The story starts off with Dr. Catherine Bennett having to flee New York after being falsely accused of murdering a doctor. It's the wife of the doctor that is accusing her and Catherine hasn't a clue to why she would do something like that. And, what's worse is that Catherine does not have a good alibi. Catherine and her maid Maureen quickly leaves the town, and she changes her name to Laura Elliston, but it doesn't take long for someone to recognize her so she abandons her plans for California and set her sight on Colorado instead. However, this may not be the best idea since the uncharted territories of Colorado can be quite dangerous.

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Gritty, raw, exciting, and gripping - it took me far too long to pick up this book, but once I did, I couldn't put it down.
Melissa Lenhardt has crafted one hell of a character in Dr. Catherine Bennett - determined to stay alive and to do her job, surviving situations beyond belief, and keeping her head about her. This is historical fiction with the edge of a western. I think what, for me, takes out of the range of historical fiction alone is the level of violence rather graphically depicted. That said, the violence is not gratuitous - it depicts the raw violence and fight for survival that people endured in this era.

While ordinarily, this level of violence would normally put me off, in this instance it drew me deeper into the dangerous times where Catherine was living. ( )

This book.
Words cannot describe how much I loved Sawbones. It's like nothing I've ever read before.
Historical fiction is steadily becoming one of my go-to genre's..not to mention westerns have always been a weakness of mine. Be it movies or books, it makes no difference.

Time and place aside, I have to say the characters are the highlight of the story. They are incredibly well developed and Catherine Bennett makes the perfect heroine. She's strong-willed with a take no crap attitude. Being a female doctor in the 1800's was no easy feat but no matter what obstacles Catherine faces she refuses to let them stop her from doing what she loves. As for William Kindle well..he was the perfect love interest for her and I'm anxiously awaiting Blood Oath to find out what comes next for the two of them!

I don't want to say much more because Sawbones is a phenomenal book that you just have to read for yourself.

*ARC provided by Redhook Books/Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Redhook Books for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

During the early hours of an 1871 February morning, amidst the slight crunch and give of footsteps in thick snow, Dr. Catherine Bennett walks home from being fleeced by a resurrection man. Disguised as a man in an effort to secure a safe(r) walk home through the streets of New York, Catherine ruminates on death, battlefields, and a past ladened with both. Through a rapid fire succession of events, a walk home turns into a battlefield of its own and Catherine's future shifts abruptly. Home becomes a question rather than a defined destination as Catherine must run from a false murder accusation and into the trenches of a seething country wrought with division and treachery post-Civil War. She will travel territory filled with the angered and the insane, the running-froms and the desperate. While she has fought to be who she is already, taken risks to devote herself to learning the skills and advancements of her profession, her fight is far from over.

I enjoy historical fiction. Through reading everything from Dickens to Conan Doyle, I'm particularly enamored with historical fiction that takes place in the Victorian era. Even more particularly, historical fiction of the era that involves medical advancements from the use of ether to the discoveries made by Pasteur, Koch, et. al. concerning germs, vaccinations, the use of carbolic acid. It was a fascinating period for breakthroughs, a renaissance of the idea of patient care and disease treatment/prevention. I place the blame for this specific geeking out proclivity on often being a sounding board for my nurse mom and a steady consumption of her medical dictionaries.

Women doctors, while not solely a Victorian era area as the struggles of women to break through in education and scientific fields is a constant that has spanned multiple eras and cultures, are an immensely interesting facet of Victorian medical advancement. When you realize that it was largely women that provided physical/practical care in both institutions (both medical and religious) and wartime through the years, it is disheartening to read about their struggles to be taken seriously, to note that as of a 1901 (British) census there were only 335 female practitioners. But when you look at the individual stories of those determined women including those of the Edinburgh Seven, Dr. Jex-Blake, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, etc. and contemplate how skilled and dedicated they had to be and how hard they had to work, there is a wealth of inspiration and respect to be had.

That inspiration and respect makes historical fiction novels such as this immensely interesting to me so I was happy to pick it up based on the synopsis and had high hopes for it.

While the beginning felt overly choppy and abrupt to me, enough that high hopes began to dwindle, things did pick up eventually and I became much more invested in Dr. Catherine Bennett's character as the plot progressed. I will say that the synopsis did not prepare me for the overall tone of the book. Lenhardt's Sawbones is a darkly gory western that is populated enough by visceral experiences of violence that it's almost a character in and of itself.

While I'm not a fan of gore and victimization as shock-the-reader plot manipulation, I don't need to be surrounded by rainbows and unicorns to enjoy a plot. As I appreciate a historical fiction author that pays attention to the facts, so do I appreciate an author that can write about violence while being in tune with the emotional experience such violence precipitates in both character and reader. In a book such as this, whether the violence, abuse, etc. feels accurate to the plot, time, and place of the story matters most to me. I believe this accuracy is accomplished by Lenhardt for the most part. A large portion of this book could be triggering for many reasons, for those that might be concerned about if and when to read it or who to recommend it to. It contains scenes of brutality, rape, torture, and suicidal ideation.

My rating of 2.5/3 stars primarily hinges on several scenes having too abrupt a development or being too drawn out. The concept of the book is interesting and there were several character interactions that truly shined for me but the flow of the book did feel awkward at times. All the same, knowing this book will be continued as either a series or trilogy (I'm not very sure which, I've seen reviewers that mention both but my version did include an excerpt from Blood Oath as a continuation), I am interested enough in both concept and character(s) to pick up the next book. I did make note of a couple anachronisms along the way, most notably in conversations/words that wouldn't have been used, but none that were glaring. A historical figure does make an appearance and was enough of a presence that my interest was piqued concerning his later life. Related to anachronisms, I enjoyed the title of the book but wish it would have made more of an appearance in the story. I believe it's mentioned once but not with any context that speaks to the origin of the term. The first time I encountered the slang was in Dicken's Pickwick Papers when Mr. Weller informs us that a Sawbones is a surgeon. (“‘What, don’t you know what a Sawbones is, Sir’, enquired Mr. Weller; ‘I thought every body know’d as a Sawbones was a Surgeon,'” Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers, 1837)

Lenhardt mentions in her Author's Note that her father's love of watching westerns as well as her reading Larry McMurty and watching his favorite show Lonesome Dove after he passed away lead to her writing a western. I can identify with that pull; my father also loved westerns, especially those that starred John Wayne. I think he was more a fan of the adventure of the thing as he also loved Star Wars and Indiana Jones with equal fervency. I'm lucky to have shared Saturday movie nights with him with a bowl of cereal and The Duke, Indy, or Solo plunging into action and adventure on screen and can relate to the closeness felt in being able to experience similar movies all these years later. I think Lenhardt does credit to her father's love of westerns in this work and does a decent job of including historical events and frontier attitudes/actions. I haven't read many westerns and wasn't initially aware that this book was billed as a western so I don't have much to compare it to. The Outlander comparison of the synopsis also eludes me as I haven't delved into that series yet though it's on the TBR mountain. From the reviews I've read after finishing the book I've gathered that some have had a problem with this comparison. I'll stick with what I know and say that, as a historical fiction novel, Sawbones is grounded in enough history to grant it some atmosphere and interest to those that enjoy the genre. It will be interesting to see how further books progress.


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An excellent story I recommend! 4 ⭐️ out of 5. I'll be looking for book 2! ( )