas. However, it would not be high on my list to recommend either.

Where Coyotes Howl is my new favourite read of 2022. I think if maybe be my top 5 even top 2!

I couldn’t read this book fast enough. I had to know how things were going to work out from meeting a cowboy, working a ranch, making friends, dealing with loss on the unforgiving prairie.

I grew up on the prairies and my Grandparents owned a farm on the prairies in Canada. My Grandparents did not have a lot of money and times were tough. Most of my moms clothing was hand made. My Grandma sold eggs and babysit as much as she could with 5 kids of her own.

I enjoyed Ellen getting to know her neighbours and it reminded me of my Grandma and when we would go visit her neighbours on the prairies.

There is so much heartbreak in this book but also so much love too.

I cannot wait for this book to come out next year and will def be buying a copy for my Mom. My Grandam would have loved this book.

A small, spare tale of a woman's experience in a tiny town in wild west Wyoming in the early 20th century. It feels devastatingly realistic. Well-written.

This book is the definition of "show, don't tell" and that's not a compliment. I don't mean to disparage, but this book was a slog to get through. The prose was juvenile as best with numerous grammatical errors and weak dialogue. The only parts of description was of the land, rather than the characters. Actions were few and far between and the story jumped from place to place.

The plot was too broad. It felt like reading Little House on the Prairie, rather than a book aimed at adults. There were so many time jumps and random plot points that it felt so jumbled and disjointed. Others have noted the "sadness" of the book, but it felt that the author was just throwing in moments for shock rather than legitimate plot value. If the story had narrowed in on one or two events, or maybe just one or two years, it would have been a lot more impactful. By broadening the plot to encompass a whole life, the emotional connection between the reader and the characters is lost. The big emotional moments are written so quickly, just two or three pages, that it loses the emotional impact.

Furthermore, the characters are all one-dimensional. The good characters are perfect and angelic. The bad characters are pure evil. There's no justification, no nuance, no redemption. They were flat and, dare I say, boring. It would have been so much more compelling to see the characters have to compromise some of their personality or morals to survive, rather than simply remain unchanging.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, which is a shame because I typically love historical fiction novels in settings like this.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was an interesting portrayal of the harsh life in Wyoming in the early 1900s. Most of the characters were well drawn but the descriptions of the wildlife felt drawn out and repetitive at times. I was disappointed with the ending- mostly the way the author chose to bookend the story with visitors from the future. It felt forced and rang shallow.