Before she became a Queenpin, there was the debut.Virginia, 1925. A debut season is meant to decide a young woman's future—who she will marry, where she will belong, and how quietly she will live.Kathleen DeVane is expected to play her part.Raised in privilege and groomed for society, Kathleen is intelligent, observant, and already aware that power rarely belongs to those who follow the rules. When a traveling circus arrives in town, it offers her m...

A troupe of swimsuit models on a war bond tour take on the Florida mafia.St. Petersburg, Florida, 1944. Thelma Miles can’t stomach injustice. Broke and orphaned near the close of WWII, the 18-year-old joins a troupe of touring swimsuit models hoping for a fresh start, only to discover she's stepped into the mafia's lair.Kathleen Young, desperate to save her business and ailing husband, organizes the tour. But her single-minded focus blinds her to the danger...

Never give up, especially on yourself.In L.L. Kirchner’s Pushcart-nominated memoir of “resistance and surrender… [the author’s] voice is humble and self-aware” (Kirkus Reviews) as she undertakes a desperate post-divorce search for nirvana, leaving behind university halls in the Persian Gulf for the streets of Manhattan and, ultimately, a sex cult in India.Between the gym her family owned and the years she’d spent in substance abuse recover...

Florida Girls, Vegas Girls, Havana Girls: The Complete SeriesWhen a beauty contest becomes a fight for survival, three extraordinary women discover that sisterhood is the deadliest weapon...In 1940s Tampa, a beauty contest becomes a deadly game of survival when three extraordinary women infiltrate the criminal underworld that threatens to destroy them. After setting off on a war bond tour, Thelma Miles and her fellow contestants discover the mob's ...

Sometimes what happens in Vegas stays with youLas Vegas, 1945. Reeling from her husband’s death, Thelma Miles sets out to tear down a mafia empire. As federal agents circle, rival gangs plot, and her father’s empire grows more powerful by the day, Thelma masterminds an elaborate ruse.To pull off the con, she assembles an unlikely crew: a Hollywood starlet who is more than she appears; a relentless reporter on a crusade to root out corruption, and her former...

Dangerous secrets unite two women across generations in this immersive historical thriller.Like the gripping intrigue of The Nightingale and the dual-timeline suspense of The Forgotten Garden*, L.L. Kirchner's novel reveals a shadow world where determined women outmaneuver the mobsters and g-men who never saw them coming.*Havana, 1950. Thelma Miles has carved out a precarious independence running a Havana nightclub and rai...

Florida Girls, Vegas Girls, Havana Girls: The Complete SeriesThree women. Three cities. One empire.They enter a world ruled by men.They intend to take it for themselves.In 1940s Florida, a beautiful stranger arrives with a traveling troupe—and finds herself caught between a dangerous criminal syndicate and the federal agents determined to bring it down.In postwar Las Vegas, a woman w...

She wanted a quiet life, something mafia-free. But that was never going to be Thelma Miles’s story.St. Petersburg, Florida, 1944. When 18-year-old Thelma Miles joins a troupe of swimsuit models on a national war bond tour, she’s sure she’s escaped her dangerous past. Until she realizes she’s stepped straight into the mafia’s lair—and they aren't about to let her walk away.Her new boss, Kathleen Young, is obsessed with climbing the social ladder and...