Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. The first half was difficult to get through, but I really loved Mary Pearl - smart, determined, and tough. She was a feminist in a world that had no road map for feminism. The second half of this novel left me breathless and on the edge of my seat - I could hardly read fast enough.

Mary Pearl, a young woman living in the Arizona Territory, leaves behind all that she knows to go to art school in Illinois. It's a whole new world for her and she doesn't quite fit in while wearing her riding skirts and carrying her pistols around. As she slowly makes friends, she learns how to quiet the tendencies that served her so well in the rough desert of the Southwest. But when Mary Pearl is summoned back home in a panic and learns that her brothers have been kidnapped, she quickly finds herself again and shows that she's as tough as they come.

This was a story about family, home, and trusting ourselves that I won't forget anytime soon.