Books › Upright Women Wanted
Upright Women Wanted
176 pages
A gritty, fast-paced pulp Western that trades traditional cowboys for queer librarian spies dismantling a fascist regime.
What it feels like
Reading this novella feels like riding shotgun on a dusty, dangerous trail where the stakes are life, death, and the freedom to be yourself. It is a brisk, punchy experience that takes the familiar, sun-baked aesthetics of a classic pulp Western and injects them with fierce queer joy and anti-fascist rebellion. The prose is sharp and cinematic, crackling with campfire banter and the tense, metallic click of a drawn revolver. Beneath the action-packed surface of horseback chases and smuggled contraband lies a deeply earnest emotional core about unlearning internalized shame and finding your true family. It will thoroughly delight anyone who craves a fast, defiant adventure where marginalized people not only survive a brutal world, but actively ride out to change it.
- Mood
- dusty
- tense
- rebellious
- hopeful
- Tone
- defiant
- gritty
- wry
- earnest
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- queer found family · unlearning internalized oppression · anti-fascist rebellion · subversive power of knowledge · grief and survival
- The writing
- Punchy and cinematic, blending classic pulp-Western vernacular with a sharp, modern sensibility.
- The arc
- Moves from suffocating grief and fearful compliance to a fierce, liberating embrace of identity and rebellion.
- Who it's for
- Readers looking for a fast, fiercely queer adventure that dismantles oppressive tropes while delivering classic horseback shootouts.
Content notes
- systemic homophobia
- execution of a loved one
- gun violence
- grief
- fascism
About the book
“That girl’s got more wrong notions than a barn owl’s got mean looks.”
Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda.
The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.
Description from Open Library.
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