The Chanticleer Girls - Tapa blanda

Set on Nantucket Island in the summer of 1968 ten Chanticleer girls serve ten cool and handsome Canadian men at the famous restaurant in 'Sconset. Twenty-year-old Amp arrives at the Chanticleer without experience as a waitress. On the ferry to Nantucket Amp meets Chloe who is French/American, funny and unemployed. Their immediate liking each other binds them in a future whirlwind of friendship, intimacy, betrayal, gritty fun, and poignant sadness. When the Canadians finish their dinners, two of the men, Ian and JJ, ask Chloe and Amp to join them in town for a drink. From the first night at the Opera House to the end of the summer, Amp and Chloe spin in their new feelings awakened by the Canadians. Flirtations, parties, Cameo cigarettes, booze, and passion cover the girls like suntan lotion. When Amp and Chloe sit down in the lounge with the other Chanticleer Girls, they find no one has any better idea about men than they do. What Amp doesn't realize is the pain she will experience by Labor Day weekend. Chloe loses herself in the throes of self-destruction and Amp learns to face her own demons head-on. By the end of the summer Amp's own boundaries have expanded. Without knowing exactly how, Amp becomes a young woman who has outgrown the nickname 'Chanticleer Girl' forever.

Mary Keating first saw the island of Nantucket when she was fifteen years old. She loves Nantucket and continues to return for visits. When her father died she wrote and self-published a short memoir, Into My Father's Room. She currently lives in northwestern Pennsylvania while enjoying dual Irish citizenship. This is her first novel.