Tomboy

A Jane Benjamin Novel

by Shelley Blanton-Stroud

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Pub Date 28 Jun 2022 | Archive Date 18 Jun 2022

She Writes Press

Historical Fiction | Mystery & Thrillers

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Description

It’s 1939. On the brink of World War II, Jane Benjamin wants to have it all. By day she hustles as a scruffy, tomboy cub reporter. By night she secretly struggles to raise her toddler sister, Elsie, and protect her from their mother. But Jane’s got a plan: she’ll become the San Francisco Prospect’s first gossip columnist and make enough money to care for Elsie.

Jane finagles her way to the women’s championship at Wimbledon, starring her hometown’s tennis phenom and cover girl Tommie O’Rourke. She plans to write her first column there. But then she witnesses Edith “Coach” Carlson, Tommie’s closest companion, drop dead in the stands of apparent heart attack, and her plan is thrown off track.

While sailing home on the RMS Queen Mary, Jane veers between competing instincts: Should she write a social bombshell column, personally damaging her new friend Tommie’s persona and career? Or should she work to uncover the truth of Coach’s death, which she now knows was a murder, and its connection to a larger conspiracy involving US participation in the coming war?

Putting away her menswear and donning first-class ballgowns, Jane discovers what upper-class status hides, protects, and destroys. Ultimately—like nations around the globe in 1939—she must choose what she’ll give up in order to do what’s right.

Advance Praise

“Mix Jo March and Tom Ripley, shake well, pour into a martini glass and take a big, brisk, bitter swig of Jane Benjamin. Like me, you’ll be deliriously intoxicated by Copy Boy’s bracing sequel.”

—Gretchen Cherington, award-winning author of Poetic License

“1939’s Jane Benjamin is a quintessential heroine for now—gritty, gutsy, gender-bending, and driven to fulfill her journalistic ambitions in male-centric bars and smoke-filled San Francisco newsrooms. She’s one difficult girl you want in your corner and on your must-read pile.”

—Dorothy Rice, award-winning author of The Reluctant Artist and Gray is the New Black

“Riveting as Mare of Easttown, binge-worthy as The Queen’s Gambit, Tomboy will keep you reading—obsessively—until the very last line.”

—Debra Thomas, award-winning author of Luz

“Chock-full of audacity and adventure, a suspenseful and layered novel. From the squalor of Hooverville to the opulence of the Queen Mary, cub reporter Jane Benjamin grabs our hearts once again.”

—Ashley E. Sweeney, award-winning author of Answer Creek and Eliza Waite

“Crisp prose, snappy pace, exquisite period details and a resourceful, resilient, wonderfully flawed protagonist. Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy boat ride.”

—Mary Camarillo, award-winning author of The Lockhart Women

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