The Widow Nash

This was a really fascinating story! I'm not usually that into historical fiction but this totally grabbed me! It has a lot of potentially heavy themes - death by syphilis, suicide, chronic illness, natural disasters, rape, police corruption - but it never felt depressing to me.

A big part of that is due to the heroine, who's an unusual character for a wealthy young woman in 1904 America - far from being sheltered, she's lived as her father's assistant and companion as he traipses the world scouting mines, investigating earthquakes (his hobby and obsession), having sex with any willing woman, and trying every new “cure” for his syphilis. He certainly has faults, but he treats Dulcy as a thinking human with agency, not as a delicate flower. As a result, she is capable and spirited, and even when trapped and victimized she takes her fate into her own hands.

This leads her to a new life in a fairly large and established town in Montana. One thing I loved was the startling modernity of life there. People aren't panning for gold and watching shootouts in the dusty street - they're going out for Chinese food, writing articles about quack medicine, and of course fooling around in various secretive ways!

There's a bit of a mystery, and a bit of thriller, but mostly this is a character study and the story of Dulcy's set of friends in town, with flashbacks to her relationship with her dad and grandmother.