Boom Town by Nic Stone Summary: Missing Dancers, Dark Secrets

Last Updated: October 9, 2026

Table of Contents

Introduction

Inside Boom Town, Atlanta’s most upscale Black strip club, the neon runs green, the money moves fast, and the women on stage know exactly who owns the building.

Nic Stone’s Boom Town moves between that club, a tent along the Chattahoochee River, and the condo towers of Midtown to follow several women whose lives collide after a body surfaces in the water.

A new dancer who looks exactly like a woman who vanished a year earlier walks through the door, and the questions she raises pull at secrets the club’s owners have worked hard to bury.

The book is a crime thriller built around disappearance, survival, and who gets protected.

Who Will Enjoy This Book? Readers of gritty, non-linear crime fiction, psychological suspense, and noir with strong female leads will find the setting and structure familiar.

The novel is aimed at an adult audience and includes sexual violence, trafficking, and drug-related content.

TL;DR: What You Need to Know

The hook: A dancer named Damaris arrives at Boom Town looking identical to Felice “Lucky” Carothers, a headliner who disappeared a year earlier.
The structure: Four parts plus an epilogue, told through dated chapters, “BEFORE” flashbacks, and journal entries addressed to “Lady Luck.”
The antagonist: Thomas McIntyre, a wealthy executive and secret co-owner of the club building, operates in plain sight while targeting young Black women in the industry.
The themes: Sisterhood, survival, bodily autonomy, hidden identities, and the invisibility of missing Black women.
The outcome: The novel resolves its central mystery and ends with two women meeting face to face.

Characters In This Book

Character	Role
Micah “Lyriq” Johanssen	Former Boom Town headliner and current dance manager; a breast cancer survivor who undergoes a double mastectomy.
Felice “Lucky” Carothers	Micah’s former dance partner and secret romantic partner who vanishes a year before the present timeline.
Damaris “Charm” Wilburn	Nineteen-year-old former ballet dancer from North Carolina who auditions at Boom Town and rents a basement apartment from Dejuan.
Thomas Jefferson McIntyre	Wealthy corporate CEO, secret co-owner of the Boom Town building, and the novel’s primary antagonist.
LaBrettney “Brett” Johnson-McIntyre	Thomas’s wife and an educational consultant who runs her own business.
Dejuan Taylor	Sociology student and Damaris’s landlord who searches for her after she disappears.
Lady Josephine	Unhoused woman living in a tent along the Chattahoochee River who finds a body in the water.
Bones	General manager and co-owner of Boom Town.
Latasha “Tink” Jenkins	Damaris’s long-lost cousin who operates a safehouse network in Atlanta.
Dr. Kia Chamblee	Gynecological oncologist and former Boom Town customer who treats Micah’s cancer.
Felicity	Baby daughter of Felice and Thomas.
Todd Vickery	Damaris’s former youth pastor in North Carolina.

Boom Town Summary (Spoilers Ahead)

Spoiler warning: the following section covers the plot, including the ending.

Before: The Lovely Ladies

Micah “Lyriq” Johanssen and Felice “Lucky” Carothers headline Boom Town as the “Lovely Ladies.” Offstage, the two share a secret romantic relationship.

Micah is diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer and takes an extended leave for chemotherapy and a double mastectomy. During that absence, a wealthy executive named Thomas McIntyre begins frequenting the club and becomes fixated on Felice.

Thomas traps Felice in the private Jade VIP suite and sexually assaults her. Micah, resting hidden in the room’s curtained alcove while ill and in pain, witnesses the assault, stays silent, and later takes the cash Thomas leaves behind.

Felice becomes pregnant and contacts Thomas under the phone alias “Jeff” for job leads. Thomas connects her with his wife, Brett, and the two women become friends.

Thomas secretly moves the pregnant Felice into his Midtown condo and pays her expenses. When Felice gives birth to a girl, Brett devises a plan to protect mother and child.

Brett stages Felice’s disappearance, showing Thomas a cut box-braided ponytail as proof of elimination. She then hides Felice in a private loft she owns and adopts the baby, naming her Felicity.

Present: A Real Charmer

One year later, nineteen-year-old Damaris Wilburn arrives in Atlanta after fleeing an abusive relationship with her former youth pastor, Todd Vickery. She auditions at Boom Town, and Micah hires her immediately because she looks identical to the vanished Felice.

Damaris rents a basement apartment from Dejuan Taylor, a sociology student caring for his injured mother. While staying temporarily in Thomas’s condo, she finds Felice’s leatherbound journal in a locked antique china cabinet and begins writing entries addressed to “Lady Luck.”

When her cousin Tink is arrested in a police raid, Damaris needs bail money. Sent to retrieve a clipboard from Bones’s locked office, she sees a stack of uncounted cash and steals ten thousand dollars.

Damaris then disappears. Dejuan goes to Boom Town looking for her, which alerts Micah that the girl is gone.

Bones discovers the theft and demands Micah replace the money. While clearing Damaris’s locker, Micah finds Thomas McIntyre’s business card, identical to one she once found among Felice’s belongings.

Micah uncovers property deeds showing Thomas is secretly a co-owner of the Boom Town building. Meanwhile, Thomas finds Damaris, realizes she is connected to his past, and forces her to hide in his Midtown condo.

After Damaris mentions “Lucky,” Thomas drugs her coffee and drives her to his reinforced lake house on Lake Lanier. He locks her inside with cell signal scramblers.

On June 3, Thomas returns, drugs Damaris again, and smothers her with a pillow until she goes limp. Believing her dead, he puts her naked body in the trunk of a white Honda Accord.

Damaris survives. She wakes in the moving trunk, finds a spare key fob in her duffel bag, pops the latch, and escapes.

She retrieves cash Thomas kept in his closet, bails Tink out of jail, and reimburses Dejuan. Micah, meanwhile, confronts Thomas in the VIP room.

Using Felice’s old burner flip phone, Micah texts Thomas while posing as Felice’s spirit, baiting him into confessing. She lures him to a wooded area near the Chattahoochee River.

Thomas attacks her, and Micah strikes him in the head with a heavy rock, killing him. Lady Josephine hears the struggle and trades a clean Metallica t-shirt for Micah’s bloody clothing, which she burns.

Lady Josephine later sees Thomas’s corpse floating in the Chattahoochee River, which triggers a police investigation.

The Ending

Local news reports Thomas’s death as a drowning and homicide involving an A&R executive. In a mountain cabin in northern Georgia, Brett and Felice watch the broadcast with baby Felicity.

Damaris and Dejuan visit Brett’s home to return stolen keys and apologize. There, Damaris meets Felice in person and discovers they are biological relatives and exact doubles.

Damaris returns Felice’s original journal to her. Micah uses money returned by Dejuan and Tink to pay for breast reconstruction surgery.

In October, a fully recovered Micah finds Lady Josephine outside Boom Town. She gives her a fresh t-shirt, an envelope of cash, and a path to housing and meals through Tink’s organization.

Book Details at a Glance

Genre & Subgenre: Adult Fiction; Crime Thriller, Psychological Suspense, Noir
Core Narrative Tropes: Missing person investigation, dual timelines, epistolary journaling, secret identity and doppelgänger, corrupt wealthy predator, unexpected female alliance, vigilante justice
Tone & Atmosphere: Gritty, tense, sultry, raw, suspenseful
Primary Conflict: The disappearances of two dancers linked to a wealthy predator, and the efforts of the women around them to uncover the truth
Pacing Style: Fast-paced, non-linear, alternating between past and present chapters, journal entries, and news transcripts
Book Structure: Four parts plus an epilogue
ISBN: 978-1668056271 (ISBN-10: 1668056275)
Pages: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Boom Town by Nic Stone Summary: Missing Dancers, Dark Secrets

Introduction

TL;DR: What You Need to Know

Characters In This Book