Tough Luck, a novel by Sandra Dallas, is the story of two almost-orphans, Haidie and her younger brother, Boots, that set out on a journey from Oklahoma to Colorado in search of their father. He’d left to find work some four years prior, planning to either send for them, along with their mother and older brother, Cheet; but Ma has died, and Cheet—the scoundrel—sells the farm, dumps his siblings in an orphanage, and takes off with the money. After escaping the orphanage, which is grim and abusive, Haidie is determined that she and her younger brother will make their way to Colorado and find their father.

My thanks go to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review. I’m over a full year late in doing so, a fact I’m not proud of, but despite my lateness, I have enjoyed this read, and I believe others that enjoy quality historical fiction will enjoy it as well.

Any author that writes historical fiction in the first person with a child as the protagonist has their work cut out for them. The ones that earn my scorn are those that make their main character so precocious that they speak as if they were an adult. This is, of course, complete nonsense, since brilliant children are still children; I am delighted to say that Dallas doesn’t use this cheap, ineffective device. Haidie is a bright child and most of her decisions are good ones, but she’s no Einstein, and she doesn’t talk like one. Having brother Boots along is important because it provides an opportunity for dialogue.

I do love American history, and so I am also waiting for Dallas to play fast and loose with historical fact. Instead, she is dead accurate, and despite the tall job she’s given herself, sending a couple of children across the plains and into the Rockies without an adult escort in the time before there were highways or readily available maps to follow, she nevertheless makes the story credible. I believe Haidie completely, and I believe the various villains and thieves, as well as the more decent people that she runs across during her journey. The settings are well rendered, too.

Because I fell behind in my reading, I checked out the audio book at my local library. Narrator Mia Hutchinson-Shaw does a fine job in bringing these characters to life.

This is an entertaining read, despite the sorrow and deprivation with which it begins, and I recommend it to those that love the genre.