Heresy
In 1877, Margaret “Garet” Parker, is dying of cancer, determined to take care of her family, and she’s also done with men underestimating her. Unlike most western women, Garet is an outlaw, robbing banks and stagecoaches, a feat of which men will never believe her capable. This is why she never gets caught. Together with her crew composed of battered women, they exact revenge on the man who wronged them and stole their livelihood in the first place. When an aspiring novelist is picked up by the gang, the Heresy ranch crew is rife with suspicion: is she really just a writer? In addition to this plot, a rival gang challenges the ladies to a bet; the winner gets the Heresy Ranch.
This novel is certainly about female empowerment; even after the first couple chapters the reader will be convinced that these women can do anything. While the grit and fortitude of these women never come into question, the validity of their background often does. Was it really necessary for each and every one of them to have a traumatic, scarring past? These women may be tough, but it seemed excessive for all of their backgrounds to be inexplicably awful.
This story is written at a gallop, with so many plots overlapping, that the reader will be fully engaged. More than one enemy needs to be conquered in Heresy, and readers will anticipate every solution. Overall, Heresy is a Wild West epic, with heroes that have largely been written out of history. For readers that want to see minorities, of both the west and today, represented with personality, I recommend this book to you.
