Gina Rae Mitchell

Copy Boy by Shelley Blanton-Stroud | Review

Today is my stop on the book blog tour for Copy Boy by Shelley Blanton-Stroud sponsored by iRead Book Tours. Many thanks to everyone for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.

Book Description:

Jane’s a very brave boy. And a very difficult girl. She’ll become a remarkable woman, an icon of her century, but that’s a long way off.

Not my fault, she thinks, dropping a bloody crowbar in the irrigation ditch after Daddy. She steals Momma’s Ford and escapes to Depression-era San Francisco, where she fakes her way into work as a newspaper copy boy.

Everything’s looking up. She’s climbing the ladder at the paper, winning validation, skill, and connections with the artists and thinkers of her day. But then Daddy reappears on the paper’s front page, his arm around a girl who’s just been beaten into a coma one block from Jane’s newspaper―hit in the head with a crowbar. Jane’s got to find Daddy before he finds her and before everyone else finds her out. She’s got to protect her invented identity.

This is what she thinks she wants.
It’s definitely what her dead brother wants.

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My Thoughts:

Copy Boy is a fascinating historical fiction story set during the dust bowl days in Oklahoma and California.

I found the story entertaining and a quick read. The characters were believable and the storyline intriguing.

Jane is one of those children forced to grow up way too soon. It’s fallen on her shoulders to keep family secrets and she’s desperately trying to hold her family together no matter the cost to her.

After an unfortunate series of events, she is thrust out on her own and makes her way to San Francisco. Jobs are hard to find for everyone, but especially for females. For the first time in her life, having a tall, gangly, boyish figure works to her advantage as she transforms herself into Bennie Hopper, copy boy. She struggles to make it as a journalist and avoid her past catching up with her.

The story has undertones of LGBTQ, feminism, dysfunctional families, and other current topics intertwined with mystery, murder, and suspense.

I feel this book will appeal to a wide range of readers including noir, mystery, thriller, and suspense lovers.

I received an advance copy of the book for review purposes.

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