by Maggie Moor (Author)

"A deeply moving, deliciously weighty work of fiction... Those who surrender to the flow will be rewarded."

- KIRKUS REVIEWS

1999 NYC, Lower East Side.

A singer masks her "skinless" vulnerability behind a glittering alter ego to navigate the margins of street life-

until the persona begins to destroy her.

Skinless is a brutally raw thriller exploring art, identity, and the shadows we carry. Moves with the tension of crime noir and the raw interior intimacy of literary fiction-

a subversion of the femme fatale into something raw, intimate, and fiercely human.

STREET POETRY. BEAUTY. DANGER. SURVIVAL.

Charmay, a survivor of childhood abuse and teenage homelessness, struggles to hold onto herself while trying to make it as a singer. She drinks to numb and sings to soothe the raw trauma she calls "skinless," slipping into Cindy-the smooth persona she's built on manipulation to attract wealth and finesse the dangerous margins of street life.

In a world chasing quick fixes and family rejection, Charmay is pulled into a web of money, ambition, and hunger for intimacy-clinging to an increasingly violent marriage with a weed kingpin, a Wall Street financier obsessed with Cindy, and a music producer who cuts her open to get to her honest voice. Hustles on fire, Charmay blurs to Cindy. Beats. Bullets. Bedsheets. When her identities collide in a fever of flashbacks and betrayals, she is hurled into surviving the most horrific reckoning yet.

FOR READERS OF:

In the Cut - The Basketball Diaries - Cherry - Kerouac

Multi-Media Experience:

• SERIES: Book 1 of the Charmay: New York Noir series. Standalone. Book 2 coming soon.
• SECOND EDITION: Writer's Edit, Expanded & Revised, November 2025.
• COMPANION ALBUM: Skinless: Songs from the Book. Jazz-noir and downtempo written and performed inside the novel. Recordings featuring Kenny Rampton (Wynton Marsalis) and Eddie Ojeda (Twisted Sister).
• SUBSTACK SERIES: Explore Skinless: Inside the Story. 9 Episodes + 2 on Next Chapter.

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR SKINLESS:

"A must-read... Moor tells Charmay's experiences with abuse and betrayal in stark, unsentimental prose." - IndieReader

"Uncomfortable, occasionally overwhelming, and undeniably powerful... a portrait of survival that doesn't sanitize the mess." - BookLife by Publishers Weekly

"An eloquent crime novel-street poetry renders the city in lush, sensual language and a heroine's raw will to live." - Foreword Reviews

Psychological Crime Noir-breathes like jazz.

SKINLESS is an x-ray of the things we hide and the art that speaks through us-inside the mind of a woman on the margins of society-a raw look at how we adapt to survive. Stay with me, growing. - MM

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