L. L. Kirchner and Anca L. Szilágyi will be at the Book Cellar to celebrate Kirchner's new book, Florida Girls!
ABOUT THE BOOK
A war bond tour full of eager young women. A sunny town with a seedy underbelly. When the Florida Girls start shooting back, will anyone survive?
St. Petersburg, Florida, 1944. Thelma Miles can’t stand injustice. Broke and orphaned near the close of WWII, the 18-year-old joins a troupe of touring swimsuit models, only to find she's stepped into the mafia's lair.
Kathleen Young has a one-track mind, often missing the obvious. Determined to get her emporium out of debt and take her sick husband to California’s healing climate, organizing the tour is the first in a series of increasingly drastic measures.
Fans of the immersive historical worlds of Beatriz Williams, the complex female characters of Kate Quinn, and the vivid narratives of Elizabeth Gilbert, will devour this story of resilience, self-discovery, and grit. Florida Girls is the first book in the series The Queenpin Chronicles, which follows Thelma's journey as rapid changes are overtaking the country. Driven to succeed, the women of The Queenpin Chronicles discover strength and brutality and love they didn’t know they were capable of.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.L. Kirchner is an award-winning screenwriter and Pushcart-nominated memoirist whose experiences as an expat in Asia inspired two memoirs. An NPR interviewer described her work as "Eat, Pray, Love, but funny." Drawing on her eclectic background as a religion editor, dating columnist, and bridal editor, Kirchner's writing explores feminist narratives and has appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, and The Rumpus, among numerous other outlets. Her debut novel, Florida Girls, is the first book in The Queenpin Chronicles series. Read more at IllBehavedWomen.com or LLKirchner.com.
CONVERSATION PARTNER
Anca L. Szilágyi is the author of Daughters of the Air, which Shelf Awareness called “a striking debut from a writer to watch” and Dreams Under Glass, which Buzzfeed Books called “a novel for our modern times.” Her writing appears in Orion Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Newsweek, among other publications. She is the recipient of awards from Vermont Studio Center, Artist Trust, 4Culture, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), among others. Originally from Brooklyn, she has lived in Montreal, Seattle, and now Chicago.