Chip of the Flying U

My grandma Jean says that when she first met grandpa he was wearing crisp, new Levi's 501 jeans and a snap button western shirt. As she eyed him up she thought, "Well, here is my Chip of the Flying U!".

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I'd heard her say this a few times but never paid much attention to this reference. I asked Gram more about it when we were visiting her this summer and she explained that Chip of the Flying U is a classic western novel she read as a teen. She fell in love with the main character- Chip- and met him in real life when she went on a blind date with one Keith Anderson- a cowboy from southern Idaho. I was intrigued and looked for the book on the Kindle store as soon as we got home. I was excited that they had it and delighted even further that it was free!

The book begins around the turn of the twentieth century with Della Whitmore, a young, fresh out of medical school doctor from the East coast. When she arrives in Montana to spend the summer at her brother's Flying U Ranch she's greeted at the train station by Chip, a square jawed, young cow-puncher at the Flying U. Chip and Della take a liking to each other and discover there is more to each of them than just a city girl and a rugged cowboy.

This romantic frontier story is unfolded bit by bit without ever being too blatant. It's a perfect mix of cowboy excitement, coy romance with a few mysterious characters. There is a certain innocence to the whole story- no unsavory language and it's definitely romantic without being too cheesy. The writing has a poetic quality to it although I suspect it just has better grammar than anything I've read in a while.

I love the way that the characters aren't explained all at once. I was left on a few occasions to re-read a sentence or flip back through the pages where implications were made about the characters lives outside of the book's written content. I'd read a sentence and think, "Oh wait, does that mean...?" I enjoyed being able to sit and think on these implied circumstances and really generate the character's history for myself. It sucked me in and made me feel like I really knew the "Happy Family" of the Flying U.

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 I would recommend this book to almost anyone. I would normally pass over a western novel but I am so glad I picked this one up. I fell very much in love with this it from the start and finished it in one night plus an hour by the pool. I look forward to reading it to my kids someday and telling them all about how their great grandpa was Chip of the Flying U.

Chip of the Flying U was written in 1906 by B. M. Bower, considered to be the first and most successful female western writers. Of course everyone knows Louis L'amour as the authority when it comes to Western novels but Ms. Bower wrote over 40 books in the genre and paved the way for other female writers after her.