The extraordinary, dramatic story of the women of the American west

'Brave Hearted is not just history, it is an incredibly intense page-turning experience. To read what these women endured is to be transported into another universe of courage, loss, pain, and occasionally victory. This book is a triumph.' Amanda Foreman

'This book delivers a blazing 360 degree view of the American story. Each page is packed with gumption and grit and genius.' Bettany Hughes

'Absolutely compelling; telling the stories of women who for so many years have been written out of history' Christina Lamb, Sunday Times

Whether they were the hard-drinking hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns, 'ordinary' wives and mothers walking two thousand miles across the prairies pulling their handcarts behind them, Chinese slave-brides working in laundries, or the Native American women displaced by the mass migration of the 'whites' to their lands, all have one trait in common: that of extreme resilience and courage in the face of the unknown.

Reading the extraordinary accounts they have left behind them, their experiences seem as strange to us today as it must have been to have lived through them, perhaps even stranger. They were put to the test, in terms of sheer survival, in ways that we can only dimly imagine.