Outlaw Girls by Emily Gale, Nova Weetman
Kate and Ruby live in the High Country in Victoria. They’re both daring, quick-thinking and prepared to break the rules, and they’re both brilliant horse riders—they’d probably be great friends. But they live in different times, more than 140 years apart.
While galloping through the mountains, Kate rides headlong into a thrilling experience that transports her from 1878 to the future, where she meets Ruby. Kate and Ruby return to 1878, where Kate is secretly taking supplies to her brother Ned and the rest of the Kelly Gang, who are in hiding from the police. Together the girls work to confuse the police and keep the gang from being found and arrested. But the looming disaster makes things less clear-cut for Ruby.
They’re about the have the ride of their lives!
Outlaw Girls is an exciting, fast-paced time-slip novel, narrated by both Ruby and Kate, about family, friendship, loyalty and betrayal, the complexity of right and wrong, and working out what matters most.
Published 27 February 2024| Publisher: Text Publishing | RRP: AUD$16.99
Buy it at: Dymocks | Booktopia | A&R | Abbey’s | QBD
My Blurb (4 / 5 stars)
I love time travel. I love reading a modern character transplanted into the distant past. And this idea of time travelling horses and encounters with the infamous Kelly family sound absolutely fascinating! I have to admit that I don’t thin my 9-yo boy found it that fascinating. We read about 50 pages together and he had so many questions. He is a rather advanced reader for his age but there were just concepts in this book, he was unfamiliar with and it was a bit much for him.
While I found myself mostly disliking these 2 girl protagonists, I do admire their grit! It’s just that these girls are so far from my own personality and would probably be those I’d stay away from at school because I’d just be too intimidated by them. Their loyalty and love for family (Kate) and friends (Ruby) are admirable though misplaced in case of Ruby. I just found her so frustrating though she did finally grow up at the very very end. I feel that reading this as a mother of a teenager fully coloured my perspective and I may not find these characters are frustrating otherwise. I have to admire her persistence though or is that stubbornness?!
Overall, Outlaw Girls is a fun but thought-provoking read. On the surface, it was a great adventure being had by the girls. Reading between the lines, I’d suggest to not be afraid to ask all the hard questions to get into the heart of things in your discussions.
My thanks to Text Publishing gifting me a copy of this book in exchange of my honest thoughts
About the authors
Emily Gale’s much-loved books include The Goodbye Year, The Other Side of Summer and its companion novel I Am Out with Lanterns, the Eliza Boom Diaries series, Steal My Sunshine and Girl, Aloud, as well as her middle-grade collaborations with friend and fellow author Nova Weetman, Elsewhere Girls and Outlaw Girls.
Nova Weetman is an acclaimed writer of many books for young adults and children. Her middle-grade novels include The Secrets We Keep, The Secrets We Share, Sick Bay, The Edge of Thirteen and The Jammer, as well as Elsewhere Girls and Outlaw Girls with Emily Gale.
Greg Woodland is an author, screenwriter and former director. Since 2000 he’s worked as a freelance script editor and consultant for film funding bodies and the Australian Writers’ Guild and taught screenwriting at Sydney film schools and universities. His first novel, The Night Whistler, was shortlisted for a 2021 Ned Kelly Award.
Tracey Lien was born and raised in southwestern Sydney, Australia. She earned her MFA at the University of Kansas and was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. All That’s Left Unsaid is her first novel.
Fiona McArthur has worked as a midwife for thirty years. She is the clinical midwifery educator inner rural maternity unit and teaches emergency obstetric strategies while working with midwives and doctors from remote and isolated areas.
Barbara Hannay writes women’s fiction, with over twelve million books sold worldwide. Her novels set in Australia have been translated into twenty-six languages, and she has won the Romance Writers of America’s RITA award and been shortlisted five times. Two of Barbara’s novels have also won the Romance Writers of Australia’s Romantic Book of the Year award.
Jess Kidd is the author of Things in Jars, Himself and The Hoarder (also titled Mr. Flood’s Last Resort in the U.S.). She was the winner of the 2016 Costa Short Story Award. Jess’ debut novel, Himself, was published by Canongate in October 2016. The Hoarder, her second novel, hit the shelves in February 2018. Jess’s third novel Things in Jars came out 4 April 2019 and the fourth, The Night Ship is due out August 2022. Her children’s book Everyday Magic came out in 2020. She is also currently developing her own original TV projects with leading UK and international TV producers.
Shirley Marr is a first-generation Chinese-Australian living in Perth and an author of young adult and children’s fiction, including YA novels Fury and Preloved, and children’s novels Little Jiang and A Glasshouse of Stars. She describes herself as having a Western mind and an Eastern heart. She likes to write in the space in the middle where they both collide, basing her stories on her own personal experiences of migration and growing up in Australia, along with the folk and fairy tales from her mother. Arriving in mainland Australia from Christmas Island as a seven-year-old in the 1980s and experiencing the good, the bad and the wonder that comes with culture shock, Shirley has been in love with reading and writing from that early age. Shirley is a universe full of stars and stories and hopes to share the many other novels that she has inside her.
Dr Kate Forsyth is an award-winning author, poet, and storyteller. Her most recent novel is The Crimson Thread, a reimagining of ‘The Minotaur in the Labyrinth’ myth set in Crete during the Nazi invasion and occupation of World War II.
Winner of the Patrick White Literary Award, and three times shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, Carmel Bird is the author of eleven novels and eight collections of short fiction. Carmel grew up in Tasmania, and she has a wide reputation as a storyteller, essayist, editor and mentor.
Margaret Hickey is an award-winning author and playwright from North East Victoria. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and is deeply interested in rural lives and communities.
Tien's Blurb 