CAT'S CAFE

A woman struggles with challenges on the 19th-century American frontier in Melotte’s debut historical series starter.

Catherine Callaway is poised on the edge of losing both the hope and the naïveté that originally brought her to the wilds of 1879 frontier Idaho to set up a cafe with her husband, Patrick: “Drawn in by the attention, romance, and promise of adventures to come, she hadn't imagined how hot, dirty, dusty, and wild the West really was,” readers are told. “It had frightened her some but, as a new, good Christian wife, she felt bound to abide by her husband’s decisions and hoped everything would work out.” Living in the little town of Eagle Rock has been a disillusioning experience for her; the streets are sometimes full of violence, the sheriff seems useless to prevent it, and the demure cafe of her dreams has become a busy saloon. That saloon is also a disappointment to the town’s mayor—a wonderfully hissable bad guy named Luther Armstrong who wants business to go to the rival drinking establishment he’s bankrolling. His plan: If Patrick should have an “accident” and drown in the Snake River, his “arrogant, aloof” wife will certainly pack her bags. It turns out that tragedy has a markedly different effect on Catherine than he—or Catherine herself—could have predicted. Melotte kicks off this trilogy in zippy, energetic style, filling his story with genuine frontier lingo (helpfully footnoted) and keeping the language of most of his characters eye-openingly salty. The dramatic center of the story—Catherine finding the inner strength to take on a pile of troubles—is handled with an engaging sense of compassion. At one point, when a character assures her that she has more friends in town than she thinks, every reader will truly feel it, and they’ll very much want to stay with the series as it goes forward.

A zesty and occasionally touching story of a woman confronting crude realities of a new life.