Order copies of ETIQUETTE FOR RUNAWAYS or IN ALL GOOD FAITH here:

Both titles from Blackstone Publishing. Available now, wherever you buy books.

A sweeping Jazz Age tale of regret, ambition,
and redemption inspired by true events, including the Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935 and Josephine Baker’s 1925 Paris debut in Le Revue Nègre.

LISTED IN PARADE MAGAZINE’S 30 BEST BEACH READS OF 2020

One of Frolic’s 20 Best Books of Summer 2020.

Fifty Plus Today’s August Book Pick

To see the August 20 Zoom Book Launch Event with Francine Mathews, Click HERE.

To hear the WCBS New York Author Talks interview with Lisa Tschernokowitsch, click HERE.

Praise for ETIQUETTE FOR RUNAWAYS:

“Fasten your seatbelts, for Etiquette for Runaways is an effervescent and completely unpredictable ride from Virginia to New York to Paris with brave and complicated May Marshall. Trust me, this is one fabulous book that will keep you turning pages.”—Nancy Thayer, best-selling author of Girls of Summer

“This is a great coming of age novel about life lessons, loyalty, and forgiveness in a fast-spinning, glittering world full of temptation and opportunity. Beautifully done!”— Kathleen Grissom, bestselling author of THE KITCHEN HOUSE and GLORY OVER EVERYTHING

“Assured, exotic, heart wrenching, Liza Nash Taylor’s ETIQUETTE FOR RUNAWAYS is that rare debut novel that combines a story that sweeps from continent to continent and age to age without sacrificing the deeply personal story of one tormented woman. Taylor’s May Marshall is the new woman of a previous century, a jazz dolly with a scarred past and a hungry heart who wants forgiveness from the only one who cannot give it — herself.” —Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times #1 bestselling author of THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN

ABOUT THE STORY

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.

IN ALL GOOD FAITH, (BLACKSTONE PUBLISHING, 2021)

“In All Good Faith is a powerful novel infused with the perseverance and power of its women. Expertly exploring a little known piece of history, Liza Nash Taylor welcomes us into the lives of her characters in a dazzling display of prose and heart. While revealing the profound power of story and fairy tales to help navigate our lives, Taylor introduces us to two women whose lives will collide in ways they could never expect. Unforgettable, fascinating and gripping, In All Good Faith is do not miss historical fiction.”

—Patti Callahan Henry, NYT bestselling author of Surviving Savannah and Becoming Mrs. Lewis.

IN ALL GOOD FAITH : DEEP SOUTH MAGAZINE’S SUMMER READING LIST, 2021

25 BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2021 BY FROLIC MEDIA

Below is an interview about IN ALL GOOD FAITH with Jackie Claridge of the Global Girls Online Book Club.

This novel is what’s called in the publishing industry a “stand-alone sequel,” which means that you could read it without having read my first book and it should make sense. May is a central character once again and some of the characters from ETIQUETTE FOR RUNAWAYS make another appearance. As before, the novel is partially set in Virginia, at my home, Keswick Farm. The plot is a dual narrative,telling parallel stories of questioning faith in times of adversity and two women’s resourcefulness and unlikely success during the Great Depression.

Image below: a Virginia General store, 1938, and Farm auction catalog, and stamp, Library of Congress. Antique candy box, Ebay.

The plot focuses on events of the summer of 1932. In the spring of that year, a grassroots uprising began in Oregon when eight American veterans of World War I started a cross-country protest march to petition Herbert Hoover to pay their war bonuses early (they were slated to be paid in 1945). This self-proclaimed “Bonus Expeditionary Force” hitchhiked, walked, and rode the rails across the country and by the time the men reached Washington D.C. they had picked up support and 17,000 veterans had assembled from all across the country to join the March, many with families in tow. They camped out along the rivers and around the Capitol, in rough shacks and tents and sometimes in partially demolished office buildings. In a terrific publicity fail for Herbert, the term “Hooverville” was coined for the encampments that populated D.C. and continued to spring up in cities across the country throughout the Depression. After the Bonus Bill was defeated in late July, President Hoover ordered General Douglas MacArthur to lead troops in tear gassing and burning the bonus marchers out of the camps.

Early notice of IN ALL GOOD FAITH:

In 2017, this manuscript was named a semi-finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition (Novel-in-progress category), was a finalist in the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, and it won second place in the Novel Excerpt category of the Seven Hills Literary Contest. An excerpt was published in the Seven Hills Review. In 2019, it was a semi-finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition in the novel category.