"A remarkable first novel, full of verve, beautifully written, and with all the panache of a great adventure." -Michael Ondaatje In 1903 a mysterious young woman flees alone across the West, one heart-pounding step ahead of the law. At 19, 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 the knowledge that her two ruthless brothers-in-law are in pursuit,...

From Emma Donoghue, the national bestselling author of Room, Slammerkin is "[a] colorful romp of a novel" (The New York Times Book Review) following one woman's journey of self-discovery and survival at the dawn of the industrial revolution in eighteenth century England.

Slammerkin: A loose gown; a loose woman.

Born to rough cloth in Hogarth's London, but longing for silk, Mary Saunders's eye for a shiny red ribbon

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"No man truly fears a woman. Not even one who is her father's daughter. The case was sensational. Kaylee Pierson had confessed from the very beginning, waived all appeals. She had called herself 'death,' but people called her the devil. Despite the media's chronicling of her tragic circumstances-the childhood spent with a violent father-no one could find sympathy for 'the Beautiful Butcher' who had led eighteen men home from bars before viciously...