Join Us For This Tour from Oct 3 to Oct 21, 2022

BOOK DETAILS:
Book Title:  Tomboy: A Jane Benjamin Novel by Shelley Blanton-Stroud
Category:  Adult Fiction (18+), 308 pages
Genre:  Historical Thriller
Publisher:  She Writes Press
Release dates:   June 2022
Content Rating: PG-13 + M. The F word appears exactly once in the book. There is a completely non-explicit sex scene. There is a suicide.


Book Description:

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.
Buy the Book:
Add to Goodreads
Guest Post
The Gender Question
When I wrote Copy Boy, book one in the Jane Benjamin trilogy, I knew all three books would deal with Jane struggling against conformity. She wants to do something really significant, be something big in the world, but she finds it difficult to accomplish in the real world of 1937.

In the first book, she puts on a man’s clothes and finds that she can get the job she wants and act as assertive as she wants, much more so than when she dresses as a conventional girl.

 That’s what Jane’s cross dressing was to me, as the author, in the beginning. The discovery that it is easier for men than women to achieve in the ordinary world.

 But after Copy Boy, many readers came to me with questions about Jane’s sexuality, about her gender. They often asked, Is she gender fluid?

 Honestly, I didn’t know. I only knew that Jane experienced power and comfort in wearing pants that she’d never experienced in dresses (largely because the dresses lacked pockets, which Jane LOVES).

 In Tomboy, I’ve begun to look at that question more directly, asking nineteen year old Jane if she wishes she were a man rather than a woman. Or if she is attracted to women more than she is to men. She meets other characters in Tomboy who make that question more concrete.

 I’m not saying Jane’s got it all worked out in Tomboy, but that she is beginning to see she can be comfortable and assertive in dresses too (so long as there are pockets and no hosiery) and that she may find both men and women attractive.

 What Jane really wants is to be free to be herself, not to be forced into anyone else’s box. We’ll see as the trilogy continues with Flyboy how that desire for freedom works for her.

 So, if this fits with the definition of gender fluid, I suppose that’s what Jane is.


Guest Post

Meet the Narrator:
April Doty is a classically trained actress with a BFA from Syracuse University. She is a voice actor and the narrator of 26 books. Born in Virginia, educated in New York, seasoned in London and settled in Spain, April Doty brings the sound of a rich and varied life experience to her narration. The character of Jane came to life in her home studio on the Costa del Sol. 

connect with the narrator:  website ~ twitter ~ linkedIn ~ soundcloud



Meet the Author:
Shelley 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. She recently retired from teaching writing at Sacramento State University and still consults with writers in the energy industry. She co-directs Stories on Stage Sacramento, where actors perform the stories of established and emerging authors, and serves on the advisory board of 916 Ink, an arts-based creative writing nonprofit for children, as well as on the board of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. Copy Boy is her first Jane Benjamin Novel. Tomboy is her second. The third, Working Girl, will come out in November 2023. Her writing has been a finalist in the Sarton Book Awards, IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Award, the American Fiction Awards, and the National Indie Excellence Awards. She and her husband live in Sacramento with many photos of their out-of-town sons and their wonderful partners. 

Connect with the author:   website  ~  twitter  ~  facebook  ~ instagram ~ bookbub ~ goodreads
Tour Schedule:

Oct 3 – Rockin' Book Reviews – audiobook review / guest post / giveaway
Oct 3 – Literary Flits – book review / giveaway
Oct 4 - Olio By Marilyn – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Oct 4 - Olio By Marilyn – book review / giveaway
Oct 5 – Jazzy Book Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Oct 6 – Books are a Blessing – book review / giveaway
Oct 7 – Leanne bookstagram – book review
Oct 11 – Amy's Booket List – audiobook review / giveaway
Oct 11 - FUONLYKNEW - book spotlight / author interview / giveaway 
Oct 12 – Cover Lover Book Review – book spotlight / giveaway
Oct 12 - PuzzlePaws Blog - book review / giveaway
Oct 13 - JB's Bookworms with Brandy Mulder – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Oct 13 - Stephanie Jane – book review / giveaway
Oct 14 – Splashes of Joy – audiobook review / guest post / giveaway
Oct 17 – StoreyBook Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Oct 18 – Book Corner News and Reviews – book review / giveaway
Oct 18 - Sadie's Spotlight – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Oct 19 – Locks, Hooks and Books – book review / giveaway
Oct 19 - Gina Rae Mitchell - book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Oct 20 – Deborah-Zenha Adams – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Oct 21 – Faith and Books – audiobook review / author interview / giveaway
Oct 21 - Books for Books – audiobook review

Enter the Giveaway: