Western Blue is a sapphic western that I really enjoyed reading. The more awesome female characters and lgbtq+ characters in westerns the better! I really enjoyed Blue and Isa’s relationships and watching new characters feel like part of their family on the ranch. I honestly wish this was a series because I want more!

4.5!!! I love queer western novels so so much. After reading one at the beginning of this year, this book hit just what I needed. I loved this, there was so much happening in so little time. There weren't enough pages. The characters had me absolutely enthralled. I would recommend this book to literally anyone and everyone. Blue will be in my heart always.

While I enjoyed the premise of a sapphic romance set in the wolf west on 1800s, I don’t love the execution.
I found the dialogue a little clunky and unrealistic (the dialogue and thought processes felt too modern for a period setting) and the characters all felt a little cliched and one dimensional which left it quite challenging to get into.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the Author and Publishers for the opportunity to review Suzie Clarke's "Western Blue.

I really struggled to get into this book. And I wish I could put my finger on why this was such a disappointment because this author can really write. But sadly this just didn't work for me. The need to create suspense and drama fell flat with cliches and the characters were uninspiring and caricatures. Obviously this is just my take on this.

Heat Factor: They keep getting interrupted until they finally don’t

Character Chemistry: It’s a supportive partnership kind of vibe

Plot: Blue is starting a horse ranch and it’s hard work (not to mention the Evil Rival Rancher causing trouble)

Overall: I liked the premise, but the execution was unfortunately lacking

A few months ago, Erin was like, “Hey Holly, there are a bunch of sapphic ARCs on NetGalley right now!” There were lesbians at summer camp, lesbians in the kitchen, lesbian werewolves…and lesbians in the Wild West. (Obviously, I requested them all, so prepare yourselves for a spate of sapphic romance reviews.)

Here’s the basic premise: Blue is moving to Nevada to start a horse ranch on some land that her father left her. En route, she comes across Isa, who had been wounded and left for dead by some bad dudes. Though Isa had initially planned to go to California, she agrees to work for Blue as a ranch hand and quickly becomes her partner in running the ranch (and maybe also in bed). Because of the shenanigans of the Evil Rival Rancher, Blue can’t hire any men, so she hires a bunch of women to work on the ranch. Things with the ERR escalate.

I really liked the willingness of this romance novel to acknowledge that life in 1868 Nevada was hard, and to really go there. Not just in describing the kind of labor that the women do, but in allowing Blue and Isa to be hard characters who make hard decisions—and sometimes do morally questionable things. For example, Blue and Isa have several conversations about what kind of boss Blue needs to be in order to make the ranch a success. The conclusion they come to? She needs to be tough. She needs to reprimand her employees when they don’t do the work right. She can’t just hire any woman who comes to her with a sob story. Blue’s interactions with the rest of the women on the ranch read as discordantly harsh (to me, a pampered 21st-century white-collar worker)—but also absolutely necessary given the setting. People get shot. Animals die (including a few horses who die in really horrible ways). We are not here to be *nice*.

(I’ll come back to this point because the biggest example occurs as part of the climax and I want to hide the spoilers at the end of my review.)

Speaking of people getting shot, the action scenes were stressful and evocative, which is exactly what I want if I’m reading a gunfight-in-the-wilderness scene. Full props there.

I also liked that although things were hard, the outlook of the book (and the characters) wasn’t bleak. There were wonderful moments of community between the women on the ranch, as well as with other neighboring ranchers.

Now it’s time for the but.

But. Unfortunately, none of the characters felt like characters. There are ultimately eight women who come to live on the ranch, and none of them—including Blue and Isa, our central couple—have distinct personalities. They all have slightly different backstories, and a few have dialect quirks, but in any given situation, they mostly felt interchangeable. (Three of the hired women also have basically identical generic Western backstories: “Too many mouths to feed at home and I always helped Pa with the horses so here I am.”) It’s really a shame because Clarke does give some hints about interesting backstories—she just doesn’t draw out the connection to show how these characters’ pasts impact the way they interact with the world.

To get into the weeds of this criticism, I’m going to talk about what we know about Blue, and some of the actions she takes towards the end of the book, and the missed opportunity there, so here’s your spoilers break.

Here’s what we know about Blue: her mother died when she was a child. She was raised by a loving father and was heartbroken when he passed. Her wicked stepbrother cheated her out of her inheritance back in Texas. She is sexually innocent. Her childhood best friend always thought they’d get married once he returned from college, but it didn’t feel right to marry him.

Decent backstory, right? How does it impact the love stoyr? Well. Her conflict with Isa is basically that she’s worried that wanting a woman is wrong (fits with the sexual innocence) and then that people will judge her—especially the workers. There’s nothing in her backstory or in her internal thoughts that indicate that she’s particularly worried about what others think of her, until the moment we need her to for plot reasons.

The bigger question: how does Blue’s backstory fit with her bigger conflict with the ERR? She is unwilling to give up the ranch because of the family legacy, which does track. But she also insists on going to the ERR’s ranch to lay down an ultimatum with her superior shooting skills, which seems…not in character? Up until that point, she’s not particularly aggressive. And THEN, after the big shoot out, she drags the ERR behind her horse for two days to turn him in. Everyone else is like, “Blue, you’re going a little too far with this, give him some water.” And she’s like, “No.” I think this is meant to show how deep her feelings for Isa are (because Isa was injured during ERR’s attack), but nothing in her characterization up to this moment shows this either the bloodthirst or the pragmatic need to go to extremes in order to protect herself. The author could have made this believable if we’d seen more of Blue’s backstory, or if the author had perhaps included some moments of Blue reflecting on her need to protect her new family due to her sadness in losing her father.

Alternatively, the author could have flipped Blue and Isa’s roles here. Isa’s backstory includes her husband and all of their hands being murdered by bandits at their home ranch, so that could have been fleshed out further to give her a very believable and in-character reason for losing her shit when it seems like the same thing is happening to her new family.

Basically: the pieces of the characterization that would have made these extreme actions more believable were kind of there—but the author didn’t quite do the work to really cement who these people were on a deep level, such that their backstories informed the actions they took.

So do I recommend this one? Honestly, probably not. Despite the fight scenes, it ultimately fell flat for me.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

This review is also available at The Smut Report.

4 stars rounded!

Western Blue, set in late 1800s Nevada, follows Carolina Bluebonnet Hutchings - aka Blue - and Isabel Segura - Isa - and their journey to running a woman only ranch and maybe falling in love in the process.

Blue is stubborn and a little hot-headed but a hard-worker and loyal to a fault. After losing her only family, she sets out to find the ranch her elusive uncle left her and will NOT let anything get in her way. You can see this time and time again in her determination to not only make it to the ranch in Nevada from Texas traveling with only another woman (something that was very dangerous at the time) but to keep the ranch not only running, but thriving.
Isa is in a bit of a different situation when she crosses paths with Blue and Martha. Isa is a ranch hand disguised as a man that is making her way to California to try and find the only family she has left. She and Blue very quickly make a connection and its history from there (It helps that Blue and Martha possible saved her life).
I loved watching the relationship grow between Blue and Isa and seeing how they both react to this relationship. Isa has experience with women but it came at a cost while Blue has never let herself feel her real feelings in that way. Between the fear of being caught and the fear of being vulnerable, the paid is slow going and cautious.One thing I appreciated (realisticness aside) was that Martha and our following ranch hands simply do not care that Blue and Isa are connected in a way that was seen as wrong at the time. They were good people and treated every member of their newfound family with respect, kindness, and genuine care.
My favorite character for real tho was Gertie. She was such a goof and kind of a mess and said highkey out of pocket things and I loved her for it lol.
Overall, I thought the pacing was fine, the writing was good, and the dialogue felt realistic. I loved all the characters, especially the side characters and really enjoyed the read. It was fast paced and fun. Plus, who doesn't love a queer found-family western?

Mini Playlist:
You Wanted A Cowboy (But you got me) - Johanna Wacker
If She Ever Leaves Me - The Highwomen
The Way I do - Madeleine Kelson
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Emmylou Harris

i usually read silly little romances, but i love a good western setting. this was such a different book for me, in the best way. the story of friendship in this book is really inspiring and heartwarming.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Congrats to Western Blue on being released into the wild. This book just made a list of to read in a newsletter that I receive. I am excited to read it as I am a horse person.

This was a really good western romance. The friendship between Blue and Martha was a really strong one. They were such good friends and anytime Blue had a problem or or question about anything she could always count on Martha to be the voice of reason and to give it to her straight especially in the face of her romantic relationship with Isa the other main character of this trio. I loved everything about this book. There were strong women characters that only wanted to make a life for themselves, but there's a lot of violence and drama coming from people not wanting them too succeed, so they try to sabotage what these women try to do at every turn. This is my first book from this author but it won't be the last. I would definitely recommend this book and I look forward to what's next from this author.

This is a historical fiction with great strong characters. The story centers around Blue, Martha and Isabel. It touches on love, loyalty, friendship and the struggle strong independent woman faced hundred years ago. Overall, a well written story that was a great read. I recommend.

Thank You NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for this ARC.

I haven't been on a Western kick in hot a minute, but this book just pulled me in once again. Women in the wild west holds a soft spot in my heart. Suzie Clarke is hitting all the notes to keep me enthralled and rooting for these incredible women. Thoroughly enjoyed.

Thank you to Bold Strokes Books, Inc., BSB genre, and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

Westerns are not my go-to, out of my comfort zone! Saying this, I was surprised to enjoy the storyline. It's a romance, a group of women all with different characteristics. Western Blue is a slow-burn, well-written story, which I highly recommend.

Whether or not you are into Westerns, I suggest you try this book, it might surprise you.

Love is love.

4 out 5

What an interesting and different type of read. Caroline Bluebonnet Hutching (what a name), inherits a ranch in Nevada and moves from Texas with her friend Martha and her stallion and several mares. The journey is long and dangerous. Along the way, Blue meets Isabel Segura who has been ambushed and is injured. Martha nurses her and the women decide to continue the journey to the ranch together. Once there, Blue finds it difficult to hire ranch hires and decides to hire women which is when the read really becomes interesting.

I enjoyed this read with the various characters as they learned the craft and worked together to make the ranch a success. There are bad guys who are real jerks. If you like westerns and horses with women at the center, this is the read for you. I also learned somethings about horses and ranch life which in my opinion is a good thing.

4.5⭐️
This western tale centers around Caroline Bluebonnet Hutching (Blue), her friend Martha, and Isabel Segura. Blue is, accompanied by Martha, on the way to their ranch in Nevada, inherited from Blue’s father. They find the injured Isa on the side of the road, they save her life and in return, she helps them on the ranch. But the real problems only begin then. Anderson, a neighbor prevents Blue from hiring men and tries to evict Blue again to take over their land. So Blue hires women. But Anderson didn't count on the will and power of women who were not willing to give up their newfound home.
I really liked the story of the group of women thrown together. They worked hard and fought like lionesses. They are very different types and each one is well defined. The romance is sweet and slow-burn, and the insecurities Blue and Isa feel are understandable at a time when it certainly wasn't easy to have a lesbian relationship.
A well-paced and enjoyable Western story about friendship, chosen family, responsibility, fighting for justice, and love.

It’s been a few days since I finished this book and I keep wanting to go back and spend more time with these characters. I’m sad we didn’t get as much time with them separate from the main conflict of the novel to get to know all the women more, but I’m glad for the time we did!

This is a fun book, the plot may not always be fun, but it was entertaining and compelling to read. I enjoy the Western genre, and love the melding of other genres that can go on within it, I love how many stories actually follow the structure of Westerns, and I find revenge stories fascinating and frustrating. Western Blue, set in 1868, tells the story of part of the life of Blue, a woman who crossed the country to claim a plot of land after her father died. She’s starting from nothing and soon finds she’ll be able to get even less than she hoped for when a rivalry seems to be already fully fledged from way before she even got there. A local rancher, Anderson, known for violence and blackmail, blocks her attempts to hire any men to work on her ranch, so instead she puts out a call for women. And like the synopsis says, as more and more women arrive, she’ll find that there are many just as desperate and passionate as she is, not only to find work, but to break from what roles have been forced upon them and try to live more freely.

Blue and Martha (Blue's friend who travelled with her, and almost motherly figure to the women) meet Isa early in the story, but the relationship that follows is a little bit of a slow burn. Isa was found after being attacked, robbed, and left for dead, dressed as a man to try to get to her Uncle’s ranch after the loss of her home and her husband in a fire. Blue and Martha help her out, and Blue and Isa almost instantly feel something for each other, but, especially for Blue, who has never really felt this way before, they’re not sure what to do about it. Isa and Blue’s relationship is sweet and I loved the interactions of the other women around them in relation to it.

I found some of the writing style quite blunt, but I also do seem to have a preference for overly flowery prose, and that wasn’t what this was, but it was something the further in you get the more used to it you become. Some of the sexual content of the book I also found a little, not quite cringey, but sometimes things would be said that I’d feel a little off about, but also, I grew up on fanfic so…. it’s a different style of writing there and I haven’t read too many novels with that much sexual content, not that there was a huge amount in here, there wasn’t at all, it’s almost not worth bringing up here!

The book’s main conflict is Anderson. He repeatedly tries, and sometimes succeeds, to destroy Blue’s ranch and hurt the people within it. This threat drives and consumes Blue almost fully throughout the book, giving her and the reader only glimpses of what her life and her and Isa’s relationship is like without this mindset. Like I said at the start, I loved each of the main and supporting characters and really wish we had been able to spend much more time just talking to them and getting to know them. Gertie was a favourite, as was Etta, I wish I felt like I knew the others better and got to hear them speak more, but it was a great set of characters that felt mostly distinct from one another.

One of my absolute favourite moments was when we see all the wagons coming to Blue’s after the fire, that beautiful coming together of community was so wonderful and I was crying along with the characters there. It was such a good moment of light for Blue, who you'd been feeling so much loss and stress through throughout the book.

It was a enveloping book that used its setting and the nature around really well and, for someone who only knows what they learnt in GCSE History of the American West (which I loved so much I used to wander round that building on school open evenings to promote the History Department in a cowboy hat playing the very repetitive chords of Rawhide over and over again on my guitar), playing (dying on) the Oregon Trail, and one watch of Dancing with Wolves and The Alamo in a Borderlands of the American Southwest class I also loved, I felt like I was in safe hands and the whole thing had been well researched and this interpretation of that time and place very well built. The town and the people in it felt fully realised and the way they treated Blue made me have a soft spot for so many of them. The ending was what it was, it was as good as it could get probably, I’m not sure how else the author would have gotten out of the situation she had put her characters in and I’m not sure if it had ended before that final showdown how satisfactory an ending that would be, (it is a Western after all) and the threat would still be there, just delayed. I would have been happy to spend a little more time on the ranch after just to see what that home would look like without that cloud hanging over them. But all in all, this was a fun, easy read, in a setting I don’t usually read about, with some great characters and a plot that kept me interested.

I really liked this book and all the characters, except the ones you're not supposed to like.

In the 1860s, Blue Hutching inherits a ranch in Nevada. She travels there, finding a nearly-dead woman, Isa, on the way. Being a woman in the west at that time, there was no shortage of troubles, especially from the men in the area, but Blue is determined to run this ranch with the help of women only. Blue manages to collect a rag-tag group of women who are only too eager to escape their pasts, for a number of reasons.

As time passes, Blue and Isa become aware that they have an attraction to each other, but between building up the ranch and fighting off the troubles that come to the ranch with alarming regularity, they can barely tend to their own needs.

This is a story of trials and tribulations, of love and romance and loyalty and friendship among the characters.

Thank you to the author and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Very highly recommended!

This is a story about Caroline “Blue” Bluebonnet Hutching who inherits a ranch in Nevada in 1868. She moves there from Texas with her friend Martha and her stallion horse and several mares. Here dream is to establish a horse ranch. She meets Isabel Segura on the trail. Isa has been ambushed and had her horse stolen and is wounded. Martha nurses her back to health and Isa starts out helping her on the ranch. Blue tries and fails to hire men to work the ranch and eventually hires several women to help out.

I enjoyed this western tale and rooted for the women to overcome their inexperience and fight against the local bad guy. It was light in romance and strong on action and plot.

Both MCs were well developed characters and the supporting cast was well developed too.

If you enjoy sapphic historic fiction, then you will enjoy this book.

ARC received from Net Galkey for an honest and voluntary review.

Blue and her friend Martha who seems to have many roles from cook to mother figure left her home in Texas to claim the homestead that was left to her. While traveling they come upon a hurt person who was robbed and left for dead and it’s turns out to be a woman name Isabel who they take in. We learn that Isabel is experienced rider and knows how work a farm because at most times she posing as man to get work. Blue gets unwanted attention from a neighbor who wants her land and does everything to sabotage her that she has to hired woman who have their own reason to be there and wanting to run a horse ranch. Blue and Isabel feelings do grow quick but the romance part of it is slow because they are focus more on making this ranch a success well that and they always getting interrupt and I like that Blue does have support from others even though some agree with Andersons that women should be carrying children and in the kitchen I’m so happy I live in a time where women aren’t restricted even though some politicians wants us that way.

I received an ARC copy of this book from the Publisher via Netgalley and voluntarily leaving my review.

I received an ARC from Bold Strokes Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Blue Hutching has left her home in Texas to claim the homestead of her uncle along with her friend Martha who roles are many, cook, mother figure, seamstress, and nurse. As they near the homestead they come across a hurt rider who turns was robbed and left for dead. At first glance Blue thinks it's a man but it turns out the rider is a woman named Isabel and she ends up going with them.

On reaching their destination all is not well a local bully rancher has his sites Blue’s property and will stop at nothing to get it. Which includes forbidding any men in the area from working for Blue.Her hopes of keeping her land, lays with hiring a ragtail group of four women and one spirited young girl and Isabel. Each new hire is given a short backstory. You also have the developing relationship between Blue and Isabel which is a slow burn however they get there in end.

One of my favourite characters in the book was 11 year old Gertie whose mother ran off with I quote “damned banjo-playing son of a bitch.” I would love to read more about her.

The writing is good and I would definitely recommend this book.

Unfortunately I struggled with this book and ended up not finishing it - I stopped at around 25% in as I found the writing style extremely difficult to get through. This was down to my own preferences as I couldn’t get on with such short sentences and the amount of rhetorical questions. It’s a shame as I loved the premise of the book and the plot but I just couldn’t keep going with it.