Historical Novel Suggestions

[gingerdehlinger]

I would appreciate any suggestions you might have for historical novels depicting life in the mountainous regions of Colorado, Montana, or Wyoming from approximately 1890 to 1920. I'm especially interested in the lives of women during that time period. A big THANK YOU in advance for whatever you are able to come up with.

[dharts]

Try this one - it's wonderful. (It was on sale for $3.99 a short while ago.)


Prayers for Sale

[Dara England]

How about Christy? It's set in the smokey mountains during the time period you describe. Not sure if it's available for Kindle but here's the paperback:  



[not available on Kindle.--Betsy]

[history_lover]

Are you looking for romance? If so, western romances are pretty common, too many to list. Here's some that don't look like romances, though they may not match all your criteria:

       

I think especially if you're looking for books about women, you're going to get swamped with romance novels. You'll also find a lot of Christian novels in this genre.

[CNDudley]

I loved Christy too, although I don't think it meets the CO, MT, WY req't.

Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose, besides being one of my favorite books of all time, has an extended section where the female character lives in Leadville, CO, during the time period you're looking for.

[Telchine]

I recently passed through Butte, Montana, the formerly wide open mining town to end all mining towns. It is filled with somewhat rundown Victorian mansions, hotels, theaters, stores, banks, office buildings, miner homes, bordellos, saloons, etc. As a result, I am reading Dashiel Hammett's "Red Harvest" which takes place in the 1920s in a fictional version of Butte. Hammett was a Pinkerton agent in Butte before he started writing. A fascinating character from Butte was an early feminist writer named Mary MacLane known as the "Wild Woman of Butte". A nonfiction history of Butte is available from Amazon; "Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914-41" (Women in American History) by Mary Murphy. You can read a free exerpt. Frank Little, a murdered labor union organizer is another interesting character. I think if you do some research about Butte, you will become fascinated by the possibilities.

As a result of my visit, I am considering a noir style novel set in the 1920s or 30s. Butte has everything; crime, corruption, tragedies, struggling immigrants from all over the world, labor strife, corporate tyrranny, ruthless industrialists, environmental disasters, big city architecture, magnificent scenery. I have just published a similar novel set in Nebraska during the 1940s (Blue Hotel by JT Conroe, pardon the plug), and I would love to do something similar for Butte. I might even use some of the same characters.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[Eve Yohalem]

Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose is one of my all-time favorite books. It's told in flashback by a historian researching his pioneering grandparents (especially his grandmother), their complicated marriage and their journey west in the late nineteenth century. Stegner is especially brilliant when it comes to his female characters and Susan Ward in Angle of Repose may be the most fully realized of them all. Unfortunately, the Kindle edition is more expensive than the paperback!

[gingerdehlinger]

No, not looking for historical romance novels. Thanks for your suggestions of Christy, Red Harvest and Angle of Repose. My Kindle has been idle too long. 

[Zackery Arbela]

Try THE BARQOUE CYCLE, by Neil Stephenson...Alchemy meets The Age of Enlightenment. When it comes to the sheer beauty of prose, the author is a true master...



[just to clarify, the book title is Quicksilver, the first book in the series and The Baroque Cycle is the trilogy. --Betsy

[laa0325]

I used to live in Boulder, CO and I enjoyed this one.  It has a time-travel twist to it, so it may not be what you're looking for. A modern woman on the eve of her wedding looks into an old mirror and swaps bodies and lives with her own grandmother. It tells of her life in Boulder, her first marriage to a miner, the way women lived as rich Boulderites, poor mountain women in shacks, and even includes the local prostitute.

The Mirror

[Joel Arnold]

I recently passed through Butte, Montana, the formerly wide open mining town to end all mining towns. It is filled with somewhat rundown Victorian mansions, hotels, theaters, stores, banks, office buildings, miner homes, bordellos, saloons, etc. As a result, I am reading Dashiel Hammett's "Red Harvest" which takes place in the 1920s in a fictional version of Butte. Hammett was a Pinkerton agent in Butte before he started writing. A fascinating character from Butte was an early feminist writer named Mary MacLane known as the "Wild Woman of Butte". A nonfiction history of Butte is available from Amazon; "Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914-41" (Women in American History) by Mary Murphy. You can read a free exerpt. Frank Little, a murdered labor union organizer is another interesting character. I think if you do some research about Butte, you will become fascinated by the possibilities.

As a result of my visit, I am considering a noir style novel set in the 1920s or 30s. Butte has everything; crime, corruption, tragedies, struggling immigrants from all over the world, labor strife, corporate tyrranny, ruthless industrialists, environmental disasters, big city architecture, magnificent scenery. I have just published a similar novel set in Nebraska during the 1940s (Blue Hotel by JT Conroe, pardon the plug), and I would love to do something similar for Butte. I might even use some of the same characters.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

I'll have to check that out. I've been to Butte a couple times, and it is indeed an interesting town that just oozes with its colorful past. During its heyday, they had entire city blocks of bordellos. I talked to an owner of an antique store that had once served as a bordello, and he showed me the basement where he found all manner of interesting artifacts as he was rehabbing the place.

[KateDanley]

Have you read A Thousand Pieces of Gold?  It is a historical novel about a real woman named Polly Bemis who ultimately settled in Idaho, but the biographer does an amazing job of capturing the time period and pioneer living.  So often, the wild west is just cowboys and Indians, covered wagons and gold rushes.  It was a fascinating education to read about this area from the viewpoint of a Chinese woman.  The description of A Thousand Pieces of Gold makes it sound rather grim, but don't be scared off.  Polly Bemis is one of those forgotten forefathers... foremothers?... of the west and I found this to be one of those life altering reads.