The most original Western book I’ve read since Trevanian’s Incident at Twenty-Mile.

And not a bad story.

It’s 1877.

Bridget Shaughnessy .. is 16, uneducated, and impoverished when her feckless father dies after a rattlesnake bite on the trail …

Relying on intuition and one remaining mule, Bridget crosses the plains alone and winds up in Dodge City, where her story parts ways with most cowboy novels of the past.

Bridget’s bright red hair attracts the attention of one of the proprietors of the Buffalo Queen Saloon, an establishment devoted to fulfilling the drinking, gambling, and carnal needs of cowboys and others living and passing through the frontier city.

As Bridget embarks on a career as a “sporting woman” in the rough and tumble male world of the emerging West, she receives a belated education not just in the nature of sex work, but also in her own sexuality. …

Kirkus