“They have been arrested, abducted, and everything else under the setting sun, they can handle a few nights in the desert by now!”
The story begins in 1916 as sisters Angeline and Adelaide Hanson attend a National Preparedness meeting and find themselves a bit put out at the attitude that women will be relegated to mending and such in the upcoming war effort (let alone not having a right to vote!). Anyhoo, the well-bred young ladies decide to make a “Ride for Rights” across country on Indian Model F motorcycles, and their adventures take them to Chicago, Colorado, Utah, a side trip with Jose Cuervo and on to the end of the road in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The story is written in the third person, and fleshed out with excerpts from the diary of Angeline as well as news bulletins from reporter Joe Miller, who followed the sisters’ story from the beginning.
This is a fairly short book at 135 pages, and as one who likes books with a bit more meat on their bones I’d have preferred to see the sisters and their travels fleshed out a bit more, but since this book is geared towards the YA market I’ll just have to live with what I get. According to the author’s notes, the Hansen sisters are based on the real Van Buren sisters who did ride cross-country on their motorcycles. And speaking of the author’s notes, this reader very much appreciated knowing what was real, what was surmised and what was fudged for the sake of the story. Two thumbs up for that. 4/5 stars.
Ride for Rights can be purchased at Muse it Up Publishing, and a Kindle edition is available on Amazon. I believe this is e-book only. A very promising start for this new author, and I’m looking forward to more. Psssst, don’t tell anyone, but she’s also writing a spicier line of fiction under the pen name Sonia Hightower.
Full disclosure: the author is an online friend of mine and sent me an early PDF copy for input only. There was no expectation of a review, and the choice to do so is mine and mine alone.
