“Full of twists, turns, and laugh-out-loud humor, this tongue-in-cheek feminist alternative history is impossible to put down. A thrilling alternative history that sparkles with wit and charm.” – Kirkus Reviews
Three authors join forces to bring us an alternate version of Wild Bill’s Traveling show, featuring teenage versions of Calamity Jane, Frank Butler and Annie Oakley. What better way to hide garou hunting than by traveling the country as entertainers.
The authors state upfront that they are taking liberties with timelines in history to pair these characters up. Going in with that mindset, I didn’t worry about historical accuracy. I mean…they were hunting garou, so we already knew history was gonna be messed with. I will say there were quite a bit of historical tidbits thrown in that made me believe the authors spent a good amount of time researching.
The three main characters were written wonderfully, but so were the ensemble cast, making me fully invested in these characters. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I will simply say that there were some surprise story lines toward the end that gave me such joy reading.
The authors built their world beautifully. All the pieces made sense together. I do not enjoy a book that relies on you understanding lore merely because it’s established, they did not do that in this book.
I have not read any of the previous books in this series, and I don’t feel I missed anything by jumping right in. A friend has told me that some of the pacing of the books and narration make more sense if you read them in order, take that for what you will. The one piece I didn’t enjoy was the tongue-in-cheek narrative style. It’s cute a few times, but it started to feel heavy-handed. I also felt the book could have been just a tad bit shorter to keep the pacing up towards the end.
Bottom line: Entertaining read.
Lori Carroll
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