Here's to the Ladies: Stories of the Frontier Army [Paperback]

Carla Kelly (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 259 pages
• Publisher: Texas Christian University Press (December 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875652700
• ISBN-13: 978-0875652702
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #912,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb!, July 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Here's to the Ladies: Stories of the Frontier Army (Paperback)

Ms. Kelly, without question, is the premiere author of the Regency novel. Her stories are fully realized; they are so "real" too. Always a reader can understand the bravery, loneliness and need for love that motivate her characters. This is a writer to be savored.

When I heard that Ms. Kelly's next publication would be a book of short stories about the post-Civil War American West, I was disappointed because I rarely find that short stories satisfy my desire for deep involvement with characterization and plot. I should not have worried. I don't know how she does it, but Ms. Kelly can say more about a character, time and place in one paragraph than most writers can manage in a chapter.

These stories are beautiful, tragic, funny and elevating. They are built around life at U.S. Army forts, which were the vanguard of white civilization in the territories of the west. The "Ladies" of the title that we get to know here are heroic in the finest sense of the word. Their men, too, are worthy of them. Ms. Kelly debunks a lot of the myths surrounding the Old West. She clearly demonstrates her knowledge of the people and times, right down to the command structures of the army and the incessant bitter cold of the endless winters.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough! If you want to get lost in a time and place that will move you to laughter and tears; if you want to meet people who were able to forge lives out of dust, privation and beans; and, most especially, if you appreciate a terrific yarn, READ THIS BOOK.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply wonderful, May 21, 2003

By 

Susan Smith (A small rural village in the English Midlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Here's to the Ladies: Stories of the Frontier Army (Paperback)

Carla Kelly is one of my very favourite writers. As a Regency novel devotee (and not especially enamoured of short stories), I must admit I wondered what this volume would bring for it is often the case that romance writers have a special niche and crossing genres is not always successful. "Here's to the Ladies" was, for me, one of the best books I have read this year.

This is a delightful collection of stories of men, and their women and families, serving in the Army, Cavalry and Army Medical Corps during the period of the Indian Wars. Living and working in remote, isolated and difficult circumstances in frontier forts in the Dakotas, Nevada, Arizona and Wyoming, the people in these stories come to brilliant life in Kelly's hands. She writes with economy and brevity yet breathes life into her characters so that the reader feels they know each one intimately, their foibles, their fears and their deepest emotions.

Some of the stories are told from the masculine POV and Kelly is a past master at creating male characters of great sympathy and humour. My personal favourite is Capt Jesse MacGregor, a surgeon in Arizona whose story reads like a thrilling dime novel. In "Kathleen Flaherty's Long Winter" we have a shy hero and a heroine who turns tragedy into triumph. "Casually at Post" is the story of a man named God and is written with wit and charm. "A Season for Heros" tells of courage and heroism amongst the famous Buffalo Soldiers and is touching and poignant.

I don't usually read the "western" genre but feel this collection is as good as Nancy Turner's much applauded "These is My Words" or Penelope Williamson's "Hearts of the West". I expect to read this volume again and again and have passed it to the man in my life to read for the themes Kelly writes about are those which are central to all meaningful fiction: honour, courage, pathos, tenderness, humour and meaningful, satisfying personal relationships.

A keeper; please read it and relish the sterling quality of Carla Kelly's beautifully wrought prose.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving Glimpse of Frontier Life, March 8, 2004

By 

Sally J. Barber "feathersbarr" (Western Springs, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Here's to the Ladies: Stories of the Frontier Army (Paperback)

I've been a Carla Kelly fan for years, like many of the other reviewers of this book. As much as I've enjoyed her Regencies this collection of short stories not only holds up well in comparison it shines. Kelly has the knack of catching the whole of a character in a few sentences. She creates realistic men and women about whom the reader cares. In Here's to the Ladies you feel the intense cold, the equally intense loneliness and mind numbing boredom of a deep Wyoming territory winter. This book deserves far more marketing promotion than the publisher has given it for this book should appeal to men as well as women, readers of history as well as romance. There is violence but not the type that makes you gag instead it makes the reader understand just how strong our ancestors were to survive the settling of a new world. Hats off to Ms. Kelly...A fantastic collection!!!