Hi Reader,

Havana Girls has its official pub date tomorrow (but you know about my quiet launch...) And though each of these books is chock-full of true mafia stories, I was never interested in writing about the men.

Everyone else already has...

I was more interested in the women whose lives they changed. I wanted to see them win in a way that felt as true as the rest of it. So Thelma and Kathleen are back. But this time, someone new is watching: Sam, daughter of a murdered journalist, digging into the same story that nearly got her mother killed — Elizabeth Short's murder.

Though the "Black Dahlia" case remains unsolved today, Short's death was connected to the human trafficking ring the mafia had in place that disappeared young women for the mob's pleasure. At the time? The phrase sex trafficking didn't exist, let alone human trafficking. But was public outrage a result of apathy or repression?

Havana Girls imagines answers, with a dual-timeline set in pre-Revolutionary Cuba and 1978 Miami. This allowed for an adult child of a series main character to be a player, and it was during a temporary thaw in relations between the U.S. and Cuba. More importantly, it precedes seminal studies that raised public awareness of human trafficking and changed lives.

👀 Next Tuesday, July 1, I’ll be talking about the true stories behind this book on WFLA's Daytime at noon, then celebrating the launch at Book+Bottle in St. Pete between 4PM and 6PM. Can you join us? I would love to meet you in person!

If you aren't local, no worries, I'll be sharing stories on my Insta all day long. Also, got a book club? 📖 I ZOOM! ​

And... you don’t have to wait to dive into the finale.👇 Read Havana Girls here:

Thanks for reading with me,

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