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Lone Women

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and go West. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the ‘lone women’, a female homesteader travelling by herself to stake her claim, taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it. Except that she’s not really alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the untamed and unforgiving American frontier.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.

© Victor LaValle 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

The combination of LaValle’s agile prose, the velocity of the narrative and the pleasure of upended expectations makes this book almost impossible to put down...deftly weaves history, horror, suspense and the perspectives of those rarely recorded in the West.
New York Times
A counter to the typical homesteading narrative, this moody and masterful western fires on all cylinders. Readers are sure to be impressed.
Publishers Weekly
Highly recommended for historical fiction readers just as much as die-hard horror fans.
Vulture
Holy hell this is an entertaining and unexpected story... I highly recommend this book to horror fans who enjoy horror sub-genre fusion, strong female protagonists, and short, buzzy chapters that keep you glued to the pages.
Sadie Hartmann, award-winning author of 101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered
Expect richness, surprise and beauty from this visionary new rendering of the historic American West.
Salon
Victor LaValle is an outstanding storyteller known for his gripping narratives and the elegant flair he brings to speculative fiction. In Lone Women...he mixes these elements with historical fiction and commentary on racial tensions in 1915 Montana to deliver his best novel yet.
Gabino Iglesias, author of The Devil Takes You Home
A corrective to the founding myth of America, a book filled with bloodshed and pain, but always holding out for the hope of a happy ending.
Esquire
Infused with creeping dread and chilling horror...it's an excellent novel that blurs genres and looks at early-20th-century America from a perspective that's been ignored for far too long.
NPR
Horror readers should be well-acquainted with the works of Victor LaValle.
This is Horror
Wow! The story, the unexpected setting, the reveal—just wow. Victor LaValle has a method of storytelling where he pulls you into an otherwise ordinary world, with only hints of the horror lurking beneath. But once that horror reveals itself, there’s no going back—and you’re eager for more. This tale of a young Black woman on the run, who ends up in Montana in the early 1900s, and the secret she drags along with her, is engrossing and chilling from start to end.
P. Djèlí Clark, author of Ring Shout
Author Victor LaValle
Narrator Joniece Abbott-Pratt
Duration 9 hours and 12 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781529987836
Format Audiobook
Publisher Transworld
Genre Adventure fiction: Westerns, FXT, Historical fiction, Horror and supernatural fiction, Mythical and legendary beings, monsters and creatures
Availability AU, GB, IE

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