The Night She Won Miss America

By Michael Callahan

From the author of Searching For Grace Kelly, a 1950 lovestruck beauty queen finds herself in dangerous company—and on the run.

Betty Jane Welch reluctantly enters the Miss Delaware contest only to make her mother happy, but to her surprise, she’s the judges’ top choice. Just like that, she’s catapulted into the big time: the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City. 

Luckily, her pageant-approved escort for the week is the dashing but mercurial Griffin McAllister, and she falls for him hard. But when the spirited Betty unexpectedly wins the crown and sash, she finds she may lose what she wants most: Griff’s love. To stay together, she impulsively agrees to run away with him. And then the chase is on: from the shadowy streets of Manhattan to a cliffside mansion in Newport, as the cops, a cunning socialite, and a scrappy young reporter secretly in love with the beauty queen threaten to unravel everything—and expose Griff’s darkest secret. 

“Inspired by a true story, The Night She Won Miss America is part love story, part true-crime saga, written with spirit and panache.”—Vanity Fair

 “Expect glamour, grit, and some truly unpredictable twists and turns.”—Town & Country

 “A cinematic tale in the tradition of a Douglas Sirk movie, and the perfect book to pack away in your beach bag.”—Adweek

 “Delightful…Serves up breathless romance and a heart-pounding plot.”—People 

 “A heady whirl of gowns, gloves, chaperones, lipstick, escorts, cocktails, and romance. This engaging tale paints an evocative picture of a bygone era and the post-war ideal of young American womanhood.”—Helen Bryan, author of the international bestseller War Brides

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9780544810013

Michael Callahan

Michael Callahan is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a former deputy editor at both Town & Country and Marie Claire. His articles have been published in more than two dozen national magazines, including Men's Health, Real Simple, Vibe, and Good Housekeeping. Searching for Grace Kelly was his first novel. He lives in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Reviews for The Night She Won Miss America

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting novel about a romance that blooms around the Miss America pageant in the 1950s and results in the winning lady disappearing on the night of her victory. Overall, this was a good book, but I did struggle to get into the story for a bit (perhaps because beauty pageants really aren't my thing?), and I felt Griff's mental illness deserved more development and explanation.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Reading The Night She Won Miss America by Michael Callahan was very much like reading two books. The first half of the story was about the actual Miss America contest in the 1950s and it was highly entertaining and interesting. Unfortunately the second half of the book was far-fetched, silly and had the main character dissolve from a sensible and smart young lady into a ridiculous mess of girly indecisiveness. And, even worse to my way of thinking, expected the readers to accept this badly plotted story-line. I found out at the back of the book that part of the story was based on an actual occurrence in a past Miss America event. A contestant did indeed fall hard for her assigned escort, he in turn did state that he would not be the boyfriend of a Miss America, and she did win. When he broke off with her immediately, she was heartbroken enough to try to renounce her title. This and the actual contest itself, was the basis for the interesting first half of the story. The author then stretched the story out and tried to amp up the suspense which ended in the second half of the book becoming an over-done “on-the-run” story that was just foolish.This is my first book by this author and I have at least one more on my shelves so I will be giving him another try at some point. For this book, I would have given the first half of the story 4 stars and the second half 2, so will settle on 3 stars for the combined total.