Customer Reviews

Here's to the Ladies: Stories of the Frontier Army

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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!!!

I am a long time Carla Kelly devotee and was delighted to see that she had ventured out in a new direction. The short stories in this volume vary in length from short character sketches to fully developed, authentic stories of the frontier Army in the late 19th century. I particularly enjoyed "Kathleen Flaherty's Long Winter" and "A Season for Heroes." However, I read the final story, "Jesse MacGregor," right before I turned out the light at night. Its graphic violence kept me awake for several hours, then gave me nightmares. So, even though my overall recommendation is positive, I would suggest approaching the last story carefully or even, if you are very easily upset, skipping it entirely.

This is a beautiful collection of short stories about men, and the women in their lives, who served in the U.S. Army on the American frontier in the years after the Civil War. Kelly is a highly regarded Regency romance author and several of these stories could be considered outstanding romance short stories, the others, however, are simply fascinating tales. All of them are deftly written, well-plotted, engrossing, and very moving. Carla Kelly is a major talent. This collection will be enjoyed by anyone who likes to read about the American West, the lot of woman in the past, military history, or likes romance short stories. A great gift!

Can this woman write a bad book? No! Every one of these stories is a gem, but A Season for Heroes is extraordinary. Thank you Carla Kelly for another keeper.

I bought this thinking I could read maybe one of its ten short stories a week until Carla Kelly's next book becomes available. I read the first one on Tuesday of this week. It's Thursday when I'm writing this, and I read the last one this morning. It absolutely amazes me how someone who writes Regency-era romance as though she were there in 1813 or so can write 1870s and 1880s Frontier Army as though she were there, too. I can't even name a favorite among the stories; they're all too good. Encore, please?

The nine stories which make up Here's to the Ladies: Stories of the Frontier Army are rich, colorful, and varied. The action occurs at various isolated posts in the western territories in the decades following the War of the Rebellion (Civil War). The theme of each has to do with a facet of love. Some stories are brief, others are longer. The stories are told from a variety of perspectives and are related in a variety of ways. There was certainly a good deal of humor and hope in the stories considering that the circumstances of life for the characters were grim.

I found Kelly's introduction as interesting as the stories in the collection. She gave a mini-history of how she came to write the various tales and of her related experiences as a seasonal ranger and living history actor at a National Park.

I have a considerable appreciation for Carla Kelly's work and I find this one comes up to the mark.

Some of the stories are so short, they seem like a newspaper article, rather than a short stories. The rest are so full of cursing/vulgarity, they wouldn't be fit to print in a newspaper. I threw my copy in the garbage.