Fantasy Western. Need I say more? This book was my introduction to this sub genre, and I was trying to find a book to make my introduction to this an absolute thrill.
This book did not disappoint.
When Clementine kills her first client at a brothel she was raised to work at, her sister Aster leads her and three other young women on an escape from the house that trapped them. But branded by a magical tattoo which tells the world where they came from, these girls can never truly be free. But rumour out there is that someone can remove these tattoos, but it comes with a hefty price. Aster must decide how to accumulate the money needed to cover everyone’s freedom while keeping their identities hidden, but when they’re already outlaws how much do they all want to embrace it?
It was a bold and rewarding choice to have Aster as the lead character. She was not the one to start all of this, so you think it would have been Clementine’s story. But sisterhood trumps all else. The care she has for her group is what drives this all forward and it is the reason she was made the main POV. Everyone looking up to her. The pressure, the decision making. It was so right and so amazing to go into Aster’s mind.
Every character was entertaining. When writing an ensemble cast, regardless of who’s POV the story is written in, this is what you always look for. All characters in the crew being iconic in their own ways, from the brutal Tansy to the sass of Violet. All of them brought something incredible to the group, and even the motives of the people hunting them were motivating. There was never a boring character.
This book also makes me want to find more fantasy western novels. If this is my first dive into the genre, then I want to go deep. Dark fantasy suits the brutality of the Western environments so well. This interpretation has the magic tattoos on the faces of Good Luck Girls paired with various vengeful undead like revenants. This opens up so many possibilities for more interpretations of the genre and I wish people noticed this more. Fantasy has revived the western genre tenfold.
The Good Luck Girls gets a score of 4.5/5. Revive westerns like this please.