Havana Girls, A Novel: A Gripping Tale of Family Secrets and Cold War Intrigue Across Cuba and Florida

Dangerous secrets unite two women across generations in this immersive historical thriller.

Like the gripping intrigue of The Nightingale and the dual-timeline suspense of The Forgotten Garden, L.L. Kirchner's novel reveals a shadow world where determined women outmaneuver the mobsters and g-men who never saw them coming.

Havana, 1950. Thelma Miles has carved out a precarious independence running a Havana nightclub and raising her niece when she learns her reporter friend's car has gone over the cliffs off the Pacific Coast Highway. The woman had been on the verge of publishing a groundbreaking exposé. Only Thelma knows the deadly secrets she took with her—secrets powerful men would kill to keep buried.

Miami, 1978. Sam Fontana is still reeling from divorce when her father's death leads her to a mysterious envelope left by her mother—investigative reporter Imogene Fuchs—who died in a suspicious "accident" nearly thirty years earlier. What begins as a personal quest to understand her mother's past soon plunges Sam into a shadowy world where the glittering nightclubs of pre-revolution Cuba collide with the corrupt underbelly of 1970s Miami.

As their timelines merge, Sam and Thelma find themselves battling the same sinister forces—a lethal mix of organized crime, government conspiracy, and family betrayal. But can they trust each other? Should they?

With the stakes escalating, these two fiercely independent women must find a way to work together and expose the truth before the same powerful forces that silenced Imogene Fuchs return to finish the job.

Perfect for readers who love their heroines formidable and flawed.

© 2025 LILA Books (Audiobook): 9798349122200

Release date

Audiobook: 26 June 2025