NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A cinematic debut set in the American West about a scrappy orphan bent on making her own luck—and finding friendship, romance, and her true calling along the way
“Queer, feminist, subversive, and a good old-fashioned freight train of an adventure story.”—Sara Nović, author of True Biz
The heart wants what it wants. Saddle up, ride out, and claim it.
It’s the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned when she arrives penniless in Dodge City with only her wits to keep her alive. Thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, she’s recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow “sporting women.”
But as winter approaches, Bridget learns just how fleeting stability can be. With the arrival of out-of-towners—some ominous and downright menacing, others more alluring but potentially dangerous in their own ways, including a legendary female gunfighter who steals Bridget’s heart—tensions in Dodge City run high. When the Buffalo Queen’s peace and stability are threatened, Bridget must decide what she owes to the people she loves and what it looks like to claim her own destiny.
A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a masterfully crafted, propulsive tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.
Genre: Historical
“Queer, feminist, subversive, and a good old-fashioned freight train of an adventure story.”—Sara Nović, author of True Biz
The heart wants what it wants. Saddle up, ride out, and claim it.
It’s the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned when she arrives penniless in Dodge City with only her wits to keep her alive. Thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, she’s recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow “sporting women.”
But as winter approaches, Bridget learns just how fleeting stability can be. With the arrival of out-of-towners—some ominous and downright menacing, others more alluring but potentially dangerous in their own ways, including a legendary female gunfighter who steals Bridget’s heart—tensions in Dodge City run high. When the Buffalo Queen’s peace and stability are threatened, Bridget must decide what she owes to the people she loves and what it looks like to claim her own destiny.
A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre, Lucky Red is a masterfully crafted, propulsive tale of adventure, loyalty, desire, and love.
Genre: Historical
Praise for this book
"A renegade Western alternating between lonely darkness, feverish desire and thrilling action. Lucky Red made for such cinematic reading that I forgot it was a book!" - Frances Cha
"Lucky Red is the Western I never knew I needed-where all the most fascinating misfit characters usually pushed to the fringe take their rightful places center stage. Cravens strikes the perfect balance here-queer, feminist, subversive, and a good old-fashioned freight train of an adventure story." - Sara Nović
"I dare anyone not to thrill to this book! Lucky Red takes the western genre and shakes the life back into it. Explosive and intimate, dense with human connection, and above all seized with the need for freedom of the queer self: this is storytelling that grinds its characters in its grip, then throws them into the air to take wondrous flight. I loved it to bits." - Shelley Parker-Chan
"A thrilling and surprising story of deep human hunger and desire, of the ache that lives in all of us, and the sometimes violent lengths that we will go to feel seen and loved and understood." - Lynn Steger Strong
"Claudia Cravens is a masterful new talent and her debut is a breath of fresh air. Red is Cravens' subversive take on western fiction: it's a deftly told, absorbing coming-of-age story about a young woman's life in a Dodge City brothel, and one of the most heartfelt and thrilling books I've read in ages." - Lauren Wilkinson
"Lucky Red is the Western I never knew I needed-where all the most fascinating misfit characters usually pushed to the fringe take their rightful places center stage. Cravens strikes the perfect balance here-queer, feminist, subversive, and a good old-fashioned freight train of an adventure story." - Sara Nović
"I dare anyone not to thrill to this book! Lucky Red takes the western genre and shakes the life back into it. Explosive and intimate, dense with human connection, and above all seized with the need for freedom of the queer self: this is storytelling that grinds its characters in its grip, then throws them into the air to take wondrous flight. I loved it to bits." - Shelley Parker-Chan
"A thrilling and surprising story of deep human hunger and desire, of the ache that lives in all of us, and the sometimes violent lengths that we will go to feel seen and loved and understood." - Lynn Steger Strong
"Claudia Cravens is a masterful new talent and her debut is a breath of fresh air. Red is Cravens' subversive take on western fiction: it's a deftly told, absorbing coming-of-age story about a young woman's life in a Dodge City brothel, and one of the most heartfelt and thrilling books I've read in ages." - Lauren Wilkinson
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