
Tough Luck
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Mia Hutchinson-Shaw
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By:
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Sandra Dallas
About this listen
In this homage to True Grit, a young woman makes a perilous journey west in 1863 in search of her gold-mining father.
"...exhilarating and hard to resist." —The Washington Post on Westering Women
After their mother dies, Haidie Richards and her younger brother, Boots, are put to work in an orphanage. Their father left four years earlier to find a gold mine in Colorado Territory, and since then he’s sent only three letters. Still, Haidie is certain that he is alive, has struck gold, and will soon send for them.
But patience is not one of Haidie’s virtues and soon she and her brother make a break for it. Boots and Haidie, disguised as a boy, embark on a dangerous journey deep into Western territory. Along the way, Haidie learns fast not only how to handle mules, oxen, and greedy men, but also that you are better off in a community. Hers includes a card shark, independent “spinster” sisters, and a very fierce dog. Once she arrives in Colorado and finds out the truth about her father, Haidie will need all her new friends for a get-even plot worthy of The Sting.
Filled with vivid period detail, colorful characters, and the irreverent voice of our scrappy heroine, Tough Luck celebrates both the tenacity of youth and the persistence of the heart in the great American West.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
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Critic reviews
"Calling your novel an homage to True Grit is bold, but Dallas' work will humble the naysayers. Haidie Richards is every bit as smart, funny, capable, and cunning as True Grit's Mattie Ross... A rollicking western with an unforgettable heroine." —Booklist
"Haidie, a self-confessed liar and sharp judge of character, is an entertaining narrator, and Dallas keeps the story moving at a brisk trot. Readers in the mood for an old-fashioned western need look no further."
—Publishers Weekly
"Fourteen year-old Haidie is smarter than the men in her life, and she'll need every ounce of her wit and grit if she is to deliver her little brother Boots to the father who abandoned their family for the promise of gold. On prose that rides west at an easy canter, Tough Luck keeps its reader tight to the stirrups."
—John Larison, author of Whiskey When We're Dry
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- A Layla Virtue Mystery, Book 1
- By: Libby Klein
- Narrated by: Stefanie Kay
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Layla Virtue, a blue-haired, thirty-something recovering alcoholic and former cop, is trying to reinvent herself as a musician. She's taking her new life one day at a time from the Lake Pinecrest Trailer Park she now calls home. Being alone is how she likes it. Simple. Uncomplicated. Though try telling that to the group of local ladies who are in relentless pursuit of Layla as their new BFF, determined to make her join them for coffee and donuts.
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Awesome story line
- By holly mccanless on 05-02-25
By: Libby Klein
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Westering Women
- A Novel
- By: Sandra Dallas
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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It's February, 1852, and all around Chicago, Maggie sees postings soliciting "eligible women" to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter, she has nothing to lose. She joins 43 other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west. None are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek or for the strengths they didn't know they possessed. Maggie discovers she’s not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind.
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history adventure and a good dose of women empower
- By Stephanie on 09-16-20
By: Sandra Dallas
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The Lilac People
- By: Milo Todd
- Narrated by: Max Meyers
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, a trans man, and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond, but everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.
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Rich historical fiction with lovable characters that draw you in
- By Madeleine Hall on 05-10-25
By: Milo Todd
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The Second Sun
- By: P.T. Deutermann
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Brilliantly imagined and deeply informed by P. T. Deutermann's long history as a navy captain, as well as his family's service in the Pacific theater, The Second Sun is a compelling novel timed for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
By: P.T. Deutermann
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The Bride’s House
- By: Sandra Dallas
- Narrated by: Nicole Poole
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times best-selling author of Whiter Than Snow, Sandra Dallas delivers a novel about the secrets and passions of three generations of women who live in a Victorian Colorado house. While the house is under construction in 1880, a 17-year-old servant imagines living in the “Bride’s House” with one of her several suitors. Decades later, the legacy and secrets of earlier Bride’s House women cause the current occupant to question what she really wants and who she truly loves.
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Skip this one!
- By Mom to 5 on 09-08-17
By: Sandra Dallas
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Fallen Women
- By: Sandra Dallas
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the spring of 1885, and wealthy New York socialite Beret Osmundsen has been estranged from her younger sister, Lillie, for a year. Then she gets word from her aunt and uncle that Lillie has died suddenly in Denver. What they do not tell her is that Lillie had become a prostitute and was brutally murdered in the brothel where she had been living. Detective Mick McCauley may not want her involved in the case, but Beret is determined.
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Sandra Dallas is always a"Good read"
- By CAROLYN on 11-08-13
By: Sandra Dallas
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The Edge of Yesterday
- By: Rita Woods
- Narrated by: Dara Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Greer Coffey is a principal dancer with a renowned Harlem company. Sebastian Coffey is an architect with a prestigious Midtown firm. The Coffey’s are the ultimate dream couple—until their world completely unravels. After Greer develops a career ending neurologic disorder, she finds herself back in her hometown of Detroit. Angry, lonely, her marriage buckling under the strain, she takes to aimlessly wandering the city streets. One night, she stumbles through a vortex, a portal through time that transports her back into 1925 Detroit, where she meets a handsome, charming doctor.
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Premise was good, but the language made it a DNF for me
- By Maria on 05-10-25
By: Rita Woods
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The Road to Tender Hearts
- A Novel
- By: Annie Hartnett
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already. But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again.
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The complexity of relationships and families.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-15-25
By: Annie Hartnett
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The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet
- By: Lindz McLeod
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When Mr. Collins dies after just four years of marriage, Charlotte is lost. While not exactly heartbroken, she will soon have to quit the parsonage that has become her home. In desperate need of support, she writes to her best friend, Lizzie. Unable to leave Pemberley, Lizzie sends her sister Mary Bennet in her stead. To Charlotte’s surprise, Mary Bennet is nothing like she remembers. Mary’s discovery of academia and her interest in botany (as well as getting out from under her mother’s thumb) have caused her to flourish. Before long, Charlotte is enraptured.
By: Lindz McLeod
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The Traitor of Sherwood Forest
- A Novel
- By: Amy S. Kaufman
- Narrated by: Grace Gray
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Jane Crowe is an ordinary peasant girl who never dreamed she would work for the infamous Lord of the Greenwood. But when she’s forced out of her home, she has no choice but to turn to Robin Hood for help—and he makes her an irresistible offer. He needs a pair of eyes in the King’s Houses, and quiet, unassuming Jane—who has spent her whole life going unnoticed—will be the perfect spy. At first, Jane’s work for Robin seems straightforward. She whispers to him about the nobles at King’s Houses and all their secrets, including the new Sheriff of Nottingham.
By: Amy S. Kaufman
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True Sisters
- By: Sandra Dallas
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on 19th-century history, True Sisters follows four women who pin their hopes for the future on a plan devised by Brigham Young to bring emigrants to Salt Lake City. Pushing two-wheeled handcarts loaded with all their life’s belongings, the women set off on the 1,300-mile journey from Iowa City - and soon become fast friends even as perils mount around them.
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Surviving nature and thoughtless leaders
- By Byron on 04-14-13
By: Sandra Dallas
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The Murder Machine
- By: Heather Graham
- Narrated by: Tim Paige
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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This state-of-the-art smart home has everything: a next-generation entertainment system, an ultramodern kitchen where every appliance is online and even a personal AI to control it all. Standing above its owner's lifeless body, FBI agent Jude Mackenzie is faced with the daunting task of discovering how the woman was killed by her own home. How do you catch a murderer that doesn't leave any fingerprints?
By: Heather Graham
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The Correspondent
- A Novel
- By: Virginia Evans
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.
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I loved this audio book so much I didn’t want it to end.
- By Abbie L. Smith on 05-13-25
By: Virginia Evans
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The Murder Show
- A Novel
- By: Matt Goldman
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Showrunner Ethan Harris had a hit with The Murder Show, a television crime drama that features a private detective who solves cases the police can’t. But after his pitch for the fourth season is rejected by the network, he returns home to Minnesota looking for inspiration. His timing is fortunate—his former classmate Ro Greeman is now a local police officer, and she's uncovered new information about the devastating hit and run that killed their mutual friend Ricky the summer after high school. She asks Ethan to help her investigate.
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Matt Goldman is always enjoyable
- By Erin Ruel on 04-26-25
By: Matt Goldman