Book Crazy: Book Blitz & Giveaway: The Canary Club [The Canary Club 01] by Sherry D. Ficklin!

Excerpt!

Dutch slides through the beaded curtain, Masie on his arm. She’s traded her dress for flowing grey pants and a long white blouse. She’s still wearing the pearls, but her hair is covered by a tan cloche hat with a little yellow bird embroidered on the side.

“Ah, I’m afraid I need to ask you a favor, Benny,” Dutch says, releasing Masie. She rounds the bar and helps herself to s shot of whiskey. “I’m going to have to head out of town for a few days. JD, I’m leaving you in charge of the club, but I’ve decided to take Tony with me.”

Masie sets her glass on the bar. “Tony? Why on earth would you need to take my guard?”

“I’m meeting with the DelVecchio family. Tony used to work for them before the war. Plus, he knows his way around Chicago. But don’t worry, I’m not gonna leave you unprotected. Not when someone just tried to put a hit on me.”

That’s when he turns to me. “Benny, you can look after Masie for a few days, right? Just while she’s out and about. We have security at the penthouse. She just needs someone to stick close when she’s outta the nest.”

“Of course, sir. I need to get some new suits tomorrow. What time will you need me, Miss Masie?” I ask.

She throws back another shot. “As it happens, I have some shopping to do tomorrow as well. Why don’t you come pick me up around two? That way, we can go together?”

“I can certainly do that,” I say, still a bit unsteady with the entire situation.

“Good man.” Dutch pulls me away, walking me across the now-empty floor toward the back room as the barmen follow us, cash bags in hand. He slips me five hundred dollars. “This should cover any,” he waves his hand, “extraneous expenses you might incur while minding my daughter. I don’t need to tell you that I’m trusting you with my most prized possession, do I?”

The tilt in his voice makes his meaning crystal clear. If I let him down in this, if anything happens to his daughter on my watch, I won’t have to be worried about getting shot again. I have no doubt he’d kill me with his own hands, so I nod as we turn into his private office. It’s a formal desk with a stack of ledgers and a candlestick phone on one side, a newspaper in the middle, and a cigar box on the other corner.

“Though I should mention, she can be a bit of a handful. I brought Tony in because he was Special Ops back in the war. He’s the only guard she’s never given the slip or tricked into doing…well, whatever.”

“I’ll watch her like she was my own sister, sir.”

Seemingly pleased by my response, he smiles. “Glad to hear it. I doubt there will be any trouble, though. Everyone loves Masie, you see.” Releasing me, he crosses the office to a tall metal filing cabinet. I think he’s going to open it, but he pushes it aside, revealing a safe built into the wall. I deliberately turn my back as he spins the dial and cracks it open. I turn back around to see the barmen hand him the bags and the night’s receipts, which he slips inside and closes with a click.

I follow the three of them out. That’s when I see Tony for the first time. He’s tall and sturdy with short grey hair and a well-groomed beard. He glances me over in a way that makes a shiver roll up my spine before opening the car door for Masie and Dutch to slip into. Once they’re inside, I take the moment to offer him a handshake.

“I’m Benny, the new security guy,” I say, offering him a hand. He looks at it distastefully and turns his back on me, sliding into the front passenger seat. As soon as his door closes, the car rolls away into the dawn.

“Don’t worry about Tony,” JD says, patting me on the back once. June stands beside him on wobbly legs, one arm draped across his. “It’s been his life’s dream to take lead for Dutch, but he never had the chance. He used to work for one of the Chicago families, you see. Until one of them took a bullet to the head on his watch, that is. That’s why he came out here. He wanted to be Dutch’s guard, but with something like that on your record, it’s hard to be trusted. For a fella like that, being stuck babysitting the boss’s daughter is quite a demotion.”

“Watching after Masie can’t possibly be that bad,” I say, earning me a sympathetic grin.

“Never underestimate the fairer sex’s ability to cause a ruckus, Benny.”

His own car rolls up to the curb, and he helps June into it before sliding in himself. “You need a ride?” he asks out the window.

I’m about to say yes when I see Dickey sitting on the curb across the street, sucking on a Lucky. “Nah, I’m jake. Thanks anyway. See you tomorrow.”

I cross the road to my friend who, despite the pained grin on his face, turns his chin toward the sun. “If I didn’t know better, I’d call you the luckiest bastard on the planet, Benny.”

I offer him a hand up, which he accepts. “Yeah, all I had to do was get shot and almost die.”

He shrugs, tossing the butt on the ground and stomping it with the toe of his shoe. “You just remember who made the introductions there, Mr. Big Shot.”

“I doubt you’ll let me forget,” I joke, slapping him on the back. “What happened to the dames you were with earlier? I expected to find you necking in a back booth.”

Now he grins. “What, those baby vamps? Nah, chunks of lead compared to that canary I saw you beating your gums at.”

“She’s Dutch’s daughter,” I say, shaking my head as we walk toward the trolley stop. “Might as well have hands off tattooed across her forehead.”

“Man might risk it for a dame like that,” Dickey says, shooting me a warning scowl. “Don’t go getting crushed now. Them fellas, they may walk like us and talk like us, but make no mistake, Benny, we ain’t nothin’ like them.”

“Bad Luck” Benny is a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Recently released from jail, he has vowed to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. But he also needs to care for his ailing sister and the rest of his struggling family, and he’ll do anything to make that happen—even if it means taking a position with a notorious crime boss. He soon finds himself in over his head—and worse still—falling for the one dame on earth he should be staying away from.

Masie is the daughter of a wealthy gangster with the voice of an angel and gun smoke in her veins. Strong-willed but trapped in a life she never wanted, she dreams of flying free from the politics and manipulation of her father. A pawn in her family’s fight for control of the city, and with a killer hot on her heels, she turns to the one person who just might be able to spring her from her gilded cage. But Masie is no angel, and her own dark secrets may come back to burn them both.

Two worlds collide in this compelling story of star-crossed lovers in gritty prohibition-era New York.

Perfect for fans of Beatriz Williams’ A CERTAIN AGE or Libba Bray’s THE DIVINERS, THE CANARY CLUB by Sherry D. Ficklin will entice Historical Romance fans of all ages. This Gatsby-era tale filled with dazzling speakeasies, vicious shoot-outs, gritty gangsters, and iridescent ingenues has also been compared to the television series Z: THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING and BOARDWALK EMPIRE.

Check it out on Goodreads!

Buy your copy from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo or iBooks

Author bio:

Sherry is the author of over a dozen novels for teens and young adults including the best selling Stolen Empire series. She can often be found browsing her local bookstore with a large white hot chocolate in one hand and a towering stack of books in the other. That is, unless she's on deadline at which time she, like the Loch Ness monster, is only seen in blurry photographs.

Sherry also writes contemporary romance under the pen name SJ Noble. You can find her at her official website, www.sherryficklin.com, or stalk her on her Facebook page www.facebook.com/sherry.ficklin.