Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2023
304 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
A cinematic debut set in the American West about a scrappy orphan bent on making her own luck—and finding friendship, romance, and her true calling along the way
The heart wants what it wants. Saddle up, ride out, and claim it.
It's the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned when she arrives penniless in Dodge City with only her wits to keep her alive. Thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, she's recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow "sporting women."
But as winter approaches, Bridget learns just how fleeting stability can be. With the arrival of out-of-towners—some ominous and downright menacing, others more alluring but potentially dangerous in their own ways, including a legendary female gunfighter who steals Bridget's heart—tensions in Dodge City run high. When the Buffalo Queen's peace and stability are threatened, Bridget must decide what she owes to the people she loves and what it looks like to claim her own destiny.
A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a masterfully crafted, propulsive tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.
Cravens debuts with an exceptional historical tale of sex work and queer desire on the American frontier.... Cravens peppers the thrilling plot with delicious language...and her sensitive portrayal of Bridget's uncertainty over her sexuality resonates. This is a knockout." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Cravens shakes the dust off tired tropes and delivers a shining example of what an old-fashioned page-turner can accomplish." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Cravens smacks the reader in the face with a genderqueer coming-of-age story that culminates in three sex workers tracking down a posse for romantic and financial revenge." —Booklist (starred review)
"Lucky Red is the Western I never knew I needed—where all the most fascinating misfit characters usually pushed to the fringes take their rightful places center stage. Claudia Cravens strikes the perfect balance here—queer, feminist, subversive, and a good old-fashioned freight train of an adventure story." —Sara Nović, author of True Biz
"I dare anyone not to thrill to this book! Lucky Red takes the Western genre and shakes the life back into it. Explosive and intimate, dense with human connection, and above all seized with the need for freedom of the queer self: This is storytelling that grinds its characters in its grip, then throws them into the air to take wondrous flight. I loved it to bits." —Shelley Parker-Chan, author of She Who Became the Sun
This information about Lucky Red was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Claudia Cravens has a BA in literature from Bard College and participated in Catapult's yearlong novel generator. Lucky Red is her first novel.
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