Tom Boy - Libroj.org

Lingvo: English

Eldonita je 22-a de decembro 2022 de She Writes Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-64742-408-4

(1 recenzo)

It’s 1939. Jane Benjamon’s got five days at sea to solve the murder of a Wimbledon champion’s coach and submit a gossip column that tells the truth. If not the facts.

On the brink of World War II, Jane 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. Jane 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 blown.

Sailing home on the RMS …

It’s 1939. Jane Benjamon’s got five days at sea to solve the murder of a Wimbledon champion’s coach and submit a gossip column that tells the truth. If not the facts.

On the brink of World War II, Jane 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. Jane 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 blown.

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 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.

2 eldonoj

Stephanie Jane recenzis Tom Boy de Shelley Blanton-Stroud

A gripping murder mystery

5 steloj

It's been two years since I read Shelley Blanton-Stroud's first Jane Benjamin novel, Copy Boy, which I very much enjoyed and I am delighted to be able to say that I think this new sequel, Tomboy, is even better. Although Mother, my favourite character from the first book, is now only spoken about rather than putting in an appearance herself, it was fascinating to see how Jane's remembrances of her are informed by the struggles of a poverty-stricken childhood. Jane really comes into her own in Tomboy. Still not exactly comfortable in her own skin, she has a greater maturity and a confidence in her own abilities which is great to see - even though it does result in her putting herself into some rather precarious situations. A female character, Jane nonetheless behaves in ways that I would more expect to see from a fictional male of the time. For …

It's been two years since I read Shelley Blanton-Stroud's first Jane Benjamin novel, Copy Boy, which I very much enjoyed and I am delighted to be able to say that I think this new sequel, Tomboy, is even better. Although Mother, my favourite character from the first book, is now only spoken about rather than putting in an appearance herself, it was fascinating to see how Jane's remembrances of her are informed by the struggles of a poverty-stricken childhood. Jane really comes into her own in Tomboy. Still not exactly comfortable in her own skin, she has a greater maturity and a confidence in her own abilities which is great to see - even though it does result in her putting herself into some rather precarious situations. A female character, Jane nonetheless behaves in ways that I would more expect to see from a fictional male of the time. For example, Jane seems to barely think of the consequences of leaving her toddler sister in another woman's care when her job necessitates several weeks of travel. For someone in a father's role, putting work first would be obvious, for a substitute mother however the action feels shockingly selfish. Blanton-Stroud deftly overturns conventional gender expectations throughout Tomboy, other examples being the dazzling young tennis player, Tommie, and force-of-nature Coach. I was thrilled to discover that versions of those two formidable women did genuinely exist in the 1930s tennis world which demonstrates how our expectations can just as easily be shaped by what we are told about our history as by what actually happened. I love that Blanton-Stroud has opened my eyes through the Tomboy story as well as writing an exciting and gripping murder mystery.

Temoj

Fiction, historical, general