Overview

""This is Raymond Chandler for feminists."" -Sharma Shields, author of The CassandraJane's a very brave boy. And a very difficult girl. She'll become a remarkable woman, an icon of her century, but that's a long way off.Not my fault, she thinks, dropping a bloody crowbar in the irrigation ditch after Daddy. She steals Momma's Ford and escapes to Depression-era San Francisco, where she fakes her way into work as a newspaper copy boy.Everything's looking up. She's climbing the ladder at the paper, winning validation, skill, and connections with the artists and thinkers of her day. But then Daddy reappears on the paper's front page, his arm around a girl who's just been beaten into a coma one block from Jane's newspaper hit in the head with a crowbar.Jane's got to find Daddy before he finds her, and before everyone else finds her out. She's got to protect her invented identity. This is what she thinks she wants. It's definitely what her dead brother wants.

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9781631526978

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Reviews

Copy Boy is a fantastic story of a young woman's survival and re-invention, set in Northern California during the Depression. Blanton-Stroud's prose sings and crackles and brings us into the world of Jane with so much compassion and beauty and wisdom. An engaging, wonderfully original book. --Karen E. Bender, author of The New Order, longlisted for the Story Prize, and Refund, a National Book Award finalist A stellar debut. Copy Boy may be Shelley Blanton-Stroud's first novel, but it's apparent from page one that she's been working on her craft for many years. Combining the best elements of noir, historical fiction, and coming-of-age stories, Blanton-Stroud has written a compelling, nuanced story. Deftly plotted and expertly executed, Copy Boy is as mesmerizing as the moment when the fog lifts over Nob Hill. Highly recommended. --Sheldon Siegel, New York Times best-selling author of the Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez novels Full of adventure, chutzpah, historical detail, and, most of all, heart, Copy Boy is a thrilling, Depression-era coming-of-age story well suited to our times. --Maggie Shen King, award-winning author of An Excess Male Shelley Blanton-Stroud's Copy Boy explores place and identity with sharp-edged suspense and intrigue. Smart, lively, and suspenseful, this is Raymond Chandler for feminists. --Sharma Shields, author of The Cassandra and recipient of the Pacific Northwest Book Award

Copy Boy is a fantastic story of a young woman's survival and re-invention, set in Northern California during the Depression. Blanton-Stroud's prose sings and crackles and brings us into the world of Jane with so much compassion and beauty and wisdom. An engaging, wonderfully original book. --Karen E. Bender, author of The New Order, longlisted for the Story Prize, and Refund, a National Book Award finalist A stellar debut. Copy Boy may be Shelley Blanton-Stroud's first novel, but it's apparent from page one that she's been working on her craft for many years. Combining the best elements of noir, historical fiction, and coming-of-age stories, Blanton-Stroud has written a compelling, nuanced story. Deftly plotted and expertly executed, Copy Boy is as mesmerizing as the moment when the fog lifts over Nob Hill. Highly recommended. --Sheldon Siegel, New York Times best-selling author of the Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez novels Full of adventure, chutzpah, historical detail, and, most of all, heart, Copy Boy is a thrilling, Depression-era coming-of-age story well suited to our times. --Maggie Shen King, award-winning author of An Excess Male

Author Information

Shelley Blanton-Stroud grew up in California's Central Valley, the daughter of Dust Bowl immigrants who made good on their ambition to get out of the field. Recently retired from teaching writing in Northern California, she continues to consult with writers in the energy industry. She has served as President of the Board of 916 Ink, an arts-based creative writing nonprofit for children, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. She previously co-directed Stories on Stage Sacramento, where actors perform the stories of established and emerging authors. Her historical mystery series—Copy Boy, Tomboy, and Poster Girl—follows Jane Benjamin, a cross-dressing, tomato-picking, San Francisco gossip columnist who investigates crime stories that never make the front page in 1930s and '40s Northern California. Her fourth novel, An Unlikely Prospect, features a new protagonist in the same world. She and her husband live in Sacramento, California.

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