Itâs 1939. Janeâs got five days at sea to solve the murder of a Wimbledon championâs coach and submit a gossip column that tells the truth. If not the facts...
On the brink of World War II, Jane Benjamin wants to have it all. By day she hustles as a scruffy, tomboy cub reporter. By night she secretly struggles to raise her toddler sister, Elsie, and protect her from their mother. But Janeâs got a plan: sheâll become the San Francisco Prospectâs first gossip columnist and make enough money to care for Elsie.
Jane finagles her way to the womenâs championship at Wimbledon, starring her hometownâs tennis phenom and cover girl Tommie OâRourke. She plans to write her first column there. But then she witnesses Edith âCoachâ Carlson, Tommieâs closest companion, drop dead in the stands of apparent heart attack, and her plan is thrown off track.
While sailing home on the RMS Queen Mary, Jane veers between competing instincts: Should she write a social bombshell column, personally damaging her new friend Tommieâs persona and career? Or should she work to uncover the truth of Coachâs death, which she now knows was a murder, and its connection to a larger conspiracy involving US participation in the coming war?
Putting away her menswear and donning first-class ballgowns, Jane discovers what upper-class status hides, protects, and destroys. Ultimatelyâlike nations around the globe in 1939âshe must choose what sheâll give up in order to do whatâs right.