-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
From the award-winning author of The Book of V., an unflinching, lushly imagined love story set against the backdrop of the epic frontier.
When 16-year-old Minna Losk journeys from Odessa to America as a mail-order bride, she dreams of a young, wealthy husband, a handsome townhouse, and freedom from physical labor and pogroms. But her husband Max turns out to be twice her age, rigidly Orthodox, and living in a one-room sod hut in South Dakota with his two teenage sons.
The country is desolate, the work treacherous. And most troubling, Minna finds herself increasingly attracted to her older stepson. As a brutal winter closes in, the family's limits are tested, and Minna, drawing on strengths she barely knows she has, is forced to confront her despair, as well as her desire.
"Minna is a terrifically complex heroine: a little snobby, a little selfish and wholly sympathetic." —The New York Times
"In her emotionally honest debut novel, The Little Bride, Anna Solomon draws on an 1880s U.S. homesteading movement called Am Olam. Jewish newcomers were encouraged to settle out west as pioneers. The result wasn't some cheerful 'little shtetl on the prairie,' as Solomon's heroine discovers. Impoverished Minna Losk is a 16-year-old Jewish mail- order bride from Odessa and one of the more realistic pioneers depicted in recent historical fiction. Suffering hasn't hewn her into a plucky stereotype. Instead, she is someone the reader instantly empathizes with. She wants love, and ends up with a husband twice her age. She craves comfort, and ends up in a South Dakota one-room sod hut. A fascinating if sometimes bleak page turner." —USA Today
"The Little Bride is a love story. An immigrant's story. But most important: a story of hope and courage in the face of overwhelming odds. Anna Solomon has written a heart-wrenchingly good novel, with vivid characters and an epic frontier landscape that will haunt you long after you've turned the final page." —Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief
"Anna Solomon has created a singular heroine whose story of dashed dreams and eventual triumph is a wise and timeless wonder. Intense and gorgeous, The Little Bride gives us an unparalleled snapshot of the West." —Jennifer Gilmore, author of Golden Country and Something Red
This information about The Little Bride 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.
Anna Solomon is the author of Leaving Lucy Pear and The Book of V. She is a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times Magazine, One Story, Ploughshares, Slate, and MORE. Coeditor with Eleanor Henderson of Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers, Solomon previously worked as a journalist for National Public Radio. She was born and raised in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two children.
If you liked The Little Bride, try these:
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
by Victoria E.. Schwab
Published 2026
From V. E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: a new genre-defying novel about immortality and hunger.
by Maggie Shipstead
Published 2023
From the Booker Prize nominee and New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle, a piercing, irresistible first collection of short stories exquisite in their craft and audacious in their range.
by Manuel Munoz
Published 2022
Shimmering stories set in California's Central Valley, the first book in a decade from a virtuoso story writer.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
