By definition, a western is a work of fiction that embodies elements of the American Old West, a period of time covering the late 18th to early 20th centuries. These elements can range from physical symbols or icons like ten-gallon hats, spurs, six shooters, lassos, gold mines, saloons, horses, and trains, to more psychological or spiritual principles such as characters with an indomitable spirit, tenacity, or courage in the face of uneven odds. 

Thanks to manifest destiny—the belief that U.S. expansion into the west was inevitable and necessary for the good of the country—the American west became a relative powder keg for people of all races, beliefs, and genders. Native populations were driven out by settlers who then struggled to survive in the unfamiliar landscape. Entire families lived and died on the trails they tried to forge in their search for a better life. Lawlessness became a standard way of living, and justice became whatever a person wanted it to be.

A fight for survival in a harsh, lawless landscape became a defining quality of Western fiction. This can manifest itself in different ways: a straightforward shootout between foes at high noon, a journey of revenge, or a character simply trying to make it through the winter while battling against forces of nature. The focus is on how the human spirit can survive under harsh conditions. Will the protagonist succumb to the chaos around her? Or will she stay true to her moral code?

With these broad themes, western storylines can easily be modified to fit within other genres. Space westerns, for example, may follow a group of colonists trying to survive on Mars in similar ways a group of settlers may try to survive in Montana. Guns might be replaced with laser blasters, but the core elements are still the same. 

Despite this wealth of material, western fiction is dominated by white male, cisgendered, heterosexual narratives. A casual look in your local library’s western section (and yes they exist!) will show you cover upon cover of super macho leading men—but where are the leading ladies? Where are the heroines who take after Annie Oakley or Stagecoach Mary? Well, we’ve got them right here! 

From Annie Oakley, that rootinest-tootinest sharpshooter, to the indomitable spirit of Mattie Ross, we’ve gathered a list of our favorite western literature featuring female leads! (All summaries adapted from the publisher.)

Looking to find out more about the real-life women of the west? Check out our non-fiction staff picks here! 

Female Western Adult Fiction

Cattle Kate: A Novel by Jana Bommersbach

Cattle Kate is the only woman ever lynched as a cattle rustler. History called it "range land justice" when she was strung up in Wyoming Territory on July 20, 1889, tarring her as a dirty thief and a filthy whore. But history was wrong. It was all a lie.

Now, on the 125th anniversary of her murder, the real Ella comes alive to tell her heartbreaking story. Jana Bommersbach's debut novel bares a legend central to the western experience.     

Cogewea, the Half Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range by Hum-ishu-ma, "Mourning Dove," given through Sho-pow-tan; notes and biographical sketch by Lucullus Virgil McWhorter; introduction by Dexter Fisher

One of the first-known novels by a Native American woman, Cogewea (1927) is the story of a half-blood girl caught between the worlds of Anglo ranchers and full-blood reservation Indians; between the craven and false-hearted easterner Alfred Densmore and James LaGrinder, a half-blood cowboy and the best rider on the Flathead; between book learning and the folk wisdom of her full-blood grandmother.

The book combines authentic Indian lore with the circumstance and dialogue of a popular romance; in its language, it shows a self-taught writer attempting to come to terms with the rift between formal written style and the comfortable rhythms and slang of familiar speech.

Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral by Mary Doria Russell

From the bestselling, award-winning author of Doc, Epitaph gives voice to the real men and women whose lives were changed forever by those fatal 30 seconds in Tombstone.

At its heart is the woman behind the myth: Josephine Sarah Marcus, who loved Wyatt Earp for almost half a century and carefully chipped away at the truth until she had crafted the heroic legend that would become the epitaph she believed her husband deserved.

Girl with a Gun: An Annie Oakley Mystery by Kari Bovee

When a series of crimes take place soon after 15-year-old Annie Oakley joins Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, including the mysterious death of her assistant, Annie fears someone is out to get her. With the help of a sassy, blue-blooded reporter, Annie sets out to solve the crimes that threaten her good name.

Half Broke Horses: A True-life Novel by Jeannette Walls

So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town—riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband, Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette’s memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.

Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds—against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn’t fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa or Beryl Markham’s West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix readers everywhere.

House of Purple Cedar by Tim Tingle

"The hour has come to speak of troubled times. It is time we spoke of Skullyville." Thus begins Rose Goode's story of growing up in Indian Territory in pre-statehood Oklahoma. Skullyville, a once-thriving Choctaw community, was destroyed by land-grabbers, culminating in the arson, on New Year's Eve, 1896, of New Hope Academy for Girls. Twenty Choctaw girls died but Rose escaped. She is blessed by the presence of her grandmother Pokoni and her grandfather Amafo, both respected elders who understand the old ways. 

Soon after the fire, the white sheriff beats Amafo in front of the town's people, humiliating him. Instead of asking the Choctaw community to avenge the beating, Rose's grandfather decides to follow the path of forgiveness. And so unwinds this tale of mystery, Indian-style magical realism, and deep wisdom. It's a world where backwoods spiritualism and Bible-thumping Christianity mix with bad guys; a one-legged woman shopkeeper, her oaf of a husband, herbal potions, and shape-shifting panthers rendering justice. Tim Tingle—a scholar of his nation's language, culture, and spirituality—tells Rose's story of good and evil with understanding and even laugh-out-loud Choctaw humor.

The Outlander: A Novel by Gil Adamson

In 1903 a mysterious young woman flees alone across the West, one heart-pounding step ahead of the law. At nineteen, Mary Boulton has just become a widow--and her husband's killer. As bloodhounds track her frantic race toward the mountains, she is tormented by mad visions and by the knowledge that her two ruthless brothers-in-law are in pursuit, determined to avenge their younger brother's death. Responding to little more than the primitive fight for life, the widow retreats ever deeper into the wilderness--and into the wilds of her own mind--encountering an unforgettable cast of eccentrics along the way.

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber

When Rachel, hired help in a Chicago boardinghouse, falls in love with Isaac, the boardinghouse owner's son, he makes her a bargain: he'll marry her, but only if she gives up her 160 acres from the Homestead Act so he can double his share. She agrees, and together they stake their claim in the forebodingly beautiful South Dakota Badlands.

Fourteen years later, in the summer of 1917, the cattle are bellowing with thirst. It hasn't rained in months, and supplies have dwindled. Pregnant and struggling to feed her family, Rachel is isolated by more than just geography. She is determined to give her surviving children the life they deserve, but knows that her husband, a fiercely proud former Buffalo Soldier, will never leave his ranch: black families are rare in the West, and land means a measure of equality with the white man. Somehow, Rachel must find the strength to do what is right—for herself, and for her children.

Sawbones by Melissa Lenhardt

When Dr. Catherine Bennett is wrongfully accused of murder, she knows her fate likely lies with a noose unless she can disappear. Fleeing with a bounty on her head, she escapes with her maid to the uncharted territories of Colorado to build a new life with a new name.

Although the story of the murderess in New York is common gossip, Catherine's false identity serves her well as she fills in as a temporary army doctor. But in a land unknown, so large and yet so small, a female doctor can only hide for so long.

Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman

Isobel, upon her 16th birthday, makes the choice to work for the boss called the Devil by some, in his territory west of the Mississippi. But this is not the devil you know. This is a being who deals fairly with immense—but not unlimited—power, who offers opportunities to people who want to make a deal, and they always get what they deserve. But his land is a wild west that needs a human touch, and that’s where Izzy comes in.

Inadvertently trained by him to see the clues in, and manipulations of, human desire, Izzy is raised to be his left hand and travel circuit through the territory, helping those in need. As we all know, where there is magic there is chaos… and death.

These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901: Arizona Territories: A Novel by Nancy E. Turner

In a novel based on the life of the author's ancestor, Sarah Prine, a child of the westward expansion, records her dreams, marriage, adventures, joys, and sorrows in her diary.

True Grit by Charles Portis; afterword by Donna Tartt

It tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just 14 years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood.

With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. From a writer of true cult status, this is an American classic through and through. 

 

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

A rich, dark fantasy of destiny, death, and the supernatural world hiding beneath the surface. Nettie Lonesome lives in a land of hard people, and hard ground dusted with sand. She's a half-breed who dresses like a boy, raised by folks who don't call her a slave but use her like one. She knows of nothing else. That is, until the day a stranger attacks her.

When nothing, not even a sickle to the eye can stop him, Nettie stabs him through the heart with a chunk of wood, and he turns into black sand. And just like that, Nettie can see. But her newfound sight is a blessing and a curse. Even if she doesn't understand what's under her own skin, she can sense what everyone else is hiding—at least physically.

The world is full of evil, and now she knows the source of all the sand in the desert. Haunted by the spirits, Nettie has no choice but to set out on a quest that might lead to her true kin… if the monsters along the way don't kill her first.

Whiskey When We're Dry by John Larison

In the spring of 1885, 17-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family's homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbors, she cuts off her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets off across the mountains to find her outlaw brother, Noah, and bring him home. A talented sharpshooter herself, Jess's quest lands her in the employ of the territory's violent, capricious governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah—dead or alive. 

Wrestling with her brother's outlaw identity, and haunted by questions about her own, Jess must outmaneuver those who underestimate her, ultimately rising to become a hero in her own right.

Wynema: A Child of the Forest by S. Alice Callahan; edited and introduced by A LaVonne Brown Ruoff

Originally published in 1891, Wynema is the first novel known to have been written by a woman of American Indian descent. Set against the sweeping and often tragic cultural changes that affected southeastern native peoples during the late 19th century, it tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women from vastly different backgrounds—Wynema Harjo, a Muscogee Indian, and Genevieve Weir, a Methodist teacher from a genteel Southern family. Both are firm believers in women’s rights and Indian reform; both struggle to overcome prejudice and correct injustices between sexes and races. Callahan uses the conventional traditions of a sentimental domestic romance to deliver an elegant plea for tolerance, equality, and reform.

Graphic Novels of Western Women

Calamity Jane: The Calamitous Life of Martha Jane Cannary, 1852-1903 written by Christian Perrissin; illustrated by Matthieu Blanchin; lettered by Frank Cvetkovic; translated by Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander

Return to the real-life days of the wild, wild west where the living wasn't so easy… especially for women. Calamity Jane—Martha Jane Cannary—was a bona fide frontierswoman, a professional scout, a drunk and sometime whore, doing whatever it took to stay alive in the hardscrabble days of American expansion.

 

Pretty Deadly: The Shrike by Kelly Sue Deconnick; art and covers by Emma Rios; colors by Jordie Bellaire; edits by Sigrid Ellis; letters by Clayton Cowles

Death's daughter rides the wind on a horse made of smoke and her face bears the skull marks of her father. Her origin story is a tale of retribution as beautifully lush as it is unflinchingly savage. 





 

Wynonna Earp: Homecoming by Beau Smith; art by Lora Innes and Chris Evenhuis; colors by Jay Fotos; letters by Robbie Robbins

The U.S. Marshals Black Badge division has been fighting against supernatural threats for decades. But even the toughest werewolf, most bloodthirsty vampire, or grisliest zombie knows there's one agent to avoid at all costs: Wynonna Earp. Descended from the legendary Wyatt Earp, Wynonna is dead set on bringing the unnatural to justice!

Young Adult Books on Western Women

Berserker by Emmy Laybourne

Hanne and her siblings flee Norway after her "gift" causes her to commit murder. On the American frontier, Owen, a cowboy, leads them toward their uncle who may help them learn control.

Gunslinger Girl by Lyndsay Ely           

In a post-Second Civil War lawless West, sharpshooter Serendipity "Pity" Jones stars in, and lives at, the Theater Vespertine. But there is a dark cost to her freedom that Pity may not be willing to pay. 

Revenge and the Wild by Michelle Modesto

Seventeen-year-old foul-mouthed Westie, the notorious adopted daughter of local inventor Nigel Butler, lives in the lawless western town of Rogue City. There, she sets out to prove the wealthy investors in a magical technology that will save her city are the cannibals that killed her family and took her arm when she was a child.





 

Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

In 1845, Sammy, a Chinese American girl, and Annamae, an African American slave girl, disguise themselves as boys and travel on the Oregon Trail, to California from Missouri.

Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

When her father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, 18-year-old Kate Thompson disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers—and justice.