Felt very surreal in a way, kind of like Westworld but without the trauma or the sci-fi aspects. I enjoyed this one and got nearly half way through the book in the first day simply because it caught my attention, which a lot of books haven’t lately. I feel like the little bit of sexual stuff was just too soon? Or maybe just not soon enough? I think having the one time they have sex be directly connected to the babies arrival was very jarring and for me, killed the vibes for the sex scene completely. I dont think I’ll check out the sequel but I think I might look into the offshoot of their granddaughter instead ( )

A fantastic book. Great characters and plot. Andy and I discuss it on episode 16 of Cocktail Hour: http://www.cocktailhour.c-spot.net/archives/66 and Nikki and I review it on C-Spot Reviews: http://reviews.c-spot.net/archives/4746.

**1/27/16 - time for a reread of one of my absolute favorite books of all time. I'm always so damn sad when the book is over.**

**7/27/21 - will definitely be sticking to either eyeball or text to speech reading from now on. The regular mispronounced words was too much.** ( )

What do I say about this? Romance Western. Two genres that I don’t normally go for, but it was a RL book club read, so I went for it.

And I actually enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book. Through a not-completely-unbelievable set of circumstances, in 1851 a woman (Luke) who has passed as a man for her entire adult life, marries an unsuspecting brothel employee as he is about to set out on the Oregon Trail. The benefit to him is that having a wife will be good cover for him among his fellow travelers, and the benefit to her is that she has the prospect of a new life for herself and her child in Oregon. At Luke’s insistence they avoid any closeness at all.

Of course, that doesn’t last for long and romance blooms by the end of the book. But the first part is interesting in its descriptions of life on a wagon train and the landmarks along the way.

Although the book peters out toward the conclusion, it was refreshing to read about strong, capable women this week, when the Supreme Court seems determined to set the clock back at least to the 1950’s - if not to the 17th century. 3.5 stars rounded up. ( )

I love historical fiction books and have found myself trying a variety of authors in this genre so when I came upon this book I had no idea as to what it would be about. I didn't look at the genre it fell under nor did I read the reviews, I just saw historical, western and got it. I usually don't read the reviews until after I have listened to or read a book for the simple fact I don't let other opinions persuade me one way or another so I truly got this book blind. I have to say I was unusually impressed. My first thought was oh NO....here we go again steamy hot sex not really a background or story but as I listened to the book I realized it was actually a great book. It is not indecent at all, just a bit of cursing but not to bad. I am a very open minded person when it comes down to how a person chooses to live their life but this book even went beyond it being about two women being together in bed. It really shows us that people have been people for a very long time, and I mean in a sense of not thinking about gender, race, or even professional background when it comes down to true love. This book had me on the edge of my seat all the way. The anticipation of the wife finding out she had married a women, to the danger, to the outcome of the trip to Oregon. I laughed, I cried, and I awed, and gasped throughout this whole book. Jae I apologize but until I found this book I had never known you existed and I am so grateful at how you illustrated the love, determination, and life of these two women set in the Pioneer days. My hat is off to you....great job. ( )

This was an extremely difficult book to read.

As historical fiction, it's fine, even if it leans pretty hard into harmful stereotypes. It's one thing to have the characters in the story be realistically racist; it's another entirely to have literally the only speaking role of a Native American being an attempt to barter one woman for another (against their wills). Shortly before we find out that this character didn't know how a sword worked. Despite the fact that his group were carrying muskets, meaning they had definitely had contact with European settlers at some point.

That was pretty uncomfortable, but it wasn't personally affronting the way the trans narrative was. I use the term 'trans' very broadly here, since it's never made completely clear in any direction.

I feel like Luke definitely is trans, or at least not a woman, but the author doesn't seem to come to the same conclusion. Luke more than once makes it clear he doesn't think of himself as a woman, and he makes no moves toward changing his presentation even when he's no longer in a position of having to maintain it.

Regardless of a fictional character's internal gender identity, there's constant misgendering. The other characters use male pronouns for Luke (except occasionally); the author uses female pronouns when Luke isn't around other characters (except sometimes). That inconsistency was viscerally uncomfortable for me. Again, there's a difference between characters being believably shitty about gender things and the author doing the same thing.

I understand that the author is most known for lesbian fiction, and I think that's what this was going for, but the story it's telling is uncomfortably close to a particular, extremely harmful, stereotype that some real shitty people use to discredit trans-masculine people. Namely, that trans men are just confused lesbians who are victims of their own internalized misogyny. 'Butch flight' is the specific term I've most often heard.

I am myself trans-masculine, and this is the exact kind of hateful rhetoric that's resulted in literally years of unnecessary suffering. I still struggle with it even now, despite recognizing it for the (at best) complete nonsense that it is.

To be clear, I don't think this was intentional on the author's part. I think it was little more than thoughtless, along with the other issues I had with the book (like the racism and the constant shitting on sex workers).

I believe the author is German, and I genuinely don't know if the TERFs have the same sway there as they do in the US and the UK. I sincerely hope not, because that would make this so much harder to chalk up to ignorance. And also because TERFs are hateful people, and less of that sort of thing would be just great.

This isn't the first Jae book I've read, but it's probably going to be the last. ( )