Bridget was born unlucky and her bad luck has dogged her every day since in Claudia Craven’s surprising novel, Lucky Red. Her mother died in childbirth. Her father died of a rattlesnake bite just a few weeks into their journey west from Arkansas. It’s a miracle Bridget didn’t die of exposure on the prairie before she wandered into Dodge City, Kansas. Moneyless, friendless, familyless, and reluctant to make a living doing domestic work for a pittance, Bridget turns to sex work to make her way in the world.
One might expect Bridget to have some survival instincts after her life-long run of catastrophic bad luck but, in many ways, Bridget is very naive about the world. She doesn’t pause long before agreeing to work for the madams of the Buffalo Queen as a “sporting woman.” All she knows at the time is that she doesn’t want to do laundry or scrub dishes for a pittance and that she doesn’t really see the fuss about trading sex for money. Thankfully, the Buffalo Queen is relatively safe. The local deputy sheriff’s patronage and protection keep the most violent men away. Bridget’s red hair attracts the deputy’s eye and all she has to do, apart from bringing in money, is keep the deputy happy.
Bridget’s bosses think that this is a simple enough job but they didn’t reckon on Bridget’s bad luck and her inconvenient attraction to other women. To be fair, Bridget didn’t know about that last until first one woman and then a second send her so deep into lust that Bridget has a hard time remembering what she’s supposed to be doing when Sallie or, later, Spartan Lee, are around. Everyone else knows what the game is about except Bridget, to the calamity of the women at the Buffalo Queen.
Lucky Red is a slow read at first. The pace slows after the excitement of the first pages once Bridget settles in Dodge City but, when bounty hunter Spartan Lee arrives, the plot begins to race again. Once the story starts to heat up, that’s when things get good and the ending is spectacular enough to make up for the slower parts of the novel and the moments when I wanted to yell at Bridget to think before she launches herself into yet another mistake.
Readers who’d like to read a Western featuring women or who like LGBT+ historical fiction will enjoy Lucky Red.