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After her father dies, it's up to 21-year-old Jennie Jones to keep the family ranch running.  But, as her savings dwindle and rival ranchers continue to steal her cattle, she's growing desperate.  So desperate that she comes up with a money-making scheme that's as repugnant as it is successful.  With the help of a greedy rogue, Jennie waits for a profitable stage coach robbery, then steals the bounty from the hapless thieves.  She gives the calculating Nathan Baird his cut and uses the rest of the funds to keep her ranch going.  It's not like she's the one committing a crime.  Right?  Even though Jennie knows it's wrong, she also knows that if she loses the ranch, she, her grandmother and her younger brother will be homeless, with no other family to take them in.  

As Caleb Johnson, a former bounty hunter with secrets of his own, wanders Utah Territory looking for work, he happens upon the fiery Jennie.  He's intrigued by her courage, her passion and her determination to save her family's ranch.  Still grieving the loss of his fiancee, Caleb's looking for somewhere to lick his wounds while earning the rest of the money he needs to start his own freight business.  When Jennie offers him a job as a ranch hand, he takes it, despite the fact that the pay is low and he can't rope a calf to save his life.  

The longer the two work together, the closer Jennie and Caleb become.  As their friendship deepens into something more, Jennie knows she has to come clean about her secret Robin Hood-ing.  But she can't.  Not until she scrapes up enough cash to stave off foreclosure.  She can't lose the ranch, not after she's sold her soul to the devil in order to keep it.  And yet, she can't stand to keep things from the kind, trusting Caleb.  If Jennie tells him the truth, though, she knows she'll lose him forever.  Caught between the love of her land and the growing feelings she has for Caleb, Jennie must make an impossible choice:  give up her thieving ways, and thus her ranch, or lose the only man she's ever loved.  

Fun premise, right?  I think so, too.  Lady Outlaw, a debut novel by Stacy Henrie, sounds like a lively story, just brimming with adventure and charm.  And it is.  Kind of.  The problem for me exists in the build-up—Henrie launches right into Jennie's problem without giving the reader a lot of background.  We don't really understand what kind of person our heroine is or how much her land means to her before she goes about stealing other people's money to save herself.  Thus, I think Jennie comes off as not just immoral, but also prideful and unsympathetic.  Personally, I just didn't care for her all that much.  So, there was that.  Plus, the story's far-fetched, the plot contrived and the writing only so-so.  Again, I think the premise has a lot of promise—it's the execution that's the problem.  Overall, Lady Outlaw tells a fun, entertaining adventure story.  But, it's got issues.  So, for me, the novel ended up being just okay.        

(Readalikes:  Hm, I can't think of anything.  Can you?)

Grade:  C

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  PG for violence and scenes of peril

To the FTC, with love:  I bought an e-copy of Lady Outlaw from Amazon with a portion of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger.  Ha ha.  

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So, this is a first for me—I've never reviewed a book without first reading it from cover to cover.  I'm not even sure I should give you my opinion on The Fiction Writer's Handbook by Shelly Lowenkopf without doing so.  But, here's the thing—it's not the kind of book you read from Page 1 to Page 328.  That would be like reading the dictionary from beginning to end.  Because this "handbook" is more of a reference than a how-to guide, if that makes sense.  Let me try to explain ...

Lowenkopf, who is now in his 80s, has worked as a book editor for more than thirty years.  He's also spent three decades teaching in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.  I think it's safe to say he knows his stuff.  So, when he set about writing a book about writing, he decided to "produce the book I needed when I was setting forth as a writer, a book you could pick up at any page and be led by your own needs and curiosity ... I wanted a book that showed the connective tissue between the tools of storytelling instead of telling me how to construct separate damned chapters" (15).  Thus, he penned The Fiction Writer's Handbook.  

The book is set up like a dictionary, listing 350+ literary terms from A-Z.  Each entry offers a definition of the word/phrase/concept, along with a history of usage and examples from well-known books, movies and even television shows.  Many entries also include helpful hints garnered from Lowenkopf's vast experience.  I found lots of common terms, with which I was already familiar (cliché, nuance, subtext, red herring, etc.) as well as many, many I had never heard before (The Choking Doberman, macguffin, mise-en-scène, and the pathetic fallacy—just to name a few).  Lowenkopf gives each concept a thorough examination, indeed showing how different techniques work together to create an effective story.  It is, by far, the most complete literary handbook I've ever encountered.

If you're a writer—a budding novelist, a blogger, even just a student of literature—you want this book.  It's a fabulous resource to have on hand.  I'm sticking it on my desk, where it will be easy to reach every time I encounter an unfamiliar literary concept or need tips on how to best utilize a certain technique in my own writing.  I can already tell that it's going to be an invaluable resource for me.  

Since I didn't read every word of The Fiction Writer's Handbook, I'm not going to give it a grade.  I'm just going to tell you that it's worth a look, especially if you have any desire to not just write fiction, but also see it published.  Lowenkopf's writing bible is thorough, precise and will be infinitely useful to myself and every other writer out there.  It's like taking one of the author's famous writing courses without having to pay thousands in tuition.  I call that a win-win situation.

To the FTC, with love:  I received a finished copy of The Fiction Writer's Handbook from the good folks at Premiere Virtual Author Book Tours.  Thank you!  

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