Stanley and Hazel Cover Reveal!

My new book is coming out with Month9Books on May 15th! This YA novel was inspired by my love of classic film and my interest in the juxtaposition of the glamour and poverty that coexisted during the Great Depression.

Stanley and Hazel come from the two opposite extremes of the social spectrum and I wanted to explore that. This trope hearkens back to the days of 1930s movies like The Thin Man and It Happened One Night. The hard boiled newspaper man/gumshoe and the high class dame. It's a fun dynamic with some murder and intrigue thrown in!

My publisher made some advance copies available for Teen Author Boot Camp and it was a blast to sign books there! Hazel even escaped the book and made a guest appearance!

A great depression grips the city of St. Louis in 1934. Stanley, an orphaned newsie, lives in a poor part of town hit especially hard by the economic downturn. One night, Stanley runs into Hazel, a restless debutante-in-waiting who has begun to question her posh lifestyle in the midst of the suffering she sees. She’s out and about without an escort and against her father’s wishes. When they discover the body of a girl with her head bashed in by a baseball bat, the very different and separate realities of the two teens inform their decision. Together they will figure out what happened to her and bring those responsible to justice. But getting involved with each other and digging into the secrets behind this murder earns them some powerful enemies, including a secret group seeking to rid society of all they deem undesirable. They’ve put into motion “The Winnowing,” a plan seeking to take over the city and enforce their will. As Stanley and Hazel’s forbidden feelings for one another grow, their investigation turns deadly. Now, it is up to Stanley and his gang of street kids to stop Hazel from becoming the next victim.

"Stanley and Hazel has spooky thrills, snappy dialogue, and rich historical detail. It makes for a swell read and one that fans of Libba Bray’s Diviners won’t want to put down!” —Jessica Day George, author, Tuesdays at the Castle

“Stanley and Hazel is an ingenious blend of history, magic, and spirituality that sheds just as much light on our world today as it does on our nation’s troubled past. Good and evil, love and greed, do battle in a story that has as much heart as it does fast-paced action.” —Scott Bergstrom, author, The Cruelty