Girl Waits with Gun (A Kopp Sisters Novel Book 1)

The best part of this book, the way Stewart provided the backstory of Constance's accidental stumbling into position of deputy sheriff. Constance evolves and ferrets who she is in her self-discovering sojourn as we read of one inspiring woman tapping into her authentic self.

Constance, a maverick, fascinating, in short a remarkable woman. A woman refusing to fit into societal expectations, norms. Constance wanted to pursue a career, however, her mother disagreed with her desires, as well as the era proving difficult. Infrequent snippets of her past reveal threads weaving this woman into who she truly is today. The much younger version of Constance is a sharp contrast to the mature woman we are privy to, her attempt in navigating life leading to a few dicey situations on the precipice of ruin, fortunately her family serves by her side.

The reader will receive a crash course in the happenings of circa 1914, Stewart creates a vivid setting complete with detailed accouterments. The tension of females is felt as time warrants change as women demand and fight for more than their predecessors. Constance's bravery and courage for nonconformity must have caused her peers to pause, perhaps they lacked the determination Constance possesses, once again she inspired even the ones remaining silence yet wishful.

The pace felt sluggish, also a lot of peripheral scenes distracted and dragged in certain portions, really serving no merit translating to padding as opposed to purpose.

Stewart provides a smart take on an incredibly new-fashioned woman.

Girl Waits With Gun has the feel of an epic American saga, along the lines of East of Eden and Cold Mountain. This was a selection for my mystery book club and I am grateful for the pick as it transcends that genre by presenting a fascinating slice of early 20th Century local New Jersey history and culture.

What a charming book. Set around the turn of the 20th Century, this book covers women's issues of that time in a very succinct manner. The characters are well rounded with the heroines being quite interesting and feisty. I love that there is room for a sequence.

Oh dear. Well, it's my own fault for always trying to find more mysteries that will stand up when compared to Chritie, Sayers, Moyes, Dickson Carr, etc. This is more of a (very) silly woman's thriller; the writing and characters are terribly dated and quite stilted. Sadly, this isn't even valuable as a way to learn about life in the long-ago. Vapid.

The first half of this book was slow for me, but it did pick up. It's not full of action or even romance, but it does show what life was like during the first part of the last century. Not a fun time to be a woman but it didn't mean that women couldn't accomplish something. Since this is based on a real person I found it more interesting.

Not my style of book, only read it for book club. Surprised to find that I liked it. It's about a couple of spinster sisters trying to maintain their independence at a time (around WWI) when independent women were frowned upon. No big twists, but entertaining and an easy read.

This book wasn't nearly as interesting as the author had made it seem when interviewed on NPR. It was too long.....
episode after episode after episode. They got old after so many of them. The overall story about this being based on
history was interesting, but it was just too repetitive.

What a fun read. Set in the late 19th century in Hackensack New Jersey, a great blend of innocence and treachery, enduring an investigation and trial. I don't know if MS Kopp was the first person to stand up to criminal harassment but she set a great standard to follow.

I probably never would've stumbled upon, or chosen this book, but read it as part of a group book club - and thoroughly enjoyed it! I love historical fiction, and I especially loved learning more about what life was like, especially for women, during this era. An excellent and fun read, which followed far from the usual plots. I'll be ordering the second book in the series!

I enjoyed this charming mystery novel based in 1915-ish. But what I didn't realize is that it is based on a true story. Every newspaper headline and article quoted in the book is from the period, which is really neat. This is the first book in a series.

A nice mixture of historical fact and fiction made the story entertaining as well as informative. The Kopp sisters are an interesting and endearing family and I look forward to more of their adventures and misadventures.

A nice mixture of historical fact and fiction made the story entertaining as well as informative. The Kopp sisters are an interesting and endearing family and I look forward to more of their adventures and misadventures.

It reads like a Young Adult novel. Very thin plot. Slow moving. Simple theme. No complexity. Well written. I should have noticed that all the good reviews were from people who got a free copy. Wasted my money on this one.

Author Amy Stewart is a skilled, imaginative, creative writer, and I own all of her books. She researches her subjects extensively, then presents them in an engaging, often humorous manner. With the exception of “The Last Bookstore in America,” an ebook comic novella, “Girl Waits With Gun” is Stewart’s first work of fiction. At 404 pages, “Girl Waits With Gun” is an investment of the reader’s time. I found this time quite pleasurable.

“Girl Waits With Gun” is historical fiction based on newspaper accounts of threats and violence by silk mill owner, Harry Kaufman, against the three Kopp sisters in Paterson, New Jersey, during 1914 through 1915. Stewart based this tale on newspaper accounts, family members and genealogical research. Although the facts of the events are skeletal, the author embroidered the characters with rich details, creating engaging characters reflective of the era.

The saga begins when Kaufman, a reckless, alcoholic lout, hit the horse-drawn buggy of the Kopp sisters with his car, destroying the buggy, and injuring Constance and Fleurette. It ends with a trial brought by the sisters against Kaufman and an offer of employment by the Sheriff to Constance to work as his Deputy.

I particularly enjoyed the struggle of the three sisters to live by themselves on a farm, performing all the chores while enjoying their hobbies. Norma raised and trained carrier pigeons, Fleurette was a talented seamstress, amateur actress and vocalist, and Constance pursued her investigations to bring justice to the downtrodden, protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty. The customs of this genteel era made their lifestyle a challenging anomaly. Men (relatives and husbands) were supposed to support and protect ladies. Women were supposed to be sweet, graceful and innocent, not living by themselves on a farm in the country carrying revolvers to protect themselves from thugs.

Stewart’s story reminded me of the writing of another of my favorite authors, Fannie Flagg. Both write entertaining stories about quirky characters and innocent women. So, step into another era and enjoy “Girl Waits With Gun.”

I could NOT finish this book - it is so poorly written that I could not justify wasting any more time trying to read it. As I live in the general area of the action of this "story," I really looked forward to reading about Bergen County's "crime of the moment." Alas, the characters are cardboard and have not an ounce of believability. The events themselves could have been contained in a 30-page novella - there simply isn't enough "plot" to sustain a full-blown novel. Talk about much ado about nothing. Stewart has invented a lot of filler to round out the story (and mollify her publisher, no doubt) which I found annoying and insulting to the reader's intelligence. Pass this one by if you have any training in forensics, law, police procedure, or were an English major.

I’m a huge fan of historical fiction and I particularly like the Victorian era and early to mid-1900s. So, it seemed that Girl Waits with Gun would appeal to me. And, in many ways it did.

Although the blurbs refer to this novel as the story of the country’s first female deputy, it is actually the story of events that occurred which led up to the moment when Constance Kopp was offered that job. This book is not about how she performed her job as deputy or how successful she was as the first female in a deputy’s position.

Furthermore, several other authors, who were asked to comment on this book, mention that it’s “funny”, “hilarious” and is spiced with humor. While I believe there is some low-level humor in this book, Girl Waits with Gun is by no means a hilarious or funny book. It does make me wonder if these other authors even read it.

The three sisters are fascinating characters. I loved their interactions as well as their personality quirks. I enjoyed witnessing the friendship that grew between Constance and Sheriff Heath. I loved the setting and the social history that was so very much a part of the story of the Kopp sisters. I loved that there were several strong female characters in this story.

But, like so many other readers, I did not like the pace of the story. It was often slow and even plodding in some places. Since it’s a fairly simplistic story, it makes me wonder if the length of the novel (400 pages) wasn’t a contributing factor to the slow pace and the repetition of information. All in all, while this was a somewhat interesting and entertaining book, I feel it fell far short of the expectations I had. I am somewhat hesitantly giving it 3 stars simply because I liked the characters and their interactions.

This is the story of three sisters living alone in rural New Jersey. They grew up with an absent father and a mother who was, let’s say a little suspicious of anyone other than her immediate family. The girls have a brother but he is married and he lives in the city. After their mother dies the girls decide to stay on their land despite the pleas of their brother to move in with him. They are a bit set in their ways and see no reason to leave what they know.

The three girls, Constance, Norma, and Fleurette try to just live their lives but one day while in town running errands their cart is hit by a car. Constance insists on chasing the driver for the money to fix the cart not realizing that he is not the type of man to deal honestly with a debt. In fact he’s the type of man to try and kill her rather than pay damages.

What follows is an absolutely fascinating look at Northern New Jersey, the silk dying industry and corruption at the beginning of the 20ieth century. The story is drawn from newspaper articled and other extant materials of the time. Ms. Stewart fleshes out the characters and what she creates is an utterly fascinating book that I was drawn into from the very first paragraph. It’s different, I can’t say that any of the three main characters are really likable and Fleurette is downright annoying but still I couldn’t stop turning the pages. This is one of my favorite books of the year. I’m keeping it to read again when I find that elusive spare time.

*I received a free copy for my honest review

I recently read Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart, which I found to be a delightful novel. That is, it was as delightful as a book can be that deals with attempted murder, kidnapping, arson, gangs, the Black Hand, and other criminal elements. Girl Waits With Gun is dubbed a “Kopp Sisters Novel” and is the first one in what has become a series. It is also based on real characters and the titles are taken directly from newspaper articles about the cases.

Constance Kopp is the main character, and she lives with her sisters, Norma and Fleurette, on a remote farm in Wyckoff, NJ. A family scandal brought them here 15 years ago. Constance and Norma are in their mid30s, while Fleurette is a dramatic and impressionable teenager. The three are driving their horse and buggy in the city in 1914 when an out-of-control automobile goes out of control and hits their buggy. Fleurette is injured and their buggy is almost destroyed. But the driver of the car, Henry Kaufman, refuses to pay for damages. Kaufman’s family owns a silk-dying plant in Paterson, NJ and he is a bully. In fact, he is not just a bully but involved in a number of criminal enterprises. And so this becomes of story of Constance demanding what is right and Kaufman who will stop at nothing to try and intimidate the Kopp sisters. Constance enlists the help of the sheriff, Robert Heath, who is a good and decent man who wants Kaufman brought to justice. But Constance is able to help herself and the case by doing much of the investigating herself—something not done in 1914 by woman.

In addition to the story itself, there are two things that I really enjoyed about this novel. The first is Amy Stewart’s writing. Stewart writes from Constance’s viewpoint about giving a silent gift to her sister, Fleurette: her gift would be “the realization that we have to be a part of the world in which we live. We don’t scurry away when we’re in trouble, or when someone else is. We don’t run and hide. She watched Mother and learned her ways just like I did. But I hoped she would watch me too, and learn something different.” The other thing that I really enjoyed about Girl Waits With Guns is that this story straddles two worlds. Many are driving automobiles and living in homes with electricity, central heating, indoor plumbing, and hot water. The Kopp sisters still have a foot in the old world, driving a horse and buggy and living in a house without electricity, heat, a phone or indoor plumbing. It is also a time when women are not supposed to do much except be housewives. Constance manages to change that with a job offer at the end of the book.

I understand that the character of Constance Kopp had almost been lost to history. How fortunate that Amy Stewart’s research has been able to bring her back to life.

When local factory owner Henry Kaufman hits the Kopp sisters’ buggy with his car, middle sister Constance sends him a bill for the damages. When her note goes unanswered, Constance visits Kaufman’s factory, and he doesn’t take kindly to her appearance. Soon the Kopp’s home is being deluged with threatening letters, rocks thrown through windows, and the disturbing sounds of strange men driving by late at night. Oldest sister Norma is furious and wishes Constance would drop the complaint so that Kaufman will leave them alone; youngest sister Fleurette is excited by the drama after being raised by her paranoid mother and spinster siblings. Their brother, who lives in town with his wife, worries that his sisters can’t manage the farm on their own and wants them to live with him, but the three women are determined to hold onto their independence. When the police seem disinclined or unable to end their harassment, Constance decides to take the investigation into her own hands and find a way to prevent Kaufman from disrupting others’ lives as he has done to her family.

GIRL WAITS WITH GUN is based on a real family, whose true story Amy Stewart stumbled across while researching a previous book. The real Constance Kopp became one of the country’s first female deputies. Records of her life are scanty at best, but Stewart tried to stay as accurate to the historical record as she could. When nothing was said, she stepped in as storyteller to fill in the gaps. In doing so, Stewart creates three unforgettable, strong women united by blood and by a family secret that drove them to their reclusive lives for fifteen years.

Each sister has a distinctive personality that complements the other two. Norma inherited their mother’s paranoid tendencies, and likes to live a life that is predictable and orderly. Baby sister Fleurette, a vivacious and pretty teenager, loves to sing and dance and dress in the latest fashion. Fleurette shines with youth and a cleverness that surprises those who dismiss her as a silly kid. Constance is practical and has trouble overlooking injustice. Her headstrong determination to collect Kaufman’s debt – largely because the sisters can’t afford to repair the buggy otherwise – triggers a series of events that forces the sisters out of their seclusion and back into the world. Together, the sisters are just so much fun, and their interactions are always the best scenes in the book.

If only Constance’s crime-fighting career was as compelling as her domestic life. Her promotion to deputy doesn’t happen until the final page of the book, and her amateur attempts at sleuthing move glacially. There’s very little excitement to be had, even when Kaufman comes roaring by with his gangs shooting guns from their car doors. The middle section of the book moved at an especially slow pace. There was a lot of great stuff buried in the repetitious passages of attacks on Kopp property and Constance trying to convince the police to act against Kaufman. The secret that haunts the Kopp sisters is unveiled through flashbacks and small clues, and when it all ties together the payoff is fantastic. But other plot threads don’t add to the overall story; Constance spends a lot of time hunting down a kidnapped child for a former factory worker, but the only impact the quest has on the main plot is to reveal that Kaufman is a bad man – a fact already abundantly clear.

There’s a lot to like here – I’d read another Kopp sisters novel – but the pacing problem does keep me from loving GIRL WAITS WITH GUN unreservedly.

AMY STEWART has done a great job writing about Paterson during the time when the silk mills dominated the local climates, both political and economical. GIRL WAITS WITH GUN is like a time capsule. While the news of the day is very important to the fabric of the story, the real meat of the plot centers around three women who are forced to take a stance in order to survive in their rural harsh environment, living alone on a farm in the middle of the "country". They are each forced to step out of their comfort zones to thwart a man who is heartless and deadly dangerous.

While some readers may feel the action is slow and plodding, I disagree. Amy Stewart takes her time fleshing out her characters while painting a complete word picture. It takes a long time for a good artist to paint a vivid picture. Amy is certainly not at fault for accomplishing the same thing with descriptive wording and scenery. I applaud her. I felt as though I was walking down a busy New York street with Constance. I was there walking right behind her. I was sitting on the horse when Kaufman's car plowed into their carriage.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the Paterson of 1914-15. Reading about the surrounding towns, places I remember playing in and around, particularly Garrett Mountain, Lambert Castle and the Passaic Falls, was heart-warming. I will be reading the further adventures of Constance Kopp and her sisters in the near future.

The first book in a series based on the real life of Constance Kopp, an early female Deputy Sheriff in Bergen County, NJ. She and her sisters, living on their own on a farm, became involved in an accident with a local business owner who refused to pay for the repair of their buggy. From that point on the lives of all three sisters took a dramatic turn. Eventually leading to Constance entering a profession quite unusual for women in that era.

Told from the viewpoint of Constance, Stewart (using a mix of real and fictional characters) presents a wonderful, if old fashioned story of three very, different women and how their lives were changed by what should have been the simple repayment of a debt. Throwing in a fictional account of a child kidnapping, the book consists mostly of material taken from newspaper articles, letters and journal entries, plus interviews with the descendants of some individuals.

All three of the Copp sisters, along with other secondary characters in the book are well developed and I'm looking forward to reading the other books in the series.

First Sentence: Our troubles began in the summer of 1914, the year I turned thirty-five.

Constance Kopp and her two sisters live on a farm in New Jersey. While in town, their buggy is rammed by an automobile driven by Henry Kaufman head of the Kaufman Silk Dying Company. The harder Constance tries to collect the money due them for damages, the more intense and violent become the threats and attacks on the sisters, causing Constance to seek help from the police and Sheriff Heath. But refusing to pay damages is not only crime of which Kaufman and his gang are guilty.

It’s always a pleasure to come across a book based on real people and cases, and Constance Kopp someone one can’t help but like from the outset. She is capable and doesn’t allow herself to be intimidated. In fact, all the characters are intriguing. How can one not enjoy Fleurette’s sass or Norm’s ingenuity?

Stewart paints a painfully accurate picture of life for unmarried women of this time, and of life for workers in mill towns. However, it is also important to remember that Constance’s experience is not atypical for women today as well.

The plot is very well done. Constance’s past is very skillfully woven in revealing layers and details of her life as the story evolves. The way in which Constance receives her training from everyone, at every step along the way is fascinating. There is also a thought-provoking lesson on people’s sense of duty—“I couldn’t understand how anyone would take hold of a stranger and pout out their troubles. But now I realized that people did it all the time. They called for help. And some people would answer, out of a sense of duty, and a sense of belonging to the world around them.”

The newspaper articles interspersed within the story are an excellent insight into journalism of the time. The fact that they are real, as were the letters included, makes them even better.

“Girl Waits with Gun” is a well-done and fascinating story. It’s a perfect blend of fact as a basis for fiction.

GIRL WAITS WITH GUN (Hist Mys-Constance Kopp-New Jersey-1914) - VG+
Stewart, Amy – 1st of series
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – Sept 2015

Girl Waits with Gun by Amy STEWART
I found this book through a recommendation in Costco’s magazine, an unexpected membership bonus! This review may have a few spoilers, which I usually avoid, but not much spoilage, since the book is based on history . . . made personal w/ invented extras like homing pigeons carrying headlines back to the farm. Three intrepid sisters (or more than sisters) and a bold sheriff take on a bully mill owner — beginning with their invoice for a wrecked carriage, though intimidations, “brick mail,” and a search for a missing child (how DO they know so much about orphanages?)
Constance Kopp is “no ordinary woman.”
“If this is how he treats us, what has he done to Lucy?’
“Norma believed self-propelled vehicles to be a path to lawlessness and social chaos. Mr. Kaufmann was only strengthening her argument.”
Newspapers “got quite a bit wrong” — fabricated half the story.
Gift to Fleurette “the realization that we have to be part of the world in which we live. . . . We don’t run and hide.”
Lucy and son “formed their own planet in the middle of the room, rotating around a sun that only they could see.”
Too “conspicuous” to be department store detective — advised to find something more “rough and tumble.” Good advice! Happy to know there are two more in the series, as I was a little sad to reach the end of this very readable book. <3

I'll admit, sheepishly, that I wanted to read this book because of the cover and the time period this story takes place in, early 1900's. I'm a huge fan of the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries series, both the books and the television show. I was hoping this book would be a similar type of read. I was not disappointed! Not only was this story written well, with interesting and believable characters, it turns out this book was based on real people and actual events. I was floored! Truth is truly stranger than fiction. Amy Stewart did a masterful job of cobbling together an enjoyable novel based on extensive research and her own imagination. She made the Kopp sisters come to life again. This is a fantastic cosy mystery sure to delight anyone who enjoys strong female characters. I would heartily recommend this book to any adult, but I think it would also be quite suitable for teens 15 and older. This was a clean read with female characters that are smart, caring, and quick witted. I wish there were more books out there like this one. I can't wait to read more about the lives of these amazing women. Someone needs to turn this into a television series. Netflix? the store? Seriously, someone needs to make this happen.

Seriously, don’t you want to read this book just looking at the cover? It’s fabulous!

When a wildly driven car crashes into her family’s buggy Constance Kopp starts her sisters down a path that alters their lives completely. The Kopp sisters have lived independently on their farm since their mother’s death. They’re stretched fairly thin, but wouldn’t have it any other way. Everyone they meet is sure they must need a male protector to rescue them – but they most definitely do not. Marriage is not an option for the older sisters; and though their older brother continually offers them a place in his home they turn him down each time.

Constance realizes that the loss of the buggy is more than she and her sisters can afford and sends a letter to the driver of the car, Henry Kaufman, requesting that he pay $50 for repairs. When her letters are ignored Constance travels to his silk dyeing factory and learns Kaufman is a powerful bully with a gang of drunken followers and that she has put herself and her sisters directly into his sights. As I read I had to keep reminding myself that this was really Constance Kopp’s life – and what a life! Union busting, the Black Hand, kidnapping threats and bricks thrown through windows. I kept thinking – I’d back out of this NOW and she kept bravely forging on ahead.

There was no gripping mystery to be solved, but I was still caught up in the book to see if Constance could out maneuver Kaufman. Could she get her $50 and keep her sisters safe? Would the Kopp sisters leave the farm that they were so determined to keep for themselves? I won’t spoil these questions for you, but you should read to find out! I appreciated the thorough afterword that laid out what was fact vs. fiction and I think Stewart added well where she did. The use of the newspaper headlines was really great – especially when they were about Constance herself!

Constance Kopp was a woman ahead of her time and I really enjoyed her story. The pacing was a bit slow for me at times, but this didn’t happen over a short period of time and perhaps that’s reflected in the way Stewart did pace it out. I am very curious about how Constance’s life continued after she became the first female deputy sheriff and I wonder if there’s another book in the works?

4 stars!

Thank you Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The first in the Kopp sisters novels, set in the 20th century teens, in rural NJ. One would be hard pressed to find 3 more different ladies living under one roof, but the most amazing thing about them is that they are based on real people. Feisty Constance became the first lady Deputy Sheriff and quite the budding sleuthing crime fighter, Fleurette is a flighty young beauty and stolid grumpy Norma does the dirty work around the farm. While the story is ostensibly a suspenseful historical mystery led by Constance's determined defense of her sisters and farm when threatened by a dangerous hoodlum, it's also an entertaining and humorous look at the lives of women left to fend for themselves in the era at the dawn of WW1. Author Amy Stewart's settings, attitudes and situations ring true to their era. Nothing is overly romanticized. A terrific read, and one that lead me to the other books in this series.

"Girl Waits with Gun" is one of those rare books that isn't just good or great; it was a completely engaging adventure that I hated had to end. With many books, I expect there to be some part that is a bit dry or dull or the story loses its shine or appeal briefly - I may like or enjoy the book overall, but have to fight off the temptation to skim the parts where I find my mind wandering. There were no such dull, or even ordinary, parts to this book - even a so-called tedious day in the lives of the Misses Kopp sprang to intriguing life on the pages. The 1914 atmosphere drew me in and the voices and personalities of Constance, Norma, Fleurette and their family members living and dead, Sheriff Heath and his men, and seemingly untouchable silk dyer/villain Henry Kaufmann, his henchmen and their mission to cause as much fear, destruction and loss to people as possible, all captivated me and kept me involved in the story without interruption.

I found the story itself - of a rich and drunk man intent on harm simply because he can get away with it - and how one woman in her mid-30s who's happy to be unmarried at a time when women are expected to be dependent and docile, stands up for herself and vows to fight back with her brains as well as her brawn, to be compelling. But there's much more to the story that enhances and enriches the reading experience, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

As Miss Constance Kopp tells it: “Our troubles began in the summer of 1914, the year I turned thirty-five.” Constance and her two younger sisters Norma and Fluerette are riding into town from the New Jersey farm where they live alone when their buggy is overturned by a reckless automobile whose driver refuses to reimburse them for damages. The driver turns out to be the notorious Henry Kaufman, owner of the town’s silk dying company. When Constance pursues the $50 she feels she’s owed, Kaufman terrorizes her and her sisters putting Constance in league with a young female factory worker whom Kaufman has abused. As Stewart (up until this book a writer of nonfiction) explains in her acknowledgments, the story was pieced together from real news articles and court documents which she meticulously researched before filling in the missing pieces with fictional details. It’s an intriguing technique but she doesn’t quite make it work. When reading nonfiction, a reader will defer to well-documented facts no matter how outrageous they might be. In the world of fiction, the writer must make the reader believe the outrageous could have happened, regardless of whether it really did or not. This is where Stewart falls short. There are some dazzling elements here. The vulnerability of single women of the period is chillingly real and the coming-of-age process (experienced both by the sisters’ adjustment to their changed lives and by the securely-grounded Victorian age as it slides onto the shifting sands of the modern era) is skillfully handled. The whole, however is uneven: the characters are just shy of fully realized, the humor and the darkness make uneasy bedfellows, and all too often the conflicts (whether based on fact or not) seem solved by contrived plot turns.

I wanted so much more than this story gave. It started out slow and I thought was getting a little better but was wrong. Having three strong women (and girl) as main characters, this book shows their relationship with one another and how they are able to take care of themselves (for the most part). No man in their lives is a little shocking at this time period but it worked for them. My problem with the book is that I needed more action. I thought this was a mystery, but maybe I missed it because I don't remember there being one.

After finishing this book, I learned that it is a series. I will NOT be continuing with the series and I will NOT recommend this to anyone.

Really good historical treatment of a little known but amazing woman. Just before WWI, three sisters are living on a farm out in rural New Jersey. On a trip into town, a car crashes into their cart damaging it greatly. The driver was a dissolute rich factory owner with equally disreputable friends. He refuses to take responsibility. The eldest sister refuses to take no for an answer. She sends an invoice and when that is ignored she delivers one in person. After that the young man begins making in person threats sometimes with brick mail delivered through broken windows. The girls go to the law, but only a single sheriff tries to help against a powerful man. As things escalate, he arms the oldest women. After a harrowing year, we follow the case to its conclusion. At the end this woman has a new career - one of the first female law enforcement in the country in 1914! She doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. This book would be excellent but is more so because so much of it is true. Newspapers were rather sensational at the time so some of the actions had to be deduced, but the skeleton is true. Constance Kopp is a woman we should all be more like all the more because she did it at a time before she even had the vote.

I am developing a fondness for this type of historical fiction--plucky girl defies stifling mores of the day to seek justice and self-fulfillment.  That it is set in my favorite time period, the early twentieth century, is even better.

I read this book with a smile on my face. The sweet relationships between the sisters; how they accommodate each other's eccentricities; their resolve to be independent; the way they handle the weapons at their disposal--Amy Stewart deftly draws these interactions with an amusing, lighthearted touch. The direst of threats to their lives are occasions for the sisters to show their mettle. Even has we shudder at the dastardly behavior of the their ruthless adversary, we cheer in the knowledge that these ladies have what it takes to overcome.

Constance Kopp is a delightful heroine. She plunges headlong into any opportunity to ultimately give the villain his day in court. In the process, she discovers that intrigue, adventure, and danger act like honey to her believer's heart. What does she believe in? Never give way to a bully. Defend home and heart--your own and that of unfortunates that cross your path--with resolve and, when necessary, all the firepower available.

This novel is a romp through the early progressive era and a lesson that opportunities abound when you have your the target firmly in your sights.

A work of historical fiction devoid of 4-letter word exclamations with a steady pace and fairly predictable outcome yet with enough minor suspense to keep the reader engaged throughout. The story was simple and written in the style of a century ago, which is when the events took place.

The story begins in 1914 with the three Kopp sisters, Constance, Norma, and Fleurette [or are they really sisters] driving to Patterson, NJ in a horse and buggy when a car driven by the inebriated Henry Kaufman, scion of the Kaufman Silk Dyeing Company, runs into them with his motorcar accompanied by an equally inebriated group of thugs/friends. He denies responsibility for causing the wreck in which Fleurette sustains a broken leg and to which the burden of trying to collect the damages for the buggy repair falls on oldest sister Constance, while middle sister Norma tries to mediate the situation. The story later involves a kidnapping of a baby boy, denied parentage by the father, and attempts of bodily harm and murder

The story sets up well for a sequel with a love interest between the sheriff, Bob Heath, and Constance. The author does a nice job of character development of the three Kopp sisters, the sheriff and the all important secondary characters. The plot isn't a hard core mystery and not suspenseful, but is so engaging that you'll want to keep reading just to assuage your own feelings that things will come out rightfully in the end. The author became one of my favorites when I also reviewed one of her earlier works, THE DRUNKEN BOTANIST, which was far different in tone but just as delightful in its own way.

Not as much suspense as some crime novels, but still engaging in a pleasant manner with a lack of offensive language so rare in most of today's story-telling. A really delightful read!

This book was chosen for my knitting book club (I crochet, but I'm a rebel like that!) and I almost gave it a pass. I knew nothing of the Kopp sisters, or how Constance was one of the nation's first female deputies, and wasn't particularly interested to learn. But upon buying a copy of Ms. Stewart's nonfiction book The Drunken Botanist for a friend for the holidays, I was reminded of this book and decided to give it a go. That was a great decision. The Kopps are the kind of women I could see myself being friends with - well, maybe not so much with Fleurette, she was fairly annoying, but quite realistically portrayed as they all were. The story was interesting and kept me turning the pages. Someone at book club mentioned that they thought there were two more books about Constance, and after reading this introduction, I'd be glad to read them.

Amy Stewart has written here quite a good and interesting story that is certainly entertaining. As she notes in the rear of the book, she has had sources to help her but a lot of this has had to be invention. For probably anyone who isn’t a resident of the county in the US where this took place, and are interested in their local history of that area, you will never have heard of Constance Kopp. At the time this country was at war and so really the whole incident was isolated as such to the US papers, where it made an interesting story.

Things and characters have been added here, and other embellishments, as you would expect from a novel, but the major incidents and most of the characters are based on real people. Back stories here are of pure invention, or partly so to flesh out what is definitely known.

Starting with an incident in 1914 when a car rammed into a buggy, if the driver of the car had just used a bit of common sense, what followed would never have happened. All he had to do was pass on his details, pay the damages and forget about it, rather like the majority of us do when we are involved with a car accident. But for Henry Kaufman, with his mates in the car, possibly drunk, rich and from a powerful family, and being a thug, thinks he can do what he likes, after all on top of that he is a man, and above the inferior race of women. How wrong did he turn out to be.

As Constance and her sisters, Norma and Fleurette find out, the more they complain to get money to repair their buggy, the more danger they find themselves in. With Henry and his friends taking matters further so the sisters find themselves in danger and terrorised in their own home. Even with the police involved and Henry having to pay his debt things don’t get any better, but can the Kopp sisters stand firm and show everyone that there is hope if you become an unwitting victim?

With well drawn characters and even some humour this is a good story that makes us remember the past, how things used to be, and the differences in some cases that we now have due to more progressive thought. In all Amy Stewart has done a good job of trying to bring to life something that would have been forgotten and recognise what people did in the past.

Constance Kopp is 35 years old, stands six feet tall, and lives on a farm with her two sisters in Wyckoff, New Jersey. There is middle sister, Norma, who is almost rigid in her opinions and beliefs and who prefers training her pigeons to dealing with people of the non-family persuasion. And then there is Fleurette, the youngest Kopp sister, who is by far the most fantastical and whimsical. There is also a brother, Francis, who loves and worries about his sisters but he's married and has children and lives in one of the nearby towns.

These were real life people and this book is the fictional account, based on newspaper clippings/historical records and interviews with descendants, on how Constance Kopp became America's first female Deputy Sheriff - and all as a result of a traffic accident in 1914 and the $50 worth of damages it caused. The title of the book was an actual headline that ran in the Philadelphia newspaper at the time. There was a side story in the book that is complete fiction but the author makes this clear in her Author's Note at the end.

Overall this was a wonderfully warm, humorous, and entertaining book. I loved the dynamics between the Kopp sisters, so full of humor, love, and loyalty. Constance makes for a wonderful protagonist and serves as the steadying influence in her family. I so enjoyed taking this journey with her, one that saw her becoming a part of the larger world. Though it would probably pain Norma to have this publicly stated, the Kopp family is full of warmth and charm...and so is this book. I look forward to reading the next book.

It was a chance encounter. An accident. When Henry Kaufman's car plowed into their buggy, the Kopp sisters didn't realize how it would change their lives. Hoping for a quick payment from Kaufman, the trouble escalates and Constance, Norma and Fleurette fear for their lives. The Sherrif issues them handguns to protect themselves and Constance takes on the responsibility of ridding their lives of this menace.

Bringing this true story to life with class and humor, Amy Stewart creates a fun and entertaining novel with a protagonist that is unique and unforgettable. Constance is the very best part of Girl Waits With Gun. She's tall and intimidating. Constance is inspiring as she's simply not afraid of standing up for herself and what she knows to be right. After going to the authorities, Constance is aware that she must take the responsibility of keeping her sisters safe. No matter her strength, she's also a vulnerable woman and sensitive. She loves her family and has a conflicted past. Her sisters, Norma and Fleurette also come alive as their doubts, fears and passions burst from the page.

Stewart keeps the pace steady as the Kopp sisters are consistently threatened by Kaufman and his gang. She weaves in Constance's back story and history expertly so that it doesn't detract from the main story. The ending was a bit too drawn out but otherwise I was constantly engaged.

Girl Waits With Gun is free of cursing and sex. It is excellently researched and is a fascinating trip back in time. Amy Stewart succeeds at memorializing the Kopp sisters with dignity in this fabulous novel.

For those of you who were thinking of getting this book for the catchy title figuring "Hey, it's got the word gun in the title, it has to have a lot of good action in it, right?" And then looking at the pretty awesome cover and thinking more or less the same thing. Wrong on both counts.
This is not one of those noir type books with gritty action and a mustache twirling bad guy that you just love to hate.
It's a story about a big sister taking care of her little sisters while at the same time striving to be respected as a woman who can take care of herself and others during a period of time when that was socially unacceptable. This has a very deep narrative, it's not focused on action, but on telling a very deep story. It does tend to drag on sometimes, but the story takes place over the course of about a year. It's not a mystery, you already know who the bad guy is, he's not really a serious bad guy, Darth Vader he is not. He's sort of just always in the background threatening them. But he does make moves against them. For those of you who just like action, go somewhere else. For those of you who like more plot focused books, look no more. And for those of you who like both, be prepared to tap into the plot lover in you. I recommend this to anyone looking for a book with a strong heroine, no explosions, and a solid plot.

Although the blurb by Elizabeth Gilbert calls this " a smart, romping, hilarious novel", I will agree with the smart. At times it hardly romps though it does move relatively fast and only once did I laugh loudly and long; toward the end of the book.

Despite the, in my opinion, misleading endorsement on the front cover, directly above the lovely illustrated heroine, the story is well done and interesting. Based on the true story of a dye manufacturer's spoiled son and his careless collision of his automobile with the horse drawn carriage of the Kopp sisters on the streets of Patterson, NJ in 1913, it is an old-fashioned crime story using the newspaper accounts, letters and trial transcripts of the event.

Since this plot would be rather thin and could be covered in far less than the 400+ pages of the novel, Amy Stewart, the author has invented a secondary plot of a factory girl, taken advantage of by the aforementioned spoiled son, whose name by the way is Henry Kaufman. Lucy Blake gave birth to the child and kept him but when the dye workers went on strike she had to give him up temporarily to others and when the strike was broken the child had disappeared.

Constance Kopp, as the eldest of the three Kopp sisters takes it upon herself to write to Kaufman asking for the $ 50 dollars that it cost to have their carriage repaired. Kaufman ignores the letter and so Constance takes other measures, which leads to harassment by Kaufman and his unsavory cohorts. Against the better judgement of Norma, the second Kopp sister, Constance engages the help of the local sheriff, Bob Heath.

She also encounters Lucy Blake and becomes obsessed with finding Lucy's child, since she believes Kaufman and his sister, Murial Goldfarb are somehow responsible for the child's disappearance. Heath cannot help in the search because not only won't Lucy speak to him, but once her tenement is burned down she has disappeared, too.

The adventuresome and headstrong Constance makes forays into New York and meets a photographer who now works on police and private investigations. In the meantime, Norma, who is content to remain on their farm and work with her pigeons and avoid all involvement with the outside world is less than encouraging. The third sister, Fleurette, is a precocious 17 year old with a vivid imagination who is thrilled at all the activity and treats it as a great adventure.

All of the characters are very well developed, although I'm not sure about the relationship between Sheriff Heath and Constance. We find midway through the book that he is married but there are strange undercurrents in their interactions. Particularly amusing is James Ward, the family lawyer for the Kaufman family, although he is a minor character who only appears twice in the story--once almost without making an impression.

The time period is nicely depicted and I love the use of words that my Mom used to use and which I haven't heard in years and years, such as chiffonier.

All in all, not the run of the mill mystery--and certainly a fun read. This was a complimentary copy from BookBrowse in return for my participation in a readers' discussion that begins on May 10.

This book would have been pretty darn good if it were pure fiction, but the fact that it is based on real people with real stories to tell makes it exceptional.

Three sisters, all very different than one another, live together in on an old, isolated farm despite their brother's wish that they would stay with him. Fleurette is the spoiled, flighty, much younger sister. Norma is most comfortable with her pigeons. And Constance tries her best to keep the family afloat. And it was working, sort of, until a motorcar smashed into their horse-and-carriage, and Constance tried to collect damage. From A Bad Guy.

The story moves along nicely, all from the point of view of Constance. I loved the characters, and the writing sounded as though Constance were really the one speaking.

The author's notes explain that a good deal of the personal details were fictionalized, but she also states what people are real. This was a story in itself, but the very ending cries out for a sequel, which I am expecting. If (when?) it comes, I'm going to be standing in line, metaphorically speaking, to get it.

I was given an advance reader's copy of this book for review.

This is a lively and unusual kind of detective story. Constance Kopp is someone who is determined, assertive and adventurous, and who won't accept the limits her times -- 1914, New Jersey -- place on her as a single woman. It's a dangerous time: her nemesis is a silk-factory boss in a Paterson, NJ, that is in the midst of labor strife and quirky courts and police. She's a spunky, likable character, speaking in the first person here, and her character is believable and interesting, as are her unmarried sisters. There's a backstory woven in this, as well as the main plot, a dangerous conflict between her and the boss and his thuggish confederates -- it's rooted in a real-life story and seems true to the period and the characters. And it is something of a mystery: maybe we know who the bad guys are, and maybe there's more, much more to it.

Strongly recommend -- and here's hoping that this character has sequels.

This is the first Amy Stewart book I have read but I can see that I'm going to have to order her previous books seeing as I enjoyed this novel, loosely based on an actual event which Stewart tells you all about at the end of the book. Stewart took the few known facts about the incident in which the Kopp sisters' buggy was hit by Henry Kaufman's automobile in 1914 and used her delightful imagination to fill in the blanks. She creates utterly charming characters out of the three sisters, but it's Constance that is our protagonist as she determines to write a wrong done by the not-very-nice Kaufman. This leads to quite a few discoveries and events, not all as benign as a buggy accident. The character development is so charming that this might border on a cozy mystery (or at least a mystery-type book where the characters are eccentric/independent enough to keep the reader coming back). And the story ends on such a note that I could easily see this becoming a longer running series. I enjoyed it as much as any Maisie Dobbs book and indeed will be more interested in a sequel to this than the next Jacqueline Winspear installment. If you enjoy books with a strong, smart female character set in a historical world, you'll like this. Try it.

Veering away from her usual well-researched, highly amusing non-fiction such as The Drunken Botanist and into the realms of gun-wielding heroines of the early 20th century, Amy Stewart brings us the first installment of an exciting new series based on the true adventures of the first female Sheriff, Constance Kopp.

The Archduke of Austria had just been assassinated, the Mexicans were revolting, and absolutely nothing was happening at our house, which explains why all three of us were riding to Paterson on the most trivial of errands.

It’s 1914 and most women are utterly reliant on men. However, the three Kopp sisters remain stubbornly independent, living on an isolated New Jersey farm and making do with what they have to survive. Constance tends the vegetable garden, Norma occupies herself with newspaper headlines and carrier pigeons, and seventeen-year-old Fleurette is a whizz with a needle, making complicated costumes for her theatrical pursuits. However, when their buggy is destroyed by a careless (and thuggish) automobile driver, their pursuit for justice spirals into a wild feud, punctuated with shoot-outs, threats and kidnapping. The authorities can’t do much so the responsibility for protecting her sisters falls on tall, clever Constance Kopp’s shoulders. And she is willing to do whatever it takes.

Now I was starting to wonder if I would live my whole life out here. I worried that I was destined to die in the same bed my mother had died in, leaving behind nothing but a cellar full of parsnips and uneven rows of stitches along cuffs and collars that nobody even remembered me making.

This was a period of history I knew little about, and it was really interesting to read. I found the sprinkling of real headlines from the period very entertaining – perhaps my favourite was “Large Percentage of Women Recklessly Follow Prevailing Fashions Without Knowing Why”. Stewart is a master of research, and the attention to detail is impressive, but never overwhelming. The story itself was pretty straight-forward, and at times it felt a little slowed in its action. However, it was quickly wrapped up at the end, perhaps a little too easily. I liked the characters of the Kopp sisters, although Norma was a little dull despite her fascination with carrier pigeons. Fleurette was the most vivid character; some of the secondary characters, and villains, tended to be a little flat.

She would have been terrified by our accident, not just because of our injuries and the damage to the buggy, but because it left us so exposed. The thought of the three of us thrown into a heap on Market Street, a crowd gathered around us, everyone watching, everyone wondering who we were- Mother dedicated her life to avoiding that very thing. And now I had gotten into a fistfight with a factory owner. If my mother had nightmares, this would have been one of them.

As a plot-driven book, rather than a character-driven one, the story was compelling enough to keep the pages turning. I did feel that the added storyline of Lucy Blake was unnecessary. I think I would have preferred for the space to be spent on fleshing out the characters in Kaufman’s gang a bit more; they don’t stand out at all from each other, and perhaps if they had, I would have been more interested in George Ewing and the role he plays in the story. Perhaps in trying to beef up the story a little when adding the fictional elements, Stewart might have been trying to do a little too much, overcomplicating it and creating some sentimental, touchy-feely scenes which felt somewhat forced. So too the pigeons didn’t really do much to further the plot; perhaps they’ll be more significant later in the series.

“Watch out for him,” she called after us. “He won’t stop. Once you cross him, he doesn’t forget.”

I loved the fierce independence of the Kopp sisters. Constance is a force to be reckoned with, and she’s a sympathetic character whose dark history only makes her stronger and more complex. She is the real star of the show, and she’s absolutely fantastic. I think this series would translate well to TV, and I’d definitely watch some respectable ladies kicking ass and taking names. This was a fun, fearless romp, and a quick, light read. I think I will probably keep reading the series; I can’t wait to see what scrapes Fleurette gets into, and it will be interesting to see how Stewart incorporates the context of that period of history into the stories.

The explosion echoed up and down the length of the creek. I felt it hammer my chest, like another heart beating next to mine. There was the smell of something burning and a ringing in my ears.

Girl Waits With Gun is delightful; it’s a fully loaded girl-power shoot-em-out with creepy thugs, disapproving matrons, and three strong heroines who are motivated by the sisterly love they have for each other rather than contrived love interests. Well-researched and a blend of fact with fiction, Amy Stewart has found a story worth exploring. What’s more, she’s turned it into an exciting novel. Although some elements of the story could have been a little more developed, for the most part it’s a strong first book in what promises to be a great series. The next book is anticipated in September 2016.

“Salesmen were dirty, she told us. They sold inferior goods that no store would offer. They preyed on lonely shut-ins and the feeble-minded. They only wanted in so they could come back and burgle our home while we were away. And they carried fleas.” (p. 75)

Somehow I’ve never found too much of interest or excitement about Paterson, New Jersey. Not even during the couple of years of my youth that I spent just a mile or two across the Passaic River, in a place known then as East Paterson (now Elmwood Park). Hoboken or Hackensack? Even Newark. Those are different stories, altogether.

Amy Stewart’s fictionalized true crime story, GIRL WAITS WITH GUN, set in and around that city in the early nineteen hundreds, reads a bit like a Dick Tracy cartoon from the 1950s. And that’s a good thing. Those portions of the novel that reflected actual events were, by far, the best parts; the more melodramatic fictionalized parts of the story, not so interesting.

I’m still trying to figure out how the youngest Kopp sister, Fleurette, went from being thirteen, in or around June of 1914 (p. 92), to being seventeen in October of that same year (p. 179). But, then, one’s not supposed to inquire about a lady’s age; is one?

Recommendation: Lot’s of folks seem to really like this one. So, although a bit tepidly, I’ll say, ‘Yes’. It should go on your to-read list.

“Sometimes at night I stood at my window and looked out at the ice on the meadow and the barn roof and thought […] of all the madness and malfeasance in the world beyond our rutted road.” (p. 277)

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition. 404 pages.

I simply cannot fathom why on earth this book received such glowing accolades from so many illustrious sources. It is so trite and shallow, filled with tired tropes and useless, dull dialogue. I suppose the author meant the endless dialogue be sassy or sparkling-it is, in fact, merely annoying and frantic. The characters of three sisters are utterly flat and uninspired. To my regret, I continued reading, looking for the pony under the manure-nope. More of the same old cliched characterizations, lifeless situations, awkward "humor", and numbing dialogue.

Don't waste your money. Go to your local library. I know I will be donating my copy to them asap.

t's always a pleasure to find a new series to enjoy. Stewart's book is filled with great characters, and the siblings' entangled emotions are a hoot and a holler (a good Southern expression) as they face the world in four entirely different ways. A little romantic hint here and there was a nice touch also. I always appreciate well-developed characters and for a first book, this was exceptionally well done. They are uniquely unique (not a mistake). I'm on my way to read the whole series and see what else develops because I believe Stewart's imagination will make for a valuable trip.

In the world of Philip Marlow, these "three tough broads" take on the world and leave everyone guessing what happened. Well done.

Being a woman has never been easy, but being a woman, living alone with one’s sisters, on an isolated farm in 1915, becomes even more complicated for Constance Kopp. After a young, rich and belligerent silk factory owner hit their buggy with his motor car, the Kopp sisters bill him for damages. What should have been a simple manner of reimbursing them 50$ for the reparation turns into a year of kidnapping threats, flying bullets and cops camping in the sisters’ barn. To convict the culprit and his accomplices, the sheriff recruits Constance in the investigation. Along the way, a chance encounter forces Constance to confront a family secret and face their uncertain financial future.

Based on true events, this novel introduces us to Constance Kopp, US’s first female deputy sheriff. She is depicted as a strong and stubborn woman who is determined to get reparation from the gang who recklessly damaged their buggy. After all, why should she accept another resolution than a man would! Her interactions with other characters illustrate clearly society’s expectations about “simple woman” and how she should act. The well-meaning, but oh so patronizing, “isn’t there a brother or an uncle who can take care of you?” question, asked more than once in the novel, is evidence of the place women occupied in society.

Even if a little stereotypical, Constance, Norma and Fleurette Kopp take life in this novel. Norma, dependable and more conservative has a passion for pigeons, and Fleurette, childish and a little spoiled likes to design and sew new clothes. After some time, I felt like I could predict how they would react to new situations. Other secondary characters, such as the sheriff, are also well-fleshed and coherent. In fact, the less detailed characters are the villains of the book. Obviously, the author did not want to spend much time with them, or the documents she used did not offer more information about them. The gang felt like an ominous and ill-defined presence throughout the book, which was a really effective way to transmit the oppressive feeling felt by the sisters to the reader.

I came to this book without knowing it was based on true events (in fact I discovered this information in the postface of the book). So, I was expecting a fast-paced story, with a gun-bearing too-modern heroin. What I discovered instead was a slower-paced book based more on the ambiance and social dynamics of the era than the action of the story. It was for me a good surprise: good because I took away a lot more from this book than I would have from a “simple” mystery, but some sections seemed to lag a little.

All in all, I thought it was a good portrait of an era and of an exceptional woman and the circumstances that helped her show the world who she was and that she would not sit back and take the beating in silence. Constance Kopp is a model that should be known and followed by many young, and less young, ladies nowadays.

In award-winning books like THE DRUNKEN BOTANIST and FLOWER CONFIDENTIAL, Amy Stewart has proven again and again that she can write nonfiction that’s easily as entertaining as the best novels. Now, in GIRL WAITS WITH GUN, she shows that she is equally adept at fiction, crafting a well-researched historical novel based on the life of a real person but also incorporating characters and incidents invented whole cloth by Stewart.

The book is based on a year in the life of Constance Kopp, largely forgotten to history now but notable primarily for being one of the country’s first female deputy sheriffs (a position she attains only on the very last page, leaving this reader at least hoping for a sequel). At the opening, however, law enforcement is about the farthest thing from Constance’s mind. It’s the summer of 1914. She and her younger sisters, Norma and Fleurette, have taken their horse and buggy from their farmhouse to nearby Paterson, New Jersey, for the day, only to be struck headlong by an automobile driven by a Mr. Henry Kaufman, one of the leaders of the city’s powerful silk dyeing business.

Constance’s courage in the face of Mr. Kaufman’s defiance, as well as her bold insistence that he pay the sisters for the significant damage to their buggy, seems at first to be a good idea. That is, until they become the targets of a campaign of harassment --- and worse --- by a group of thugs employing so-called Black Hand extortion techniques that had been successful in defeating a recent workers’ strike at the silk dyeing factories. Bricks with threatening messages are hurled through their windows nearly nightly; their house is broken into and ransacked; and Kaufman’s associates threaten to send Constance’s much-younger sister, Fleurette, to Chicago and sell her into white slavery.

Over the course of this intimidation campaign, Constance befriends the beleaguered county sheriff, who vows to try to protect them. She also gets caught up in a mystery surrounding another one of Kaufman’s victims, a woman whose son has disappeared. Constance has her own private reasons for trying to help the young lady, but as she investigates the mystery, she realizes that she may have both an interest in and an aptitude for this line of work, as unlikely as it might seem.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for such a skilled nonfiction writer, Stewart has a real knack for weaving together historical facts (including actual texts of newspaper articles, threatening notes, court transcripts, etc.) with an emotionally riveting story. Far from simply being a story of kidnapping or revenge, or even about a woman who defied gender stereotypes, GIRL WAITS WITH GUN is equally about relationships, especially the complicated and not always easy relationships among the Kopp sisters, who have struggled with balancing the stifling isolation imposed by their late mother with their feelings of insecurity and vulnerability after their mother’s recent death. Despite its dangers, their misadventures encourage all three women to view their situation with new eyes and to come away from it stronger and more engaged with the world, warts and all.

With short chapters, compelling characters, and a real understanding of the world they inhabit, GIRL WAITS WITH GUN fits the very definition of a page-turner --- and one that will leave readers with plenty to mull over, to boot.

Reviewed by Norah Piehl

First of all, my credentials:I did not receive this book for free. I checked it out on Kindle via my local library. I don't hesitate to write one-star reviews. I never gush. I almost never give 5 stars. I always read the bad reviews first to decide whether to read the book. This book is a good book. It deserves the praise and high rating it's gotten.

I've never read anything by Amy Stewart before but from reviews here, it sounds like she's a good writer in general and researches her topics well. So I'm going to assume the characters and attitudes of the time are pretty accurate. I was fascinated with the restraint that these women lived under, the rules of etiquette that they were expected to live by. I thought the flashbacks were needed--otherwise, Constance's out-of-character behaviour wouldn't have made much sense. I think the characters were well-developed, even the supporting characters. I've never been to Patterson or Bergen County but I thought that Ms. Stewart did a good job with the sense of place too.

I couldn't wait to finish the book and then I was disappointed when it ended. I think this would make a good series with Constance's fictional adventures as a deputy sheriff. Perhaps Ms. Stewart or someone else will consider writing them. I'm now a fan of Amy Stewart and will read her other books, even though I rarely read non-fiction.

Some facts are stranger than fiction, and Girl Waits With a Gun proves just that. This novel tells the unbelievable but true tale of Constance Kopp, who was one of America’s first female deputy sheriffs. One day, Mr. Kaufman, a silk factory owner, runs down the Kopp sisters' buggy and refuses to pay fifty dollars for the damage. Constance and her sisters are determined to make Mr. Kaufman pay for it. However, the dispute over the damage soon turns into a feud. Mr. Kaufman has his own gang, and he has chosen the Kopp sisters as his target. In order to protect her family and to bring Mr. Kaufman to justice, Constance turns to the police. Little does she know that these events soon lead to her becoming the first female deputy sheriff.

This story is told from Constance’s perspective. It is Constance’s voice that makes this story fresh, lively, and witty. Constance is a tough and likable heroine. She is headstrong, brave, persistent, and determined. She is also very practical because she makes smart decisions. She is not afraid to stand up for what is right. I also love her relationship with her sisters. They are each other’s support especially when they are facing tough times. It is Constance’s love for her sisters that help make Constance strong.

Overall, this book is about family. The message of this book is to do what is right. For while these sisters did have flaws, they ultimately did the right thing. While the story started out slow, it eventually picked up halfway through the novel. This book is a lighthearted mystery that is filled with action, suspense, and humor. I found Constance Kopp’s tale so fascinating and intriguing that it is hard to believe that it was actually a true story. I enjoyed this story, and I hope that the author will write more stories about her in the future. And with a name like Kopp, she has the perfect surname for law enforcement! I recommend this novel to anyone interested in historical fiction, mystery, and anyone who wants to learn about one of America’s first deputy sheriffs. Girl Waits With a Gun will also appeal to fans of the Jacqueline Winspear, Kerry Greenwood, and Deanna Raybourn.
(Note: This book was given to me as part of a blog tour in exchange for an honest review.)

This turned out to be a better story than I thought it would be when I started reading it. It is the fictionalized account of true events. Stewart is honest enough to reveal in the Author’s Notes what is true and want isn’t.

It is a well-told story with strong characters. Stewart has given each of the Kopp sisters just enough distinctiveness (without resorting to caricature) to make each one stand out.

However, adjectives like ‘madcap’ in the blurb and ‘hilarious’ in a comment on the dust jacket are misleading. The story is mildly amusing at best. ‘Madcap’ and ‘hilarious’ should be saved for books by Carl Hiassen – who truly can write scenes that are madcap and hilarious yet utterly believable – and his equals.

This novel was given to me for my review.
Girl Waits With Gun is based on true events and real people in history. The novel is a delightful blend of suspense, mystery and humor. Stewart takes these elements and weaves them around a sort of coming of late-in-life age story for the main character Constance. The three main characters are Constance, Naomi and Fleurette. The three sisters are like many sisters who squabble, rarely agree, but are tight in their loyaltyies to each other. Constance, who is the focal character, is not a dainty woman. She is around 6 feet tall and initially did not understand her own strength, both physically and of character. When they run into Kaufman, and thoroughly bad, baddie, they end up in a series of events where they are forced to not just jump out of, but leap out of, their own comfort zones. Sheriff Heath is a gentle spirited good guy who tries to help the ladies, but is, just as often, helped by them, especially Constance. This is a first in series novel, I think, but can easily stand alone, which makes me eternally grateful to the author for not making the self serving mistake of writing a first in series that does not stand alone. That said, the next novel about Constance and her sisters I WILL be reading. I loved the book, I loved the fierce women in it, and I loved that the Sheriff was the kind of man who could accept that there are women out there who can do something just as important as homekeeping and raising the kiddoes. Lovely book. I had several laugh out loud moments, and I think that Stewarts spare prose worked. The character of the women comes through gradually, just like we were getting to know them in real life. Bravo.

Girl Waits With Gun is a fictional account of historical events. The author, Amy Stewart, clearly did her research. While there is some deviation from the history, the author notes it in the back of the book. The story has a nostalgic feel to it and the narration is mostly good. The characters may not be complex but nor are they cardboard. They act as you expect them to within the parameters of the story.

Amy Stewart spins a entertaining story around some interesting newspaper articles and other historical documents she turned up. She took literary liberties to add some depth to the story and to teach the reader about the early 1900s.

The writing is good overall, but every so often it drags or goes off on a tangent. This is not a thriller and it's not a page turner. I had no problem putting it down, but I did not hesitate to pick it back up either. It's just a slow read.

While this book is good, not great, it doesn't make me want to read Amy Stewart's other works.

When the three Kopp sisters drove into town, they had no idea it would unleash a crazy chain of events and a world of trouble. The combative owner of a local silk factory ran them down with his automobile, flipping and crushing their horse drawn buggy, and then refused to pay for the damages. Constance Kopp kept after Henry Kaufman for restitution, their funds were limited and it was only right that he should compensate the sisters, but she had no idea how aggressive, antagonistic and dangerous he would be. Kaufman and his goons threatened their lives, set fire to their home, threw bricks through their windows, and shot bullets around the isolated family farm where sisters lived by themselves. But the Kopp women, especially six-foot-tall no-nonsense Constance, weren’t about to back down. They armed themselves, patrolled their property, and with the help of police set traps to catch their tormentors.

One of the best things about this lively, entertaining book is that it’s based on a true story--the newspaper articles printed in the text are real and the catchy title “Girl Waits With Gun” was one of the headlines. Other than the bare facts not a lot is known about the actual sisters, but the author did a great job creating distinct personalities for them. While the story doesn’t have the fastest pace it is suspenseful, and I loved reading all the colorful and evocative details about life in the early days of the last century.

Girl Waits With Gun is an exciting new novel from Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist. Based on actual events, this book will leave you wanting to know more about Constance Kopp--one of the United States' first female deputies.

Constance Kopp lives a serene life with her two sisters until a car/horse buggy accident throws her in the path of the town thug--Mr. Kaufman. When Constance attempts to collect money from him for the ruined horse buggy, it sets off a firestorm. Mr. Kaufman sets his nefarious sights on the Kopp sisters. Instead of backing down and forgetting about the matter at hand, Constance seeks out justice. Even at her own personal risk.

Before reading this book, I had never heard of the crime-fighting sisters, Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, but I was immediately intrigued by their story. Stewart has a way with words and even though this book is fiction, I couldn't help but wonder if Stewart had some insiders information on the trio, as the story line seemed pretty plausible in every way.

Constance Kopp was a formidable woman who would give any lady detective a run for their money. She stands with other greats such as Miss Marple, Phryne Fisher, and the ladies from The Bletchley Circle. For my mystery/crime-loving fans, this book is one you'll want to add to your tbr. You'll stay up late just to finish it!

It's 1914. Constance Kopp and her two sisters live alone on an isolated New Jersey farm. One day their horse and buggy has a collision with a car driven by a factory owner named Henry Kaufman. Kaufman refuses to accept responsibility for the accident and meets Constance's request for damages with threats, which escalates into physical attacks on the sisters and their farm. Unfortunately for Kaufman, he has underestimated the resourceful Constance who will find an ally in the local Sheriff and dedicate herself to bringing Kaufman to justice.

This is an enjoyable book that's reminiscent in some ways of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series. However unlike that series, it's based on a true story - the author details her extensive research in the book's afterword - and the book's title is taken from a newspaper headline written at the time. Narrated by Constance, it has a lively tone but also reads as if it were actually written in 1914.

Constance is a courageous and determined heroine and I also really enjoyed her two sisters: conservative Norma and excitable Fleurette.

A sequel is due in September 2016.

This was an interesting book to read and I enjoyed it. What begins as an innocent buggy ride turns the lives of the Kopp sisters upside down. With Constance demanding what is owed to her she sets off events that shatter their quiet and hidden existence.

I liked Constance, a woman ahead of her time and it isn't until this happens that she realizes it and takes action. As if the author read my mind, I wondered why they chose to live in seclusion, Amy Stewart with flashbacks in time revealed secrets that shaped her into who she was. Without divulging too much here I found that story line very interesting, it was real and written in a believable manner. It shaped Constance and explains her drive and determination.

Constance and Fleurette added much to this story, their quirky character traits added a little humor and tension relief when needed.

I was pleasantly surprised to read the authors notes and discover that Constance is based on a real person and that parts of this story come from real historical events. The author then filled in the gaps with unique story lines filled with not just mystery and mayhem but discovering ones self, taking risks and not to give up when those around you pressure you to. All in all a delightful book that keep me wanting to read more, it ended in such a way that I can only hope to read more of Constance in the future.

Amy Stewart is the author of six books on the natural world including the very popular The Drunken Botanist. This is her first novel. She stumbled on the story of Constance Kopp and her sisters by accident while researching The Drunken Botanist. After doing extensive research, Stewart still had some gaps in the story and decided to write it as a novel because a fictional slant gave her the opportunity to fill in those gaps and to create characters and scenes that would further illuminate the place and time of the story.

Girl Waits with Gun, set in Paterson New Jersey in 1914 is the remarkable story of Constance Kopp, a real woman who became one of the nation's first female deputy sheriffs. Constance lived with her younger sisters, Norma and Fleurette on the family farm. One day while they were driving their buggy they were struck by a car belonging to a powerful and unscrupulous silk factory owner. A disagreement about restitution for the accident resulted in the women being harassed and threatened in an ongoing feud. The sheriff enlists Constance's help in convicting the men behind the threats and Constance rises to the occasion in a way few women of her time could. A lively and fascinating read. I'd say it's a good thing Amy Stewart decided to try her hand and fiction.

Visit amystewart.com for book club resources.

Constance wants paid for the accident that destroyed their farm cart but instead she and her sisters get harassed and threatened by the head of a silk company. She takes steps to protect herself and her family.

I enjoyed this book. Constance and her sisters are unusual for the period in which they live. The story started slowly but picked up as Constance gets more involved in protecting her family and home as well as the mystery of what happened to a young silk worker's baby. Constance is smart and resourceful. She learns and is formidable. I liked her.

I will be reading more of this series.

The Kopp sisters are unlike any in fiction I have come across before! Each has her own quirks but all three - stubbornly willful Constance, bullish Norma and dramatic Fleurette - are intelligent, outspoken and incredibly resourceful, making for quite the combination. The very fact that the three live alone together happily on a farm out in the country is remarkable given the time in which they live. None of the men who come into contact with them knows quite what to do or what to expect from them, least of all the brutish Mr. Kaufman who expects them to roll over and give up after he causes the buggy accident that changes all their lives forever.

I think my favorite aspect of the novel, beyond my admiration for what Constance accomplishes by refusing to let the wrongs done to her and others go unchecked, is the introduction of what I think of as more modern law enforcement tactics in the beginning of the 20th Century. Not only does Constance do her own detective work, something not normally done, we get to see the meticulous collection of both forensic and photographic evidence, stakeouts, private investigations, the use of media (in this case newspapers) to influence the way a case is viewed by the public and sentencing deals done between police and criminals in exchange for information. There's even a courtroom drama towards the end of the novel.

An interesting twist added to the crime drama element is the slow unraveling of a long buried family secret that is revealed to the reader in flashbacks and memories. This secret, and the revelation of the paranoid and phobic way their mother raised them, is the very reason the sisters have so isolated themselves from society and determined that outsiders, even police, cannot be trusted. This buggy accident, while awful and traumatic for a number of reasons, does serve some good in bringing the sisters out of their own world somewhat and forcing them to realize that, at times, everyone needs help.

On the downside, I did find that the story dragged in parts. There are aspects added, such as Norma's slightly obsessive interest in her carrier pigeons, that didn't seem to add anything to the story and from the author's notes aren't based in the history known of the Kopp sisters. Another aspect that slowed the story down somewhat was the inclusion of a missing child case that Constance refuses to let go. While I found it interesting I'm not overly sure why it was included, other than to highlight the fact that Constance would make a good detective. I felt the close relationship between Constance and the sheriff was also made to insinuate some sort of attraction between the two, but that didn't seem to end up going anywhere.

Overall, Girl Waits with Gun is an entertaining and enlightening look into a unique, true to life woman who did her part to change the way society looked at the capabilities of women in law enforcement. There are moments of humor, heart and suspense and I'm so happy Amy Stewart brought these wonderful women's stories to the public. They really are unforgettable!

What an interesting story. Amy Stewart's "Girl Waits with Gun" was a great surprise. I haven't read Stewart's previous books but I'll need to look them up because I am impressed. "Girl Waits with Gun" is a murder mystery but it is also more than that. It balanced between humor and tenseness. I loved Constance, the lead character, and how she evolved over the story. I like the other characters but Constance is the key.

Set in 1914, the story starts with a buggy accident. The Kopp sisters (Constance, Norma and Fleurette) find themselves tangled up in the aftermath. The Kaufman gang have the youngest Kopp, Fleurette, in their sights and the threats begin. Given the status of women in that era (and this era too), the threats have an effect. It is Constance, the eldest, who takes the step forward and finds an ally in a local sheriff who wants to convict the gang but needs help in doing so.

The writing is crisp and has a great feel for the era. Pace matches to the plot's needs. Usually I like a quick pace, but the pace in this book does slow but it makes sense when it does, yet it picks up when it needs to. Definitely a fun, smart read.

Maybe its because this takes place in NJ and I can picture in my mind all the locations in the story.
Maybe because my grandfather came to this country and worked in a silk mill...which just like in this book they were all run by thugs. But mostly this is just a great novel. Amy Stewart creates a terrific story based on a newspaper story from 1914, "Girl, Armed, Waits for Black Handers on Street Corner." Stewart taking just a few real facts weaves a wonderful story about the Kopp sisters and their interaction with silk mill owner when their buggy is upturned by the car Henry Kaufman is driving. Though they have kept quite a low profile living in the outskirts of Wycoff for many years to hide a family secret, they come to the forfront of the news, when they challenge Mr Kaufman to do the honest and fair thing, paying them for damages. When he refuses and starts harassing them, Constance Kopp joins forces with the Police Sheriff to run down Kaufman and his gang and find a child that has been kidnapped from her mother, a factory worker.

This is a delightful novel, with research so seamlessly enmeshed in the prose that the reader is easily taken back in time and place. I didn't find it " ... romping and hilarious" as author Elizabeth Gilbert did, according to her cover quote. Romping? Hilarious? Come on. This is a rather gently told reimagining of a true story about the many and varied "collisions" between the louche factory owner Henry Kaufman and his thuggish cohorts and the redoubtable Constance Kopp and her sisters.

My only problem with the book is the depiction of the youngest sister, Fleurette. Her behavior is more appropriate to someone much younger than 17. And while I can understand that the girl has been shaped by isolation, it's still a bit annoying in contemporary terms. But this is a small quibble, really, and doesn't negatively affect this enormously readable and charming tale.

It's 1914. Constance Kopp and her two sisters live alone on an isolated New Jersey farm. One day their horse and buggy has a collision with a car driven by a factory owner named Henry Kaufman. Kaufman refuses to accept responsibility for the accident and meets Constance's request for damages with threats, which escalates into physical attacks on the sisters and their farm. Unfortunately for Kaufman, he has underestimated the resourceful Constance who will find an ally in the local Sheriff and dedicate herself to bringing Kaufman to justice.

This is an enjoyable book that's reminiscent in some ways of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series. However unlike that series, it's based on a true story - the author details her extensive research in the book's afterword - and the book's title is taken from a newspaper headline written at the time. Narrated by Constance, it has a lively tone but also reads as if it were actually written in 1914.

Constance is a courageous and determined heroine and I also really enjoyed her two sisters: conservative Norma and excitable Fleurette.

A sequel is due in September 2016.

This was an interesting book to read and I enjoyed it. What begins as an innocent buggy ride turns the lives of the Kopp sisters upside down. With Constance demanding what is owed to her she sets off events that shatter their quiet and hidden existence.

I liked Constance, a woman ahead of her time and it isn't until this happens that she realizes it and takes action. As if the author read my mind, I wondered why they chose to live in seclusion, Amy Stewart with flashbacks in time revealed secrets that shaped her into who she was. Without divulging too much here I found that story line very interesting, it was real and written in a believable manner. It shaped Constance and explains her drive and determination.

Constance and Fleurette added much to this story, their quirky character traits added a little humor and tension relief when needed.

I was pleasantly surprised to read the authors notes and discover that Constance is based on a real person and that parts of this story come from real historical events. The author then filled in the gaps with unique story lines filled with not just mystery and mayhem but discovering ones self, taking risks and not to give up when those around you pressure you to. All in all a delightful book that keep me wanting to read more, it ended in such a way that I can only hope to read more of Constance in the future.

Amy Stewart is the author of six books on the natural world including the very popular The Drunken Botanist. This is her first novel. She stumbled on the story of Constance Kopp and her sisters by accident while researching The Drunken Botanist. After doing extensive research, Stewart still had some gaps in the story and decided to write it as a novel because a fictional slant gave her the opportunity to fill in those gaps and to create characters and scenes that would further illuminate the place and time of the story.

Girl Waits with Gun, set in Paterson New Jersey in 1914 is the remarkable story of Constance Kopp, a real woman who became one of the nation's first female deputy sheriffs. Constance lived with her younger sisters, Norma and Fleurette on the family farm. One day while they were driving their buggy they were struck by a car belonging to a powerful and unscrupulous silk factory owner. A disagreement about restitution for the accident resulted in the women being harassed and threatened in an ongoing feud. The sheriff enlists Constance's help in convicting the men behind the threats and Constance rises to the occasion in a way few women of her time could. A lively and fascinating read. I'd say it's a good thing Amy Stewart decided to try her hand and fiction.

Visit amystewart.com for book club resources.

Constance wants paid for the accident that destroyed their farm cart but instead she and her sisters get harassed and threatened by the head of a silk company. She takes steps to protect herself and her family.

I enjoyed this book. Constance and her sisters are unusual for the period in which they live. The story started slowly but picked up as Constance gets more involved in protecting her family and home as well as the mystery of what happened to a young silk worker's baby. Constance is smart and resourceful. She learns and is formidable. I liked her.

I will be reading more of this series.

The Kopp sisters are unlike any in fiction I have come across before! Each has her own quirks but all three - stubbornly willful Constance, bullish Norma and dramatic Fleurette - are intelligent, outspoken and incredibly resourceful, making for quite the combination. The very fact that the three live alone together happily on a farm out in the country is remarkable given the time in which they live. None of the men who come into contact with them knows quite what to do or what to expect from them, least of all the brutish Mr. Kaufman who expects them to roll over and give up after he causes the buggy accident that changes all their lives forever.

I think my favorite aspect of the novel, beyond my admiration for what Constance accomplishes by refusing to let the wrongs done to her and others go unchecked, is the introduction of what I think of as more modern law enforcement tactics in the beginning of the 20th Century. Not only does Constance do her own detective work, something not normally done, we get to see the meticulous collection of both forensic and photographic evidence, stakeouts, private investigations, the use of media (in this case newspapers) to influence the way a case is viewed by the public and sentencing deals done between police and criminals in exchange for information. There's even a courtroom drama towards the end of the novel.

An interesting twist added to the crime drama element is the slow unraveling of a long buried family secret that is revealed to the reader in flashbacks and memories. This secret, and the revelation of the paranoid and phobic way their mother raised them, is the very reason the sisters have so isolated themselves from society and determined that outsiders, even police, cannot be trusted. This buggy accident, while awful and traumatic for a number of reasons, does serve some good in bringing the sisters out of their own world somewhat and forcing them to realize that, at times, everyone needs help.

On the downside, I did find that the story dragged in parts. There are aspects added, such as Norma's slightly obsessive interest in her carrier pigeons, that didn't seem to add anything to the story and from the author's notes aren't based in the history known of the Kopp sisters. Another aspect that slowed the story down somewhat was the inclusion of a missing child case that Constance refuses to let go. While I found it interesting I'm not overly sure why it was included, other than to highlight the fact that Constance would make a good detective. I felt the close relationship between Constance and the sheriff was also made to insinuate some sort of attraction between the two, but that didn't seem to end up going anywhere.

Overall, Girl Waits with Gun is an entertaining and enlightening look into a unique, true to life woman who did her part to change the way society looked at the capabilities of women in law enforcement. There are moments of humor, heart and suspense and I'm so happy Amy Stewart brought these wonderful women's stories to the public. They really are unforgettable!

What an interesting story. Amy Stewart's "Girl Waits with Gun" was a great surprise. I haven't read Stewart's previous books but I'll need to look them up because I am impressed. "Girl Waits with Gun" is a murder mystery but it is also more than that. It balanced between humor and tenseness. I loved Constance, the lead character, and how she evolved over the story. I like the other characters but Constance is the key.

Set in 1914, the story starts with a buggy accident. The Kopp sisters (Constance, Norma and Fleurette) find themselves tangled up in the aftermath. The Kaufman gang have the youngest Kopp, Fleurette, in their sights and the threats begin. Given the status of women in that era (and this era too), the threats have an effect. It is Constance, the eldest, who takes the step forward and finds an ally in a local sheriff who wants to convict the gang but needs help in doing so.

The writing is crisp and has a great feel for the era. Pace matches to the plot's needs. Usually I like a quick pace, but the pace in this book does slow but it makes sense when it does, yet it picks up when it needs to. Definitely a fun, smart read.

Maybe its because this takes place in NJ and I can picture in my mind all the locations in the story.
Maybe because my grandfather came to this country and worked in a silk mill...which just like in this book they were all run by thugs. But mostly this is just a great novel. Amy Stewart creates a terrific story based on a newspaper story from 1914, "Girl, Armed, Waits for Black Handers on Street Corner." Stewart taking just a few real facts weaves a wonderful story about the Kopp sisters and their interaction with silk mill owner when their buggy is upturned by the car Henry Kaufman is driving. Though they have kept quite a low profile living in the outskirts of Wycoff for many years to hide a family secret, they come to the forfront of the news, when they challenge Mr Kaufman to do the honest and fair thing, paying them for damages. When he refuses and starts harassing them, Constance Kopp joins forces with the Police Sheriff to run down Kaufman and his gang and find a child that has been kidnapped from her mother, a factory worker.

This is a delightful novel, with research so seamlessly enmeshed in the prose that the reader is easily taken back in time and place. I didn't find it " ... romping and hilarious" as author Elizabeth Gilbert did, according to her cover quote. Romping? Hilarious? Come on. This is a rather gently told reimagining of a true story about the many and varied "collisions" between the louche factory owner Henry Kaufman and his thuggish cohorts and the redoubtable Constance Kopp and her sisters.

My only problem with the book is the depiction of the youngest sister, Fleurette. Her behavior is more appropriate to someone much younger than 17. And while I can understand that the girl has been shaped by isolation, it's still a bit annoying in contemporary terms. But this is a small quibble, really, and doesn't negatively affect this enormously readable and charming tale.

I enjoy most any type of literature that is well written, had a beginning, middle and an end that wraps up the story. All to often,as of late, I've read numerous novels that start strong but progress downward in a rapid manner and have endings where it seems like the author just got tired of writing and stopped, making one wonder if there was supposed to be a sequal to wrap up the story.
This is not the case with Amy Stewart's "Girl Waits With Gun." It was probably the most enjoyable book I have had the opportunity to read all summer.
In just a few short pages I was taken back to 1914-15 and introduced to the Kopp sisters and their misadventures.
The novel starts strongly and remains so to the end. Extremely well written and entertaining.
Now that I have been introduced to Amy Stewart's writing I fully intend to look into her other works. Crime fiction may not be everyone's cup of tea but I highly recommend this novel if for no other reason than the pleasure reading in and of itself.
Full disclosure; I did not get a free copy for review.

I was intrigued by the title, Girl Waits With Gun. I knew that it took place in the early 20th century, and was loosely based on the true story of one of the first female sheriffs. Got me.

What I wasn't expecting was just how cute of a story it was. Others have called it hysterical, I will remain with cute. No loud guffaws from me, but I did manage to smirk and raise my eyebrows a time or two. No really, I did.

Girl Waits With Gun is slapsticky in style, where more than once I fully expected to see Charlie Chaplin strut into the action. There is nothing here you can't give your elderly straight-laced grandmother to read, but at the same time I didn't feel it was lacking, so even lover of the darker side of fiction me really enjoyed it. No really, I did.

If enough time passes and there is a sequel, I would definitely read it. Give me a year or three in between is all I ask. I would love to spend time with the Kopp sisters again, and think that a novel with Constance as a newly-dispatched sheriff would be, well, a grand fun time.

Literally ripped from the headlines, the novel's title taken from The Philadelphia Sun newspaper of 1914. Based ona true story with fictional characters added with dramatic license. The story of three sisters, 35 year old Constance (6 foot tall and a robust sized woman), younger sister Norma, and youngest sister 16 year old Fluerette. Living on a remote farm on Sicomac Avenue in Wycoff New Jersey (11 miles east of where I grew up). They lead a low key life until a wealthy silk mill owner and his associates crash his new automobile into the Koop sisters horse and buggy doing $50 dollars damage. Instead of easily paying the repair and counting himself Lucky the mill owner laughs it off going so far as using threats of violence and kidnapping, going so far as vandalism and violence to stop Constance in her pursuit of justice. Luckily for the Koop sisters they have on their side Bergen County Sheriff Robert Heath who will solve more than one case of violence by bringing the thugs to court.

The author is already writing the first sequel.

I felt as though I would never get to the end of this story. Something would always happen, a new rabbit hole appeared and I'd trip into it. Always wondering, "When the heck would justice be won?"

It's not a poor story. I could have dealt with less turns through the narrative. It was also bothersome to be constantly reminded that these girls couldn't fend for themselves without a man in their life. We are CONSTANTLY reminded of this in every chapter. I understand that at the time they lived it was to be expected. I do question how their mother made it so long without a steady income and children to feed. Yet, 3 grown women struggled to do it together.

400 pages and countless characters. It's alright.

Constance Kopp and her sisters are not your typical post-WWI girls. Isolated, orphaned and surprisingly independent, the girls are happy –or at least less unhappy than they imagine they could be, until a spoiled silk-magnate ruins their buggy with one of those noisy, dirty cars and a minor war begins. Based on the story of one of the nation’s first female deputy sheriffs, Girl Waits with Gun is a glimpse into the constraints of single women in the early 20th century. As Constance’ fight morphs from demand for fair restitution to fear for the very safety of herself and her sisters, boundaries are crossed and frontiers are breached. Though slow moving at times, Girl Waits with Gun is an interesting read.

This was, in a word, uneventful. Stewart's first novel is more of a slice-of-life/exploration/author's speculation of what the main character, Constance Kopp's story of becoming the first female deputy sheriff. Note the word 'becoming' because she isn't one throughout most of the book and it seems a bit like she's going about looking for some vigilante justice. Stewart's writing has a nice flowing quality in terms of dialogue construction but the plot is quite thin at times. For all the research the author did, she maybe should have stuck with a long nonfiction article rather than a speculative historical-esque pseudobiography. I found it a breeze to read, just never was particularly drawn in by the characters or the story.

Note: ARC received via the store Vine in exchange for review.

Based on a true story, “Girl Waits With Gun” will surely appeal to fans of “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” and other historical dramas. When three sisters get on the bad side of a rich man with gang connections, they refuse to cower in defeat. With the help of savvy local police, they protect themselves from horrifying threats of violence while gaining more media attention than they bargained for. The three sisters are in different stages of life, and have very different personalities, but all are strong and likable characters. With good pacing, “Girl Waits With Gun” reads faster than one would expect for a novel just over 400 pages. At the end, the author explains which parts of the book are fact and which are fiction; however, she does not tell readers what happened next. There is little information about the sisters readily available online, so be prepared to wait for a sequel.

A wonderful read. Amy Stewart has richly imagined a great deal of detail, to bring the Kopp sisters and the tie in which they lived into vivid focus. Stewart is extremely adept at this while moving the plot forward. Some reviewers have written that it starts slowly. Well, a little. But that evokes the quiet country life these sisters were leading prior to the triggering event. And what sisters! Stewart has given them very different personalities, which interact in sometimes hilarious ways. What a terrific book. Now I can't wait to read the rest of the series!

This novel based on a true crime story stays with you long after you've read the last page, and the reason is Constance Kopp. She's a heroine who bursts on the scene at the beginning of the 20th century by simply trying to right a wrong perpetrated against the three idiosyncratic Kopp sisters near Paterson, New Jersey. It is exciting and amazing to watch Constance discover her powers of investigation and her satisfaction of the work at hand. With courage, intelligence and grit, she was the unforgettable forerunner of every female private eye during the next 100 years, and the author has written her brilliantly!

Absolutely delightful historical fiction. From an author celebrated for her non fiction, comes the story of the Misses Koop, three sisters living by themselves on a farm outside Paterson, NJ in 1914. Not much is expected of the women at that time, marriage and family being the traditional option. The eldest sister,Constance, is not planning on that. Actually, she doesn't have too many plans, until the day the sisters' horse and buggy ride is upset, literally and figuratively, by a wealthy mill owner, Henry Kaufman, and his drinking buddies who run their auto into the ladies' buggy. The book moves on from there as Constance tries to get reimbursement for the damage to their buggy. Not being one to admit to his mistakes, Mr.Kaufman, threatens and makes life very dangerous and scary for the sisters.
With twists and turns and a great deal of very well done historical fact and embellishment, the book is a wonderful read. I hope there will be more fiction from Amy Stewart.

Stewart’s novel tells the story of the Kopp Sisters and the one moment that changes the course of their lives. A collision between the sister’s wagon and a dangerous silk factory owner’s automobile sets in motion a year of adventure. The factory owner, Mr. Kaufman, refuses to assist, apologize, or compensate the sisters for the accident, and after Constance Kopp confronts him he begins a harassment that lasts for months. With the help of the local sheriff, the sisters arm themselves and prepare to defend their property, earning a headline in the papers: Girl Waits with Gun. Based on true events, the story of the Kopp Sisters is great fun, with an ever-present danger that adds an unexpected grit that readers will love.—Jenn Ravey, Readerly

I rarely give a 5 star because 5 stars should be reserved for those books that have endured and stood the test of time. But I believe in this book and the way this story has stood the test of time.

Based entirely on newspaper accounts of the actions of a small time hood and a stubborn, righteous (although not religious) woman who defied him against all the odds, this book is superior in its voice and in its concept. To take a story from the newspaper and create a complete cast of characters, each of them fully formed and expertly drawn, is quite a feat. The voice of Constance Kopp is perfect and the division of this story between her past and present is well done.

Thank you, Amy Stewart for telling Constance's story.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to reading this book based on the reviews I’d read and I was not disappointed. This is one of the most enjoyable reads that I’ve had all summer.

The Kopp sisters live on a farm outside of town in New Jersey, the time is 1914. Ever since the death of their mother, their brother, Francis, has been trying to convince them to move in with him and his family in town but the sisters have done very well living on their own. Norma is the eldest and she and Constance do most of the farming and upkeep of the property while their youngest sister Fleurette keeps house and sews for herself and the home. It is during one of their occasional visits to town that their buggy is hit by an automobile driven by the wealthy owner of a silk factory. Not only are Constance and Fleurette hurt physically, their buggy is damaged almost beyond repair. A request for payment for damages from the driver, Henry Kaufman, results in him driving away without taking Constance seriously.

What follows is an engaging and enlightening tale of the sisters taking on the Kaufman family in their continued request for payment for damages. They endure threats, both verbal and physical, with bricks thrown through their windows and then bullets fired at their home. The sheriff posts deputies at their home and finally manages to make Kaufman pay for the damages to the buggy but the terrorizing of the sisters in their home and town continue. This finally forces the sisters to learn how to shoot a revolver and it’s the sheriff himself who gives them two guns to protect themselves
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There are surprises in store for the reader with more than one mystery going on and a secret that has been kept for more than 15 years. We also learn about the silk industry in New Jersey at the time and the conditions under which the workers toil. This is a top notch historical fiction read with most of the story based on facts. The characters are unique and fully developed. If you choose to read the book please be sure to check out Amy Stewart’s website as there are pictures of New Jersey during this time period along with pictures of the real Constance Knopp who became one of the first female deputies in New Jersey along with pictures of her sisters. I really enjoyed the website.

Anyone who enjoys historical fiction as well as book clubs would enjoy this book.

This book was so good! I found myself enjoying it the way I do a great TV show. Every night I looked forward to sitting down for an hour or two and getting lost in the story. Having it based on true events only makes it that much more fascinating. Great writing, great characters, all around great story. I couldn't ask for more from a great read. I'm getting the next book right away. Well done, Amy Stewart. Well done. ?

I loved this historical fiction book. Constance Kopp, the main character, is a strong unmarried young woman who lives with her sisters in New Jersey in the early 1900's. She gets her sisters through many incidents that would topple others. The fact that many of the characters are based on real life people and the plot reflects real life incidents makes the book even better. I can't wait to read the next book in the series. Unfortunately, it doesn't come out for several months.

I love heroines who don’t conform to the standards of their time, and the Kopp sisters are definitely unconventional heroines. It wasn’t until reading the afterword that I discovered this series is based on a true story! There really were a trio of sisters by the name of Kopp and they encountered several of the events Seward details. I cannot wait to hear what’s next.

I picked this up (love the cover) expecting a mystery, but this is actually a rather slow-paced novel about the three Kopp sisters (who were real people, as were many of the supporting characters and the situation), told in first person by the eldest, Constance. The three sisters are delightfully distinct, and rather eccentric, characters, whose adventures over a year or so in 1914 New Jersey swing from terrifying to exhilarating. A well-written, imaginative, and thoroughly enjoyable look at the lives of three unusual women a century ago.

An entertaining story with original characters - three feisty, formidable women in spite of having been sheltered all their lives first by their mother who trusted no one and then by their continuing isolated lifestyle in the outskirts of 1915 Patterson NJ. The CD version's narrator was one of the best I've heard. She put the right tone to each of the characters, making them believable and vivid. The setting, background (with a somewhat surprising family secret) and circumstances kept me engrossed from start to finish. I already have the next in what I hope will be a continuing series on reserve!

A fun, can't put it down read with great characters! I really enjoyed this story and the three sisters who fill the lead roles. It was not difficult reading and I devoured it in just a few days, making myself a bit late to work a couple mornings to read just a couple more pages! The characters left me wanting a sequel so I could read more about their lives and adventures, however, the plot left me satisfied. It was most interesting to read the last few pages of the book where Amy Stewart writes about her sources and which parts of the novel are fact and which are fiction. I waited till I'd finished the story to read these in case there were any plot spoilers, but now I wish I had read it first. Really interesting to see how some of even the minor characters and events are based on actual history. I enjoy historical fiction because it gives a glimpse into the past through the characters' eyes. This was no exception. Amy Stewart will be doing a book tour on this one, and I look forward to attending to (hopefully) hear her speak about sourcing and creating the Kopp's story!

This was a pretty good book. I am always amazed at woman’s rights in books like these. It takes place in 1916. It was a good mystery. It’s not a nail biter by any means but pleasant. The characters were good liked most of them.

A complete page turner. Can't remember the last time in busy adulthood where I read a book in one day (partial flight, the rest until the early hours of the morning in a hotel room, screw the sleepy consequences!). Set in historical NJ, this sister story is brimming with family secrets, finding courage to stand up for what's right, and a main character who's sensible, saucy, and stubborn. Cannot wait to read the rest of the series!

This book was a fun read, particularly if you like historical fiction with strong female characters. Ms. Stewart clearly did excellent research into the era and the characters in the novel, making for an intriguing read. Most folks are familiar with Stewart's works of non-fiction and while I would expect fans of hers would check this out I wouldn't say they are particularly similar, though if you are a fan what harm is there in picking this up? A good read is a good read no matter how you come to it!

I suppose it's unfair to write a review for a book I haven't finished, but I'm not sure I can bear to finish it. It's for a book group. I can't remember being this bored by a book. I find it dull and plodding. The history might be interesting but not enough to finish the book.

Not quite. In fact this might have been a better book if Amy Stewart had been willing to take more liberties with the real story like Earl Derr Biggers was. The problem is that most of the time real life isn't plotted that well. In real life lots of things happen with no bearing on any central storyline, and there are long, Long, LONG periods when nothing much happens at all. Including more of this kind of stuff doesn't make your novel more realistic;...

it makes it more boring.

This was both a fun and interesting read. From a period of history and on a subject I knew little to nothing about, I felt like the author delivered a little known part of history in an unusual and fascinating way. I'd never really heard anything about when women became involved as law enforcement officers. Some mystery, some humor, and lots of early 20th century of women here, makes for a fast, fun and interesting read. Constance is a great main character, well drawn and likable.

An almost obscured character in history, Constance Kopp was, at the very least, one of the original modern-day feminists. At most, she was a strikingly tall, ample woman who did not – would not – refrain from speaking her mind nor, as a “pistol packing mama”, from – at all costs – protecting her two younger sisters from the increasingly dangerous threats of one Henry Kaufman, noted clothe dyer. Because of her undaunted courage and selfless tenaciousness, she was appointed in 1916 as one of the first female deputy sheriffs in the United States by Bergen County, N.J. Sherriff, Robert Heath. Constance was, as Kaufman testified in his own defense at his trail, “…not a regular lady.” Indeed!

The fascinating real-life story of Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp is the basis of Girl Waits With Gun (September 2015) by Amy Stewart, an outstandingly well-written novel that, with just a few creative flourishes, fictionalizes the gripping, almost hair-raising events that led up to Constance’s appointment. The sisters were so intriguing in real life, it would seem they really did not need creative embellishments. Yet, in Stewart’s capable hands, her adept fictional trimming augmented and enhanced their distinct individualities into three-dimensional personas. Narrated by Constance in the first person, her strong voice literary bounces off the pages, almost as if Stewart herself did not write the novel based upon her own assiduous research, but was merely the channeling instrument through which the formidable Constance spoke, once "discovered", demanded to be heard and immortalized in the pages of this five-star historical literary offering.

Unlike other great writers of historical fiction, Steward did not keep to the tried and true, more popular mainstream characters of the past. Instead, while painstakingly researching a gin smuggler name Henry Kaufman for her non-fiction work, The Drunken Botanist, she “stumbled” upon a 1914 newspaper article about how the buggy Constance and her sisters were riding in was smashed into by an automobile driven by one, um, Henry Kaufman. (It is not known if the former and latter Kaufmans were one and the same.) Intrigued to learn about the subsequent events that escalated and culminated into a sting operation by Sheriff Heath and the Kopp sisters, Stewart stepped out of the formulaic literary box and set her sights on telling Kopp sisters’ story. Entitling it, of course, with the intriguing headline that first captured her attention.

Girl Waits With Gun is yet another favorite novel that once I started it, I just couldn’t put it down. Like Stewart, I fell in love with each one of the Kopp sisters, reveling in their differences, enjoying their repartee, cheering them on out loud as they boldly braved, thwarted, and eventually stifled and squelched Kaufman’s postal threats and physical attacks. And while Stewart touches upon matters that have quite serious social and moralistic consequences, she does so with refreshing candor, aplomb, a droll sense of humor, and the genial self-confidence that is the hallmark of an experienced and knowledgeable author who knows precisely how to intrigue, enlighten, and entertain her readers.

Girl Waits with Gun is a departure from Amy Stewart's previous works of nonfiction. If you've had the pleasure of reading Wicked Bugs or Wicked Plants, you'll already be familiar with Stewart's engaging brand of humor and knack for presenting the most fascinating of facts in a way that is both memorable and entertaining. Girl Waits with Gun blurs the lines between fact and fiction, taking real life events surrounding the Kopp sisters and their nemesis Henry Kaufman and fleshing them out with an impressive mix of investigative details and creativity.

When Henry Kaufman crashes his automobile into the Kopp sisters' buggy, a series of events is unleashed that tests the sisters' resolve to live in privacy with their independence intact. Kaufman turns out to be a despicable man surrounded by unsavory characters. When Constance Kopp attempts to make Henry pay for the damages, he responds with threats that escalate into very real danger. Constance is challenged to protect her family, but can't stand by and allow Kaufman to get away with his terrible behavior. I really enjoyed both the story and Stewart's wry, understated humor. The Kopp sisters are great characters, and I love how they are the undisputed center of the story. The men in the book don't come to their rescue or bail them out, but tend to turn up after the fact, shaking their heads as they offer all the wrong kinds of advice (move in with family, stay home and locked away, and my favorite, avoid hotels at all costs!). As the Kopp sisters try to stay alive long enough to see Henry Kaufman brought to justice, they must face their dwindling finances, the shadow of their deceased overprotective mother, the uncertain future, and the kind of family secret that can ruin them. The sisters are really memorable and appealing characters. I wish we could be neighbors.

I also enjoyed the added section at the end of the book where Stewart lists exactly which parts of the story are known as fact and which she added herself. She lists sources for the newspaper articles throughout the book, most of which were reprinted as they originally appeared during the events in the story. I completely enjoyed Girl Waits with Gun and would highly recommend it.

A "cute," entertaining story. Well written page turner, but very disappointing "Hollywood ending." (Everything is resolved, everyone lives "happily ever after.") Excellent description of the period. The brother character too "cardboard." Now, Amy has to figure out how to get sheriff's wife out of the picture so he can woo Constance in the sequel. Audiobook voice performer does an excellent job.

This was my book club's selection this month and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The fact that this book is based on real people and events made it even more enjoyable. The characters and the story are well developed. There are plenty of plot twists to keep the reader engaged. I am so glad that there is a sequel because I can't wait to spend some more time with the Kopp sisters of Wycoff, New Jersey.

quite the page turner. there were a few surprises, which i won't spolier alert, that i did not see coming. my favorite part was that as an ex-bankruptcy attorney that the true wolf at the door is that the three, genteel poverty sisters-- who are left as financial cripples by their deceased mother, who i came to appreciate as a character-- are running out of money, or farm land to sell, and don't really have a plan to feed themselves. as such, the last sentence is one of the best happy endings ever.

Historical fiction can be tricky. It's tough to pull together something that is historically authentic, in addition to the usual fiction requirements of being plausible and a good story. In Girl Waits With Gun, Amy Stewart seems to have got the historical aspects right, and has given us characters that are realistic and that we care about. It's based on events that actually happened around a hundred years ago.

I just couldn't get excited about this story though. The pacing was too leisurely for me so that I found myself skimming to the next chapter. And in the end, the events didn't seem to add up to an entire book-worthy story. Still, the writing in this one and her non-fiction is addictive, so I'll be looking for her next book, whether fact or fiction.