Reflections - Girl Waits with Gun

The title of Amy Stewert’s historical fiction novel, Girl Waits with Gun, puzzled me until I discovered it was an actual headline from 1915. Stewart researched primary sources for her story so the main structure is true. Three sisters were driving their buggy when a silk factory owner’s automobile hit them. The man harasses the women. Stewart includes actual newspaper stories to move the plot. She adds embellishments like giving Norma pigeons. Norma attaches headlines to the pigeons’ feet and sends them home.

Pigeons were such a focus that I pondered one of the sisters being kidnapped and sending the clue to her whereabouts via pigeon. No sister is kidnapped. No pigeons come to the rescue. The hobby is a red herring.

Other parts were foreshadowed heavily too. Constance, the POV character and oldest sister, is actually the teenage mother of Fleurette. Society thinks Fleurette is the daughter of Constance’s mother. Another part of heavy foreshadowing is that Constance would become a Deputy Sheriff. I was hoping all of Fleurette’s sewing skills would land her a seamstress job. They didn’t.

The novel flows with a smooth storytelling voice. Stewart also develops well rounded characters. Practical, no-nonsense Norma raises pigeons for a hobby and disapproves of Constance solving mysteries. Seventeen year-old Fleurette is naive and fanciful. She creates plays, sews, fashions, and longs for adventure. The sheriff works tirelessly for justice and protects the three sisters. He’s like a father-figure or older brother. Frances, the actual brother, disapproves of his sisters living on their own and complains he hears news from the sisters in the paper.

Even though the girls carry guns, I looked forward to reading a chapter or two of Girl Waits with Gun each night.