Set in the wild, Wild West, Lucky Red tells the story of Bridget (Red) a young woman who is orphaned on her way out west with her father. After wandering for days she enters Dodge, where madams with hearts of gold take her in and teach her the ways of whoring for a living. Beautifully written, Lucky Red set me right in that saloon and made me root for Red to find a way to live her life.

Bridget's father's life is a series of mistakes. His most recent one is trading the Arkansas farm where he and his daughter live, for a supposed title to some property in Kansas. Off they set. One night Dad dies from a rattlesnake bite and Bridget, age 16, is on her own. Hiking into Dodge City, she sells the horse and makes enough to house herself in a flophouse for a few nights. She is discovered by one of the madams of the Buffalo Queen, a brothel. The sheriff falls for Bridget and life is good, until it isn't. Bridget makes friends for the first time in her life. Constance introduces her to books and reads to her daily.

When a gang of gunfighters comes into town, Bridget finds who she believes to be her true love. Bridget's red hair and outspoken ways lead her and the brothel into difficult times. And, in the end, Bridget has to decide what is truly important to her and who her friends really are.

A gender-bending Western that will make you look at the Wild West in an altogether different way.

8/10

Wow, what a heckuva debut novel Claudia put together with this one. It is impeccably crafted and boldly unique.

Unfortunately this will be pigeonholed as in the highly niche “queer western” category, which is a damn shame. Yes, it happens to take place in the growing heyday of Dodge City. Yes, there are gay relationships. But that’s not the point. And it kind of bums me out to think that people won’t read this because of the category. Hell, I wouldn’t be roaming the queer western category.

The book follows the sultry redhead, Bridget. Her mom died at birth and her dad fell on hard times and then died. Bridget was left broke and homeless until Lila found her and brought her into her house of ill repute.

And just like that, Bridget became a whore in Dodge.

This book isn’t about sex. It’s about the community in the brothel, the camaraderie amongst them women, the competition and emotions.

Of course being set in the west brings gunslingers and unsavory gents. And then there’s love - a brothel is not the right place to be in love. Love complicated things.

And that’s what this book is about - the many ways love is mistaken or taken for granted.

I don’t care if you read queer books or westerns, you should read this one. As I said, it’s a helluva debut and should be made into a movie - but there’s little chance Hollywood will make a queer western.

#netgalley #luckyred

A Western about a whore with a dash of gunslingers and an lgbtq twist. In Lucky Red we get all that and more in this story about Bridget, a young woman who chooses to make the best of her situation by turning tricks as a sporting woman in the Buffalo Queen saloon.

I enjoyed this novel because it's not often we're presented with a Western from the female perspective, as a wore, instead of a wife or homesteader. Bridget was a unique voice, often acting first before thinking through her options, and her day to day life in the saloon is presented, her routine when turning tricks and earning money. Things go awry when Spartan Lee arrives in the town, a female gunslinger who Bridget is immediately and irrevocably drawn to.
By the end, Bridget makes a heartbreaking choice but grows for it as a character.

Overall I had a difficult time deciding between 4 and 5 stars but ended up deciding on 4.5 stars rounded up. The climax and conclusion came on quickly back to back and I'd have loved a bit more to be honest.

Thank you to Ransom House Dial Press and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

I was really excited for this book but I honestly think I forced myself to read it when I wasn’t in the mood. I want to try again when I’m craving it but for now, it fell flat for me.

From the very first page, I knew LUCKY RED by Claudia Cravens was something special. Her writing is lyrical and completely engrossing, and she has such a way with descriptions that I felt like I was in the Queen, in Dodge, in the prairie right alongside Bridget. Every single character came to life on the page, from the smallest member to the largest, though particular favorites remain Constance, Spartan, and, of course, Bridget. With names that you can't help but remember for how beautiful they sound together (Spartan Lee and Ottis Shy are particular favorites) to realistic dialogue whose accent I could hear despite just reading the novel rather than listening to it, the entire novel was memorable. (I especially love that we got the word "cunt" in a novel, used to describe the anatomy versus as a derogatory term.) It was also so refreshing to read about sex workers who enjoy their jobs, and to find such gorgeous camaraderie between all the women regardless of their personal feelings. I can't wait to see what Cravens writes next.

Lucky Red refers to young Bridget, an orphaned young woman who ends up in Dodge City after losing everything to her name. Fortunately she is a survivor and she has a mane of gorgeous red hair (once it is washed and combed). After she meets a few of the girls who work at the Buffalo Queen brothel, she signs on and learns the trade happy to make a living until she meets, and falls in love with, legendary gunfighter, Spartan Lee. As tensions in Dodge City run high and the fate of the Buffalo Queen hangs in balance., Bridget must decide whether to stay with her friends and the people who saved her from poverty, or go with Spartan and follow her destiny. This is a rollicking twist on the old westerns, modernized and thoroughly enjoyable. I recommend Lucky Red to anyone who enjoys a good read and would like something a little different. Many thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read an ARC.

This was interesting - synopsis suggested it was a cross between a western and a girl meets girl love story. There’s so many layers to this story from Bridget’s humble beginnings and trek across the prairie with her father, and then alone, to her arrival at Queen’s - the brothel where she’ll ply her trade (alongside a fair few tricks) and get into more than a few scrapes of her own along the way.

What the reader might expect and what the reader gets are two very different things - and I was very pleasantly surprised by a twist of an ending that had me guessing! The historical LGBTQ2+ romances are few and far between - or at least that’s been my experience - and this was VERY different from the one I’ve read most recently. This novel hasn’t deterred me from either of the sub-genres, but I’ll be interested to compare this with other picks from the period.

Bridget (Red) is no stranger to hard knocks and bad luck but after wandering into Dodge after losing the only family she had left from a snakebite, her luck may be turning around. She is taken in and offered a job in a lively brothel by the women who own it because they need a redhead. Soon Red finds friends, financial freedom and the family she never had. Life is good until the sheriff wants to make an honest woman out of her and a female gunfighter named Spartan Lee comes to town. Spartan sets off a fire in Red with promises of adventure, freedom and love. The people she has come to care about see trouble in the wind. When it hits Dodge Red will have to make some difficult choices. This is a rollicking good time with all the best qualities of a western drama plus an ill-fated love story featuring tough as nails frontierwomen who shoot straight, talk straight and love who they love. Perfect fit for UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED, LONE WOMEN and even TRUE GRIT. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy (insert cowboy hat tipping here).

All Bridget has ever had is her father and their ramshackle little home that she keeps running as smoothly as she can while her father runs deals and loses money. Before long, one of his deals costs him his life, and Bridget has no choice but to forge ahead and make her own.

There's not much for a broke, smartmouth country girl to do in town, but her fiery hair and pretty face quickly secure her a job in the oldest profession at the Buffalo Queen. While she's less interested in the men buying pokes, she warms to life at the female run brothel with its small, colorful cast of characters. Despite her relatively soft place to land, Bridget is curious and headstrong with a mouth that moves quicker than her common sense, and she repeatedly lands herself in trouble with the Queen's two madams. To keep herself in their good graces, she finds herself tangled up with both the sheriff and a rogue female gunslinger.

Western isn't usually my genre of choice, but i took a chance on this one because I've enjoyed most other recommendations from the publisher (and I love any queer take on ...anything). I had a blast with this. I could not put it down once I picked it up. The characters were lively and dynamic, serving as far more than stakes to prop up Bridget on her journey. Cravens turns a phrase so beautifully that I felt completely enveloped in this world. I swear I could feel the flames from the hearth warming the Queen as Pierre played cards and Roscoe plunked away at the piano. Lucky Red is an engulfing ride full of mischief, tenacity, and heart that instantly grabs your attention and leads you through an unconventional bildungsroman with ease.

This book took a little bit long for it to pick up for me. There were parts when I sympathized with the main character, and other times when I thought she was being very selfish and clueless. Halfway through, I sped through the book, and I liked the ending. I thought that the end needed more explanation on how it connected to the beginning.

I could only read half of this book before giving up. It is about a young girl in the Wild West who turns to prostitution after her father dies. She joins up with a bunch of quirky women who work at a salon, but I could not connect at all with the characters who did not feel developed or real. The frank sex didn’t bother me,

I love westerns and Claudia Cravens has written a phenomenal first novel in Lucky Red. Cravens blends classic western tropes with modern sensibilities and creates a fun, well written story of a young girl and how the Old West changes and makes her who she is.

All the characters feel fleshed out with Bridget, Constance, Jim and Spartan all being great and feeling real. Cravens creates Dodge and breathes life into the old west town and makes it feel like Tombstone or Deadwood while also showing how groups of people who aren’t commonly spoken about in history lived: working women and female cowboys.

Overall I loved Lucky Red and I am excited for what comes next from Cravens!!

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens. Pub Date: June 20, 2023. Rating: 3 stars. If you like historical fiction with a western gender positive twist, then this book is for you. This story follows a poor girl who while making her way out West with her father is suddenly all alone and without money. She finds her way to the Buffalo Queen and is put to work as a "working girl." She is fierce, redheaded and has an underlying sense of independence stemming from having to "grow up" at a young age. I liked this novel, but did not love it. I felt it was slower paced, not much happened and majority of the story takes place at the Buffalo Queen. The cast of characters is diverse, but I guess I wanted more action from a western themed novel. There are outlaws and the main character finds herself in unforgiving situations and these storylines propel the story forward. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Random House for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. #netgalley #luckyred

If someone had asked me a month ago if I thought that I'd like to read a queer, female, western, I would have said "No Way!" However, NetGalley thought that I might be interested in this type of book and offered it to me.
The story starts out as 16 yr old Bridget and her father make their way from Arkansas across the prairie to Kansas looking for 20 acres of land in a deed that he traded for, Along the way, her father dies from a snakebite, and Bridget is forced to continue the journey to the unknown.
She finds her way to Dodge, and uses her last bit of money to rent a room at a boarding house for a week. At the end of her week, she finds herself working at the Buffalo Queen - a saloon, gambling hall and brothel, run by 2 women. She has one regular client - the Deputy Sheriff - and becomes popular with the cowboys who travel through town.
The author did a wonderful job of describing Dodge, the thoughts and feelings of this young girl as she developed friendships, and love. I grew up on Gunsmoke (TV), and could picture the various characters that rode into and out of Dodge, as well as the cattle drives, the gunfights and 1890 Kansas.
I'm not sure if there will be a sequel as it seemed to me that there could be more to the story of Bridget and Spartan Lee, but if so, I would like to see where the story goes.
I received an ARC from NetGalley adn the publisher and these opinions are my own.

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Thanks to The Dial Press for hosting a book club for early readers and for the early access to an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. I’m eager to spread the word about this excellent debut!
Lucky Red is lauded as a queer feminist western - and it was well received by fans of historical fiction, who wanted to learn something while reading, and also by fans of women’s fiction, who wanted to feel something while reading. In the midst of trekking across Kansas, 16 year-old Bridget loses her father to a snakebite. She continues to make her way to Dodge City, arriving without money and selling her remaining belongings to get a boarding house room. When that money runs out, she’s recruited to a female-run brothel, the Buffalo Queen. She excels at her job, falls in love, and has her heart broken, and the ending is especially great.
This was an interesting read, different from anything I’d read before. Set in the late 1800s, Lucky Red reads as if it were much more modern. I had trouble putting it down - I was fully invested in following Bridget’s journey, even though I don’t always enjoy historical fiction. This unique book will publish in late June, and I recommend it wholeheartedly!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This was a western book I didn’t know I needed. I was hooked from the start.

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens was a very different and unique story.
I felt this was a wonderful debut and the story was just such an amazing experience.
Going into this book I had no idea I’d enjoy it as much as I did.
I was immediately sucked in and became so invested in Bridget’s journey.
Claudia Cravens pulls you in with her amazing writing and storytelling.
A captivating story of friendship, romance, and a revenge-seeking gunslinger.
This is seriously the queer Western novel everyone needs to read!
An electrifying modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a perfectly crafted, compelling tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and Random House & The Dial Press for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

THIS BOOK, Y’ALL! It is all.the.things! ❤️
I absolutely agree with another reviewer who said this is the queer female western that I never knew I wanted (or words to that effect). This was definitely one of the most unique books you’ll read all year. I had no idea what was going to happen in this book from one moment to the next. And I loved it! It was a whirlwind from start to finish. Our young heroine, Bridget, might not know who she is or what she wants but she knows who she isn’t and what she doesn’t want. And isn’t that powerful in and of itself?! If you don’t like westerns, this is still your book. If you don’t like historical fiction, it’s not bogged down with details. If you don’t like sapphic explorations, go ahead and unfollow my reviews.
I’m 🙏 and 🤞 that the author will write at least one more book in this universe. What happens next?!?!
*Thanks to Dial Press and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

Sixteen-year-old Bridget is on a journey across the Kansas prairies with her father when he's killed by a snakebite. Orphaned, lost, and nearly penniless, Bridget finds her way to the Buffalo Queen, a woman-run brothel. It's there that she makes a living selling "pokes", builds meaningful friendships, and finds a forbidden attraction to a mysterious woman.

This is the queer Western I didn't realize I've always wanted! Bridget's story could have been told as a tragedy, but Lucky Red is instead a passionate, adventure-filled, transportive story that gives Bridget agency and power over her future. And even when I thought I knew what was coming, Claudia Cravens kept surprising me with invigorating twists and turns. I would be absolutely thrilled if there was a sequel!