Novel about 1930s Undercover Chicago Girl Wins Historical Fiction Award

Winner of the 2016-2017 Reader Views Historical Fiction Award, Michelle Cox's new novel, "A Girl Like You," brings readers to 1930s Chicago and makes them fall in love with Henrietta, a dance hall girl working undercover to solve a murder.
By: Michelle Cox
 
 
A Girl Like You
A Girl Like You
CHICAGO - April 10, 2017 - PRLog -- Few debut novels receive the accolades and awards received by Michelle Cox's new historical fiction/suspense novel "A Girl Like You" (ISBN 9781631520167, She Writes Press, 2016).

"A Girl Like You" is the first novel in Michelle Cox's new "Henrietta and Inspector Howard" series. It has also just won first place for historical fiction in the Reader Views 2016-2017 Literary Awards, and it's not hard to see why.

The story begins when Henrietta von Harmon, a teenage girl, takes a job as a taxi dancer, a girl whom men pay to dance with. Henrietta is not a loose girl by any means, but her family needs the money since it's the height of the Great Depression, and after her father was laid off from his job, he committed suicide, leaving her mother to support the family. As the oldest child, Henrietta wants to do everything she can to help out, even if it means taking a job her mother will not approve of.

The last thing Henrietta expects is to show up to work at the dance hall one day to find that her boss, Mama Leone, has been murdered. Even less does she expect to have the handsome Inspector Howard ask her to work undercover as an usherette at a theater where he suspects some girls have been abducted if not murdered—a situation he thinks may be connected to Mama Leone's murder. Henrietta ultimately agrees and finds herself in more danger than she ever could have imagined.

For a debut novel, "A Girl Like You" is getting a lot of recognition. Besides winning the Best Historical Fiction Award from Reader Views, it was a Fiction Romance Finalist in the 2016 USA Best Book Awards, winner in the Midwest Regional Fiction category in the 2016 Beverly Hills Book Awards, a Romance Finalist in the 2016 Next Generation Indies, and a Finalist in the 2016 Chanticleer's Mystery and Mayhem Awards.

Tyler R. Tichelaar, winner of the 2009 Reader Views Best Historical Fiction award for his novel "Narrow Lives" and the award sponsor since 2010, says of "A Girl Like You," "I love this novel because it shows a young woman who isn't afraid of hard work or even going to extremes to support her family while still maintaining her integrity. It is also an intriguing rendering of 1930s Chicago. Henrietta might well be one of our great-grandmothers during the Great Depression who reminds us what a little spunk and a good heart can do to help you get through tough times and find happiness in this world. I know Michelle Cox is going to find many fans for this novel and the sequels to come."

Reader Views reviews more than 2,000 books per year by self-published and small press authors. Its Annual Literary Awards recognize the very best of these up-and-coming authors. "A Girl Like You" joins a series of previous historical fiction winners on such diverse topics as eighteenth century pirates and opera composers, Japanese-Americans during World War II, soldiers in the Vietnam and Civil Wars, and the exploration of the Louisiana territory.

About the Author

Michelle Cox has a B.A. in English literature from Mundelein College in Chicago. Her heart lies in the eighteenth century with Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy and in the crooked streets of Little Dorrit's London, but she writes of a time closer to the World Wars when all was not yet lost and the last roses of summer were first coming into bloom. She lives with her husband and children in the Chicago suburbs. Her second novel, "A Ring of Truth," second in the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series, will be released in April.

"A Girl Like You" (ISBN 9781631520167, She Writes Press, 2016) can be purchased through local and online bookstores. For more information, visit http://www.MichelleCoxAuthor.com. Publicity contact: http://www.ReaderViews.com. Review copies available upon request.

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