Montana cowgirl Nettie Brady Moser has overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles on the journey toward her dream of being a professional rodeo rider. In the 1920s she struggled against her family’s expectations and social prejudice against rodeo cowgirls. During the Great Depression, marrying Jake Moser and then raising their son took
priority over rodeos. And then she was devastated by the death of her friend and mentor in a rodeo accident.
In the spring of 1941, Nettie, now age 36, is regaining her heart and spirit, and she is determined to ride again at an event in Cheyenne, Wyoming. To her dismay, the male-dominated Rodeo Association of America enforces its rule barring women from riding rough stock and denies her the chance to ride. Her fury at the discrimination can’t change things for women—yet.
Based on the life of the author’s grandmother, who rode rough stock in Montana in the 1920s, this sweeping rodeo saga parallels the evolution of women’s rodeo from the golden years of the 1920s, producing many world champion riders, and shows its decline, beginning in the 1930s and ending with World War II in 1941.
Professional Reviews
The best of the Dare to Dream trilogy!
I'm always afraid to review friends' books, and hardly ever do it because if the book is not good, how can I say so without losing a friend? So when in a weak moment I offered to review Dare To Dream by Heidi M Thomas, I procrastinated for a couple of months before I got up the courage to read the book.
I read it in one sitting. The conflicts between Nettie and her husband, her husband and their son, between Nettie and people who disapprove of women riding rodeo broncs and bulls kept me turning the pages of this quiet little novel long after I should have put it down. It may be difficult for younger women to recall a time when we were constantly told, "Girls don't ..." or Nice girls don't..." but girls and women constantly found our aspirations brought up as short as though we were tied to a snubbing post. We were never told that not long before us, in the period between the wars, women did things like ride bucking horses and bulls in rodeos for money.
Dare to Dream chronicles the period in American history when the dream begins to shut down for cowgirls. While Nettie as a younger woman could ride broncs and bulls if she could overcome her family's opposition, the young aspiring cowgirls Nettie mentors are barred when the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association bars women at the end of the 1930's. The only activity allowed them in rodeo is trick riding.
Thomas's descriptions of the girls' practice sessions are nothing short of harrowing. They learn to hang from their saddles with their heads under their horses' bellies at full gallop. At any moment an iron horse shoe could connect with a girl's skull. And for others Thomas mentions, it does. She mentions cowgirls who suffer horrible injuries and are killed in this sport, but even knowing that, Nettie and the young trick riders still go on.
This is a story of the same undaunted courage we're accustomed to reading about men, and it leaps off the page and into the heart.
Five Stars
I loved this book and have read all three of Heidi Thomas's books about her grandmother! Awesome story!
A delightfully rare Historical Novel. 85% a biography of a spy, musician, mother and her neice trapped behind German lines in World War I. This background led to a diplomatic post in World War II. Aged 92, Vera disclosed her past life one year before
Compelling historical fiction that traces the life of a young English immigrant woman who travels to America at the turn of the century to start a new life for herself. Encountering danger, romance, heartache and tragedy, she strives to fit into a
The Six Bells of Madame Lin is the first book in The Witch of Marigold Hall Trilogy, a fictionalized account of the struggles of Lin Mang, a blind woman who manages to navigate the world during the Mongol conquest of China in the 13th Century. Withou
