Liza Nash Taylor

• Biography

  Liza Nash Taylor, the author of Etiquette for Runaways, was a 2018 Hawthornden International Fellow and received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. The 2016 winner of the San Miguel Writer’s Conference Fiction Prize, her work has appeared in Microchondria II, Gargoyle Magazine, and Deep South, amongst others. A native Virginian, she lives in Keswick with her husband and dogs.

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• Praise for Books

  “A poignant and heartwarming look at the Great Depression…This book will have the reader eagerly awaiting the next story from Taylor.” —Camille Di Maio, author of The Memory of Us

  “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, New York Times bestselling author of The Kitchen House and Glory over Everything

  “Liza Nash Taylor’s unforgettable novel captures two women both mired in and ahead of their time.” —Mary Kay Zuravleff, author of Man Alive!

  “Etiquette for Runaways is a complex, fascinating novel full of wonderful characters and more than a little heartbreak. May Marshall is a heroine to cheer for, a girl who dares all to confront her own demons and achieve her dreams in New York and Paris. The writing is glorious, the story is completely engaging. This is a must-read.” —Jeanne Mackin, author The Last Collection: A Novel of Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel

  “Meticulously researched with rich detail and strong female characters that you root for, I loved this story and know it will delight Taylor’s current fans and is sure to gain her many more.” —Jane Healey, author of The Beantown Girls

  “Liza Nash Taylor has written a dazzling book that explores the hidden dreams and shifting sorrows of an amazing character, May Marshall. Taylor weaves May’s travails, travels, and triumphs into a multiplicity of wonders: generational mystery, moonshine intrigue, mother-daughter heartache, Jazz Age glitter, and a love story that lingers long after the last page is turned. Etiquette for Runaways is a must-read, remarkable, and sumptuous debut.” —Connie May Fowler, author of Before Women Had Wings

  “Liza Nash Taylor is a writer of immense talent. She gives life not only to her characters, but to an entire era of American culture. In All Good Faith is a towering achievement.” —Clint McCown, author of ten books and twice winner of the American Fiction Prize

  “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, New York Times bestselling author of Girls of Summer

  “Unforgettable, fascinating, and gripping.” —Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author

  “Taylor’s sweeping coming-of-age story is utterly engrossing, exquisitely rendered, and deeply felt, with a rich cast of characters that linger in the heart and mind long after the final page is read. May Marshall is a heroine for any age—Jazz or otherwise—and her battles feel as intimate and immediately recognizable as our own.” —Stephanie Barron, author of That Churchill Woman

  “In All Good Faith, in a wonderfully rendered historical context, tracks a supremely recognizable human journey, transforming from the solitary to a story of two women earning tenaciousness and gratitude, and fending off the memory of heartbreak.” —Brian Leung, author of Ivy vs. Dogg

  “Exquisitely written, Liza Nash Taylor’s Etiquette for Runaways is a powerful tale of seeking absolution and pursuing dreams. It’s a magnificent, special novel that I didn’t want to end.” —Alan Hlad, international bestselling author of The Long Flight Home

  “Liza Nash Taylor’s second novel, In All Good Faith, tells a compelling, insightful story of two women whose lives intertwine unexpectedly during the Great Depression…Taylor paints an evocative portrait of life during the Depression, capturing the national hopelessness as Americans of all classes struggled to support themselves and their families…In All Good Faith is both a quiet, unflinching account of daily privations during the Depression and also a story of women fighting to have their ideas taken seriously. Ultimately, though, despite tragedy and sorrow, it is an uplifting story of friendship and hope.” —Shelf Awareness

  “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, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

  “Well-researched and deftly written historical fiction…The Bonus March is not often covered in historical fiction and Taylor brings to life the desperation of those veterans. Both May and Dorrit pop off the page and their dual narratives shine a light on the struggles women faced during the Great Depression. Highly recommended.” —Booklist (starred review)

  “An utterly absorbing tale of the trials of being a young woman of independent spirit during the glamorous but harsh years of post-WWI America, when the yearning for personal freedoms clashed with the heavy hand of prohibition, politics, and social mores. I could almost taste the smoky, moonshine-laced air of the speakeasies, and feel flashes of fringed tassels on my skin as I read. Beautiful and immersive writing!” —Natasha Boyd, USA Today bestselling author of The Indigo Girl

  “Filled with sweet surprises…This emotionally engaging novel is a timely reminder of Americans’ resilience in the face of adversity.” —Historical Novel Reviews

  “After women won the right to vote in 1920, the decade ahead stretched before them as a glittering path to new opportunity. It was the jazz age. But in her debut novel, Etiquette for Runways, Liza Nash Taylor reveals a darker side of those famously dazzling years as a woman alone fights to carve her niche in the world of fashion design. Ambition. Greed. Betrayal. Redemption. From rural Virginia to New York city to Paris, through beautiful prose and vivid historical details I felt the pain and the joy of one woman’s struggle to succeed against the odds. I did not want this book to end.” —Pamela Binnings Ewen, author of The Queen of Paris

  “I felt immersed in the rich tapestry of the novel…In All Good Faith is intriguing, at times heartbreaking, and it’s ultimately life-affirming. It starts off slowly but really heats up, and there is warmth and kindness in these pages. I was eager to stay with these people even when terrible things were happening around them. Liza Nash Taylor pulls off a difficult trick here—writing about love, hope, and human decency without falling into sentimentality or sappiness.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

  “With deeply compelling characters intertwined in a story steeped in history, international travel, jazz, secrets, passion, addiction, heartbreaks, temptations, and more, Liza Nash Taylor delivers a page-turning book that will captivate readers from beginning to end. This is an exceptional debut novel from a very capable storyteller who has perfected her craft. Hopefully, this is a first book of many in the historical fiction genre by this author.” —Dian Griesel, a.k.a. @SilverDisobedience, author of The Silver Disobedience Playbook

  “A touching tale of resilience and solidarity.” —Portland Book Review (5 stars)

  “[A] delightful beach read with an edge…Etiquette for Runaways marks a debut for Liza Nash Taylor that shows a remarkable ability to weave together multiple sources of inspiration into an entertaining whole…Readers will find themselves swept along with May as easily as if her adventures were all about diamonds and fur coats.” —Shelf Awareness

  “A veritable saga of an original novel by an author with a genuine flair for the kind of riveting, narrative-driven storytelling that holds the reader’s rapt attention from first page to last…Recommended.” —Midwest Book Review

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  • In All Good Faith

  • By Liza Nash Taylor

    Read by Sophie Amoss

  • Release Date: 8/10/21

  • Formats: Hardcover, Trade Paperback, Trade Print ARC

  A riveting new historical fiction novel, In All Good Faith continues the story of May Marshall, the captivating protagonist introduced in Taylor’s acclaimed 2020 debut, Etiquette for Runaways.

  In the summer of 1932, Americans are coming to realize that the financial crash of 1929 was only the beginning of hard times. May Marshall has returned from Paris to settle at her family home in rural Keswick, Virginia. She struggles to keep her family farm and market afloat through the economic downturn. May finds herself juggling her marriage with a tempting opportunity to revamp the family business to adapt to changing times.

  In a cold-water West End Boston tenement the fractured Sykes family scrapes by on an itinerant mechanic’s wages and home sewing. Having recently lost her mother, sixteen-year-old Dorrit Sykes questions the religious doctrine she was raised in. Dorrit is reclusive, held back by the anxiety attacks that have plagued her since childhood. Attempting to understand what limits her, she seeks inspiration in Nancy Drew mysteries and finds solace at the Boston Public Library, writing fairy stories for children. The library holds answers to both Dorrit’s exploration of faith and her quest to understand and manage her anxiety.

  When Dorrit accompanies her father to Washington, DC, in the summer of 1932 to camp out and march with twenty thousand veterans intending to petition President Hoover for early payment of war bonuses, she begins an odyssey that will both traumatize and strengthen her. Along the way she redefines her faith, learning both self-sufficiency and how to accept help.

  Dorrit’s and May’s lives intersect, and their fates will intertwine in ways that neither could have imagined or expected. Set against a backdrop of true historical events, In All Good Faith tells a story of two women’s unlikely success during the Great Depression.

  • In All Good Faith

  • By Liza Nash Taylor

    Read by Sophie Amoss

  • Release Date: 8/10/21

  • Formats: Hardcover, Trade Paperback, Trade Print ARC

  Learn More
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  • Etiquette for Runaways

  • By Liza Nash Taylor

    Read by Elizabeth Evans

  • Release Date: 8/18/20

  • Formats: Trade Paperback, Hardcover, Trade Print ARC

  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 La Revue Nègre

  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.

  • Etiquette for Runaways

  • By Liza Nash Taylor

    Read by Elizabeth Evans

  • Release Date: 2/17/20

  • Formats: Trade Paperback, Hardcover, Trade Print ARC

  Learn More

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