A true-adventure, coming-of-age tale set in the exhilarating first wave of Beatlemania …

It’s 1964, and 16-year-old Janice is struggling in an unhappy home in Cleveland when she falls suddenly, deeply in love … with the Beatles. They and their music stir in her an ecstatic new sense of freedom. With a friend, she hatches a bold plan to escape their dreary lives and run away to London to meet the Fab Four.

On their own for the first time—in “Beatleland”—they explore a new city, a new culture, and a new life, visiting the hippest clubs of Soho, meeting some nice English boys, hitchhiking to Liverpool …

But unbeknownst to them, the runaways have become international news—and a hunt is on.

Adventure and newfound freedom end abruptly when Janice is apprehended by London police and hauled home to Cleveland and an unforgiving juvenile justice system. Warned by responsible adults to put it all behind her, she doesn’t speak of her extraordinary adventure for more than fifty years.

In this memoir, she looks back with fresh insight on the heady early days of Beatlemania and an era in America when young women exercising some control over their lives presented a serious threat to adult society.

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About the Author

Janice Mitchell is a nationally recognized, award-winning investigator who has worked on high-media capital, criminal, and civil cases in New York City, including the Wendy’s Massacre and the Carnegie Deli Murders. She has also worked on international investigations for Hard Rock Café, Planet Hollywood, Warner Bros., Rolex, Gucci, Levi Strauss, and other trademarks. After uncovering new evidence in a criminal case that led to a wrongfully convicted man’s conviction being overturned, Hawkins-Mitchell was interviewed on Court TV by Rikki Klieman, who dubbed her “a modern-day Nancy Drew.”

After 9/11, Hawkins-Mitchell moved from New York City back to her hometown of Cleveland. She is a retired Federal investigator, a private investigator, and an adjunct professor in the Criminal Justice Department of Tiffin University. She has written about some of her investigations for a local quarterly magazine in a column called “From the Case Files of Jan Mitchell, Private Investigator.”

She has been a lover of the Beatles since age 15 and became internationally known as a Beatlemaniac when she ran away from home at age 16 to find the Beatles in London and Liverpool. The adventure led to rock and roll and the Beatles being banned from performing in Cleveland from 1964 to 1966. Cleveland is now the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Hawkins-Mitchell is the author of a forthcoming memoir about her adventure.

Hawkins-Mitchell received a bachelor’s degree from State University of New York and a master’s degree in criminal justice from Tiffin University. She currently lives in Bratenahl, Ohio, with her Yorkshire Terrier, Dashiell Hammett. A horse lover, she maintains an interest in the thoroughbred horse world and is a supporter of animal rescue organizations.