Etiquette for Runaways
Book Feature - Etiquette for Runaways by Liza Nash Taylor
HBL Note: Being a debut author in the time of COVID is not easy (let’s be honest, being a debut author any time is not easy…but during COVID is especially challenging.) Because of this, I’m doing my best to highlight as many debut authors as I can. But this isn’t the only reason I chose to feature Etiquette of Runaways. The main character, May Marshall, is an aspiring costume designer. Those of you who know me best know that alone would get me to feature the book. But in addition to that, the novel is based on true events and inspired, in part, by Josephine Baker's debut in Le Revue Negre in Paris in 1925. Not to mention the author, Liza Nash Taylor, studied Fashion Design at FIT and Parsons in New York and worked as a designer for Ralph Lauren in the 1980s. So obviously in a non-COVID world, I’d be inviting Liza out for drinks so I can ask all about her life and career. Scroll down to read more about Etiquette for Runaways.
Book Feature - Etiquette for Runaways by Liza Nash Taylor
Book Feature - Etiquette for Runaways by Liza Nash Taylor
From the publisher:
1924. May Marshall is determined to spend the dog days of summer in self-imposed exile at her father’s farm in Keswick, Virginia. Following a naive dalliance that led to heartbreak and her expulsion from Mary Baldwin College, May returns home with a shameful secret only to find her father’s orchard is now the site of a lucrative moonshining enterprise. Despite warnings from the one man she trusts—her childhood friend Byrd—she joins her father’s illegal business. When authorities close in and her father, Henry, is arrested, May goes on the run.
May arrives in New York City, determined to reinvent herself as May Valentine and succeed on her own terms, following her mother’s footsteps as a costume designer. The Jazz Age city glitters with both opportunity and the darker temptations of cocaine and nightlife. From a start mending sheets at the famed Biltmore Hotel, May falls into a position designing costumes for a newly formed troupe of African American entertainers bound for Paris. Reveling in her good fortune, May will do anything for the chance to go abroad, and the lines between right and wrong begin to blur. When Byrd shows up in New York, intent upon taking May back home, she pushes him, and her past, away.
In Paris, May’s run of luck comes to a screeching halt, spiraling her into darkness as she unravels a painful secret about her past. May must make a choice: surrender to failure and addiction, or face the truth and make amends to those she has wronged. But first, she must find self-forgiveness before she can try to reclaim what her heart craves most.
Book Feature - Etiquette for Runaways by Liza Nash Taylor
