Skinless: The Story of a Female Survivor (Charmay: New York Noir, #1)

STREET POETRY. BEAUTY. DANGER. SURVIVAL.

A thrilling crime novel. A female survivor. A story that refuses to stay quiet.

With the gritty New York underworld of The Sopranos and Ray Donovan, Skinless combines the tension of crime noir with the raw interior intimacy of literary fiction—something fiercely human.

At the turn of the millennium in New York City, sharp-witted, resourceful singer-songwriter Charmay is fighting to find her voice in the entertainment industry while living with the aftermath of teenage sexual abuse and homelessness.

Pulled into the city’s drug, crime, and sex world, she moves between exploitation, addiction, and fleeting refuge, seeking solace in Cindy—a persona shaped by survival and manipulation.

Caught in a web of money, ambition, and hunger for intimacy, Charmay clings to an increasingly violent marriage with a weed kingpin while navigating a Wall Street financier obsessed with Cindy and a music producer determined to cut her open to reach her honest voice.

Hustles on fire, Charmay blurs into Cindy. Beats. Bullets. Bedsheets. When her identities collide in a fever of flashbacks and betrayals, she is hurled into her most horrific reckoning yet.

FOR READERS OF:
In the Cut • The Basketball Diaries • Cherry • Kerouac’s The Subterraneans