From Printz Honor–winning and New York Times bestselling author Julie Berry, a true-crime-nailbiter-turned-mythic-odyssey pitting Jack the Ripper against Medusa. A defiant love song to sisterhood, a survivors’ battle cry, and a romantic literary tour de force laced with humor.
It’s autumn 1888, and Jack the Ripper is on the run. As London police close in, he flees England for New York City seeking new victims. But a primal force of female vengeance has had enough. With serpents for hair and a fearsome gaze, an awakened Medusa is hunting for one Jack.
And other dangers lurk in Manhattan’s Bowery. Salvation Army volunteers Tabitha and Pearl discover that a girl they once helped has been forced to work in a local brothel. Tabitha’s an upstate city girl with a wry humor and a thirst for adventure, while farmgirl Pearl takes everything with stone-cold seriousness. Their brittle partnership is tested as they team up with an aspiring girl reporter and a handsome Irish bartender to mount a rescue effort, only to find their fates entwine with Medusa’s and Jack’s.
My Review
What a cleverly told story. I love that the book centers the female characters and their role in helping others, especially those threatened by a serial killer and those forced into human trafficking. The story includes a lot of real people, which I always find fascinating. Detailed notes in the back of the book clarify what was real versus where the author took artistic license.
Most of the story is told from Tabitha’s perspective, and I absolutely loved her voice. She’s spunky and speaks directly to the narrator, sometimes noting her reaction to the way that people around her behave. At first, she and Pearl don’t see eye to eye or get along. But it’s not long before they realize they have a shared interest in helping another girl escape from a local brothel.
A sweet romance develops between Tabitha and someone she meets while working with the Salvation Army. The romance develops slowly, partly because Tabitha at first assumes her hopeful beau is interested in the lovely Pearl rather than her. The two eventually recognize one another’s feelings, and that added a some warmth to the story.
As someone who grew up watching the movie version of Guys and Dolls, I really appreciated the descriptions of the Salvation Army and their efforts to preach the Gospel on the streets. I had to laugh at Pearl’s relentless boldness in a few moments.
The story pulls together a lot of separate elements, from the work of the Salvation Army to the poverty and abuse of girls within widely known trafficking ring to the murders of Jack the Ripper to a reimagining of the mythical Medusa. The disparate parts fit together so nicely. I love that the author also creates space to celebrate faith in the midst of this tale as well.
Fans of historical fiction with a bit of magical realism will not want to miss If Looks Could Kill.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 15 up.
Profanity/Crude Language Content None.
Romance/Sexual Content Kissing. References to girls being forced into sex trafficking. It’s implied that one character was assaulted by a family member.
Spiritual Content Tabitha and Pearl are both members of the Salvation Army and take their faith seriously. Both girls have spiritual experiences in which they pray for direction and receive answers. Some characters transform into Medusas, with snakes for hair and a gaze that stuns or petrifies their victims.
Violent Content Brief graphic descriptions of murder and dismemberment. One character uses slivers of human organs to try to make a potion that will cure illness. See sexual content for more information.
Drug Content Some scenes take place in a saloon or pub and show (adult) characters drinking alcohol or smoking.
Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
You might remember the short story, “The Lady or the Tiger” from your reading in school, but this YA author brings a fresh take on that concept. Lady or the Tiger author Heather M. Herrman is here via Q&A to talk about what inspired her to create this gritty, Wild West murder mystery.
We’ll talk about misconceptions about the Wild West time period and why we need stories beyond romance in YA. We’ll also discuss the importance of telling stories with complex heroines and challenging tropes. It’s awesome stuff!
Let’s get right into it, shall we? Here are some details about the book for some context before we get into the Q&A.
A twisty, darkly seductive murder mystery, starring a teenage killer whose trial in the Wild West is upended when her first victim, her husband, arrives alive with a story to tell.
When nineteen-year-old Belle King turns herself in for murder, the last thing she expects to see is her abusive husband standing outside her Dodge City jail cell. He was the first man she ever meant to kill (but certainly not the last!). Somehow, though, her husband is there, hale and hearty, and very much not dead. With his arrival her plans in jail are jeopardized, and she’ll be forced to resort to all the tricks in her arsenal to prevent him from ever being in control of her again. But as a girl in the 1880s Wild West, the last thing anyone will believe is a woman—even when she confesses to her own crimes.
This story—of how Alice Springer, a mountain girl from Kentucky, became the infamous Belle King, of how she found the tiger in her heart, becoming the wickedest woman in the Wild West—is a love story that cuts through time and patriarchal ties.
Q&A with Heather M. Herrman
1. Is there a particular idea that inspired you to write Lady or the Tiger?
First of all, thank you so much for including me on The Story Sanctuary. I really love and respect the important work you’re doing on your site. And thank you so much for reading Lady or the Tiger!
In terms of this particular story, I started with the germ of an idea about a possibly possessed young woman in the Wild West who cuts out men’s hearts and replaces them with stolen diamonds. But from there, the story grew to be more of a response to the current landscape of the Young Adult genre.
In the past few years, I’ve noticed a trend of YA becoming synonymous with Romance. I think some of this is due to the age of YA readers, with polls suggesting that over fifty percent of readers are actually adults. I love a great romance and am in awe of the incredible authors out there giving us spice. Teen readers, too, need romance as they begin to navigate their own relationships. But they also need other stories.
Unlike adult readers who often read for escape, teen readers are still in the process of forming an identity. Romance by its very nature centers the pleasure—and in some ways value—of its female heroines on an external source instead of providing examples of girls who please themselves. I want to see more complicated girls and women in young adult stories who are allowed, even encouraged, to first fall in love with themselves—shadow and all—before worrying about someone else.
2. In both The Corpse Queen and Lady or the Tiger, you’ve written strong female characters who make difficult choices. I love that! Do you think female anti-heroes are underrepresented in teen fiction? And/or what do these stories bring to the genre that we need more of?
Absolutely. I think the world is still very uncomfortable with a woman choosing to do something that doesn’t serve other people but, instead, serves herself. This, coupled with the discomfort surrounding a woman’s sexual autonomy and desire, often gives us girls who can save the world but don’t know how to save themselves. This is why I’m so drawn to the antihero in fiction. These women are allowed to be exactly who they are without cowtowing to the demands the status quo places on them to be both helpful and beautiful.
Including more female antiheroes in young adult books gives readers a chance to see the parts of themselves they’ve often been asked to discard—their shadow selves or “outlaw energies” as Jungian psychologist Lisa Marchiano dubbs them—being accepted and valued instead of ignored. Girls and women deserve to be whole. And only by accepting our shadows can we ever truly shine our light.
3. What’s your favorite thing about Belle King?
I love that she is completely unapologetic about being herself. As a trained people-pleaser, I personally often find that hard, and I know a lot of other girls and women do too. Our culture often teaches us to meet others’ needs before our own. I love that Belle is willing to consider what she wants first.
4. What made you choose the 1880s Wild West as a setting for Lady or the Tiger?
I think that the setting is an interesting one because we typically think of the “Wild West” as a white, straight, male-dominated space. This was absolutely not the case. But this misconception does show exactly what a woman was up against in that time period and by comparing and contrasting our current climate, it also reveals what she continues to face today. By pushing back on certain tropes prominent in typical westerns, I got a chance to challenge these ideas.
For example, the “damsel in distress” trope has always stood out to me—Western films and novels often revolve around cowboys rescuing beautiful women or, if not rescuing them, using their untimely deaths as backstory for the hero. Often, these women serve as justification for a hero’s violence. I wanted to subvert that convention by placing a woman at the heart of the story rather than on its margins. I also wanted to give her the same depth and moral complexity typically reserved for the rugged male outlaws and antiheroes that dominate the genre. And I also tried to challenge the myth of a homogenous, cisgender American frontier by including diverse characters and historically grounded details that reflect the cultural richness that existed long before white settlers arrived and continues to exist today.
5. Is there a scene or character that was the most fun to write, or something in the book that you couldn’t stop thinking about, even after you finished the scene or draft?
I mean I loved the ending. That was really fun to write. But I think I also had a great time crafting the scene with Alice, Ama, and Dom on the riverbank. They really reveal themselves to each other there and admit things that other people would maybe judge them for because they know that it’s a safe, accepting space. That was a real moment of trust for the characters, and I think it brought back all the beautiful friendships I’ve been lucky enough to have over the years. I wanted Lady or the Tiger to be a love story, just not a traditional one. Because of this, I wanted it to also highlight some of the more important love stories that we maybe don’t always talk about. For me, my girlfriend growing up were life-changing, and I wouldn’t be who I am today without them.
6. What do you most hope that readers take away from your novel?
First and foremost, I hope they enjoy it. Creating Belle was a wild ride, and I’m so excited for readers to get to know her. Beyond that, I hope seeing her be exactly who she is without apology will maybe stick with them. That in some future moment, however small, they remember Belle and feel free to choose themselves instead of trying to please someone else.
7. What is your favorite question readers have asked you about your books?
I had a reader ask me which character from my books I’d most like to go to dinner with, which I thought was such a cool question. Not sure what it says about me, but I immediately chose the murderer.
Heather Herrman is the author of the adult horror novel, Consumption, and the Junior Library Guild selected Young Adult Novel, The Corpse Queen. The Lady or the Tiger, a new YA novel by Heather about a female serial killer in the Wild West will be available from Nancy Paulsen Books June 10, 2025.
Heather’s fiction seeks to explore the relationship between body and landscape, utilizing genre as a medium. She believes that American Horror Fiction provides a lens through which we can undress and view the timeless dis/ease of our society.
Heather holds an MFA from New Mexico State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications including the Dark Screams Anthology:Volume 10, Cemetery Dance, The Alaska Quarterly, South Carolina Review, and Snake Nation Review. Her fiction has earned the Frank Waters Prize, an Individual Artist Grant from the Nebraska Arts Council, and a scholarship to the Prague Summer Program for Writers.
She is represented by Barbara Poelle from the Word One Literary Agency.
Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
Based on the true story of two friends who unite to help rescue immigrant women and girls in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 1890s.
When Tai Choi leaves her home in the Zhejiang province of China, she believes it’s to visit her grandmother. But despite her mother’s opposition, her father has sold her to pay his gambling debts. Alone and afraid, Tai Choi is put on a ship headed for “Gold Mountain” (San Francisco). When she arrives, she’s forced to go by the name on her forged papers: Tien Fu Wu.
Her new life as a servant is hard. She is told to stay hidden, stay silent, and perform an endless list of chores, or she will be punished or sold again. If she is to survive, Tien Fu must persevere, and learn who to trust. Her life changes when she’s rescued by the women at the Occidental Mission Home for Girls.
When Dolly Cameron arrives in San Francisco to teach sewing at the mission home, she meets Tien Fu, who is willful, defiant, and unwilling to trust anyone. Dolly quickly learns that all the girls at the home were freed from servitude and maltreatment, and enthusiastically accepts a role in rescuing more.
Despite challenges, Dolly and Tien Fu forge a powerful friendship as they mentor and help those in the mission home and work to win the freedom of enslaved immigrant women and girls.
My Review
First let me say that this was a really easy book to read. It took less than 24 hours to finish it, and I’d guess it took me something like two and a half hours to read.
I really liked that so much of the story is told from Tien Fu Wu’s perspective, even though her story is heartbreaking. I liked getting to follow her through her recovery to the point where she decided to help rescue other girls and where she was able to use her own experience to understand how to comfort other girls.
All I can say about Dolly Cameron is that she must have been truly a force to be reckoned with. I loved the way her friendship with Tien Fu Wu developed and the growth they both experienced along the way.
I haven’t read the adult version of this book, so I don’t know what content was removed. One of the things I wish this book had given a little more background information on was why the president and his wife visited the mission home. I wanted to understand how that happened. How did they know about the mission, and was there something that prompted them to visit?
Other than that, I thought the book did a great job describing the lives of girls like Tien Fu Wu and the obstacles that Dolly Cameron and the women at the mission faced in order to help them.
I think readers who enjoy books about history will definitely want to check this one out. The writing style seems more like narrative nonfiction, but it’s classified as a novel. Something about it reminded me of a book called LI JUN AND THE IRON ROAD by Anne Tait.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.
Representation Tien Fu Wu and some other characters are Chinese. Dolly is white.
Profanity/Crude Language Content None.
Romance/Sexual Content Vague references to brothels. One scene discusses a girl forced to work as a prostitute. (The book doesn’t describe what this means.)
Spiritual Content Dolly and other characters are Christian. Some of the Chinese women they rescue convert to Christianity, though they are not required to do so. Dolly and the other leaders also include traditional Chinese culture and language in the lessons at the school.
Violent Content Brief descriptions of abuse. For example, Tien Fu Wu’s owner burned her face with a hot poker and pinched her arms, leaving bruises.
Drug Content As they walk the streets, sometimes characters smell opium being smoked in the buildings nearby.
Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THE PAPER DAUGHTERS OF CHINATOWN in exchange for my honest review. All opinions my own.
Working as a servant to help her family becomes unbearable when Li Jun’s lecherous master makes it clear he plans to take advantage of her. As a Chinese woman in the 1880s, Li Jun has few other options. She makes a daring escape by disguising herself as a boy and living as a street urchin. When she hears of an opportunity to travel to British Columbia to work on the railroad, she realizes this could be the chance she has longed for: to follow in her father’s footsteps and discover what has kept him from returning home.
As Little Tiger, Li Jun befriends James, the son of a railway tycoon, and promises to help him secure enough workers for the job. She proves to be an invaluable team member and a good friend to James, but the draw between them extends beyond the boundaries of work and friendship. Still, Li Jun can’t allow anything to prevent her from finding out where her father is, and what has happened to him, even if she has to confront his killer to do so.
Last fall my husband and I took a trip to Vancouver and Alaska for the first time. I’ve since fallen in love with the history of the area—places and people I had never known about before. Though this is a work of fiction, I enjoyed being able to glimpse the landscape of the 1880s and in particular, the development of the railroad in Canada. Li Jun is clever and brave, an easy heroine to admire, and the mystery of what has happened to her father pulls the story forward through the historical setting and kept me guessing all the way to the end.
At a little over two hundred pages, this novel was a quick read. I think I read it in one evening.
Language Content
Brief strong profanity.
Sexual Content Li Jun’s master gropes her in a dark garden. It’s clear he means to do more, and she’s afraid. Li Jun and James share a moment together in his room. She removes her top, and they fall into his bed, but she stops him from removing her pants.
Spiritual Content Some references to Chinese culture and beliefs concerning the souls of family members who’ve died. The bones or ashes of the dead must be returned home to China or else the person’s soul will wander forever.
Violence Dangerous men try to hurt James and Li Jun. Short description of mining accidents. There’s not a lot of gore or graphic explanation.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
