Original, unflinching, gritty and visionary, The Stranger is a stunning feminist Western for our times.
In Darkwater, being female doesn't amount to much. But Chelsea's luckier than most. She's the young lover of the town's feared leader, which she keeps telling herself is a good thing, what with food getting scarce and the wells drying up. She's secure and safe and can almost believe she's happy.
But when a stranger rides into town, gun on one hip, whip on the other, Chelsea can't look away. Especially when it turns out this stranger is a woman.
Nobody can say what the stranger is there for. But she brings talk of an outside perhaps no longer so chaotic, no longer something to hide away from - and she knows far too much about dark choices made in the town when the world outside was falling apart.
In a place ruled by fear, Chelsea's going to have to decide whose side she's really on, and how far she's prepared to go to uncover the town's dirty secrets before more blood soaks the ground of Darkwater - this time, perhaps her own.
'The Stranger is the kind of book you wish you'd written and yet are so grateful to have been able to read. A wild and glorious ride!' CLEMENTINE FORD