Outlawed

I turned become an outlaw in the year of our Lord 1894.

Ada, who is seventeen years old, has a bright future ahead of her; she loves her spouse and her job as an apprentice to her esteemed mother, a midwife. Her life, however, hinges on leaving behind all she knows in a community where infertile women are frequently executed as witches, after a year of marriage and no pregnancy.

She joins up with the infamous Hole in the Wall Gang, a gang of criminals lead by the Kid, a preacher-turned-robber. The Kid, a charismatic, extravagant, and erratic person, is committed to building a refuge for marginalised women. However, in order to bring this fantasy to pass, the Gang devises a cunning scheme that could end up killing them all. Ada also has to choose whether she is prepared to put her life in danger in order to give them all a chance at a different sort of future.

Outlawed revives the shimmering promise of the frontier with a whole new set of feminist stakes while dispelling the myth of the ancient West and featuring an unstoppably brave, tenacious, and no-nonsense heroine. A page-turning, heart-pounding tale about the fight for truth amid a culture of fear and small-mindedness, as well as for hope beyond death, has been masterfully written by Anna North.