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Book Summary and Reviews of Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Lone Women

A Novel

by Victor LaValle

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  • Published:
  • Mar 2023, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and a bracing new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling.

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It's locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the "lone women" taking advantage of the government's offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn't alone. And the secret she's tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you've never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[T]he novel overall is a winning blend of brains and (occasionally violent) thrills...Acrobatic storytelling, both out there and down-home." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A counter to the typical homesteading narrative, this moody and masterful western fires on all cylinders. Readers are sure to be impressed." —Publishers Weekly

"LaValle grips readers with the subtle terror of inevitability, only to hold tight with tenderness." —Library Journal

This information about Lone Women 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.

Reader Reviews

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Cathryn Conroy

Adventure, Historical Literary Fiction, and Horror Mixed Up in a Blender and Spit Out in 282 Pages
This is quite the genre-defying novel written by Victor LaValle, mixing traditional historical literary fiction with a demon/monster that transforms it into a farfetched horror story.

It's 1915. Adelaide Henry, a 31-year-old Black woman is living with her parents on their farm in California's Lucerne Valley, which is part of a community settled only by Black families. But Adelaide's family has a deep, dark secret—so deep, so dark, and so secret that they purposefully isolate themselves from the rest of the community. It is said that they are "queer folk." When Adelaide's parents are brutally murdered, she escapes the only life she has known by fleeing to the wilds of Montana where "lone women" are legally allowed to own land if they homestead and cultivate their assigned acreage within five years. Escaping with a small bag and a cumbersome trunk, Adelaide begins life anew in Big Sandy, Montana where she makes good and trustworthy friends but also incurs the wrath of vicious enemies. Secrets have a way of following us, and this one is no exception. When the secret is revealed, Adelaide's new life begins to implode.

This is such a mixed bag of a book! The writing and the historical fiction are excellent. It's a truly well-told, well-researched story that had me riveted from the beginning. But when it morphed into a demon/monster-horror story, it lost me because it was just too unbelievable, too farfetched, and too outrageous a plot twist.

This book is adventure, historical fiction, and horror all mixed up in a blender and spit out in 282 pages.

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Author Information

Victor LaValle Author Biography

Victor LaValle is the author of six previous works of fiction: three novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in New York City with his wife and kids and teaches at Columbia University.

Link to Victor LaValle's Website

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