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3.5 stars rounded up.

“In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw.�� That opening line pulled me in and the writing held me there the rest of the way. This is not your typical western, nor is it a factual account of the Hole in the Wall Gang . If you’re looking for truly realistic historical fiction, this isn’t it . It’s an imagined, alternate version of history, which while at times seemed a little out there, I found it to be thought provoking and interesting. Religion of the day is the belief in Baby Jesus and that a woman’s fate is tied to her ability to bear children, influenced by an enormous number of deaths from the flu 😳. A woman’s role was to bear children and even though seventeen year old Ada, married at seventeen, has a calling as a midwife and healer, she is not allowed to pursue that because she has not been able to get pregnant. Her choices are limited : face incarceration or worse yet hanging, enter the convent or join an outlaw gang of women, exiled because they could not get pregnant.

“If a woman did her duty by her husband and baby Jesus and still did not become pregnant, then most likely she had been cursed by a witch - usually a woman who, barren herself, wanted to infect others with her malady.�� Of course , I had to see if I could find any historical references tying witchcraft with infertility and I found this article which mentions it as one of the reasons women in history were accused of witchcraft:

I loved Ada’s inquisitiveness about women’s medical issues, her intelligence and her clear sense of herself. There are a lot of characters here and what was missing was a more in depth characterization of them, except Ada and the Kid, the leader of the gang. I liked that even though an alternative history, it reflected the plight of these barren women. Hard to love outlaws and condone their criminal activities, but equally as hard to accept the injustice and harsh treatment of innocent women. It was heartbreaking to think that Ada wouldn’t ever see her family and might never be able to practice as a midwife, but I thought the ending was fitting. I will give it 3.5 stars and round up to 4. A lot of ground is covered here, maybe a little bit too much - religion, homophobia, racism. While some of those issues were only touched on, the focus on strong women came through loud and clear. This alternative history was different to say the least, but I’m glad I read it. I realized just before I started reading this that North also wrote The The Life and Death of Sophie Stark. I had mixed feelings about that novel, but I can say that enjoyed this one more.

I read this with Diane and Esil and it’s one we didn’t fully agree on, but we all liked and felt for Ada. A great discussion as always.


I received an advanced copy of this book from Bloomsbury Publishing through Edelweiss.