Lunch Ladies

A TREASURE OF BOOK CLUB FICTION. Awarded 2025 best female debut by Women in Publishing Summit, and Runner Up for Historical Fiction by the Indie Author Project, Lunch Ladies is a poignant, tender, and often hilarious view of the flawed and fascinating citizens of Hanley, Minnesota. The voices of Crystal, Coralene, Sheila, and the people of Hanley are intertwined in a novel that vividly captures time and place as one town prepares for the 1976 bicentennial parade.

For lovers of women's fiction with characters who linger long after the close of a book, Lunch Ladies immerses readers in lives that are joyful, troubled, and emotionally charged. Characters' dreams and heartbreaks, their histories, and their secrets, emerge with startling honesty and depth.

Lunch Ladies offers a spot-on depiction of the 1970s in small-town America. As the book opens, it's 1976 and there's a bicentennial parade in the works. Is this a task for the school district's lunch ladies? Their answer would be "no." And yet Crystal, Coralene, and Sheila find themselves crafting food stands to feed parade goers, come the Fourth of July. Crystal has other things to do: matching lonely travelers from the obituaries with kind souls still living. Coralene doesn't need this nonsense. She has a home and family, and a nephew she must save before it's too late. Is it already too late for Sheila? Her safe harbor is a booth at Denny's on Friday nights, with the only person who might help her move beyond her past.

Follow the lunch ladies' stories in the months leading up to the parade, and the impact of love, loss, regret, and redemption - which are as unique as the women themselves. Reflecting the dignity of women who are essential within their community, Lunch Ladies offers laugh-out-loud humor, and reach-for-a-tissue heartache, as the people of Hanley, Minnesota - living and dead - come together for the bicentennial celebration. Peppered with wit and insight, this lovely novel captures the absurdities of family and community life, while revealing the humanity of those who've been lost, or left behind.

"Down-to-earth characters center this story, and every reader will be able to relate to who these women are and the importance of their jobs. Sheila exudes sadness, attempting to cope with grief by falling into dependable routines; Coralene puts her energies into safeguarding her nephew; and Crystal beats isolation by matchmaking recently deceased individuals-gleaned from local obituaries-with the living townspeople. Whatever the emotions driving each woman, their very real navigation of the unexpected curveballs life throws resonates." The BookLife Prize