Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her―a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda.

The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.

If you take the hippos away from Sarah Gailey’s brilliant & weird River of Teeth duology (but don’t…DON’T TAKE THE HIPPOS AWAY PLEASE), and replace them with horses, you’d definitely be left with a badass, character-driven Western saga. So I was fucking delighted to hear about Upright Women Wanted, another story where Gailey puts their own unique spin on a Western!

This one has a bit of a post-apocalyptic/dystopian flavor, although it’s never made entirely clear What Exactly Happened. Which I actually kind of dug…Gailey gives you just as much as you need to understand that this story takes place in a fascistic near-future version of the US, where due to the scarcity of oil, things have somewhat devolved into a new Wild West.

Our protagonist is Esther Augustus. When we meet her, she’s a stowaway in a Librarian’s wagon. Esther’s best friend, Beatriz (whom Esther was in love with) was executed for possession of Unapproved Materials. Esther’s father, the Superintendent of the Lower Southwest Territory, arranges for Esther to marry Beatriz’s fiancée, which is why Esther runs away.

She wants to join the Librarians, an organization of women who travel the country on horseback delivering Approved Materials. She thinks becoming a Librarian is her path to righteousness. That there was something wrong inside her to love Beatriz. The Librarians are “chaste” and “morally upright.”

Or…are they?

As Esther is slowly welcomed into the fold, she sees that instead of running away from who she is, she may have truly found her people.

I find everything Sarah Gailey writes to be fucking magical, and Upright Women Wanted is certainly no exception. This small book is full of big surprises, shootouts, and super heart-squishy crushes/romance. It’s also 100% super gay!!

The book certainly functions as a standalone, but also leaves the (swinging saloon) doors open for more stories in this world, so fingers crossed that happens!

Real talk, I think Sarah Gailey is a once-in-a- lifetime kind of writer. Whether they’re writing novels, novellas, short stories, non-fiction essays, or live tweeting movies, I’m in. They are the very definition of an auto-buy author for me, and Upright Women Wanted is another addition to an already GENIUS body of work! Loved this one so damn hard!