Overview
Memoir meets Thriller: Set against a 1969 psychedelic love-in backdrop, The Girl From Long Guyland is shared through the eyes of Laila Levin when decades later, an unsolved murder pulls her reluctantly into her past.
Laila enjoys a successful marriage and a thriving career in Austin, Texas. When her company announces a layoff, she is caught between an unscrupulous CEO and her promiscuous boss. Then news of her college roommate’s suicide stirs up an old love triangle and dark secret from her past.
Suddenly, it’s 1969 again and Laila’s left her sheltered Long Island home for college in Connecticut. She’s tempted by the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll that rule her generation and gets swept up in a deceptive love triangle and initiated into an unethical hippie family leading to tragedy.
Laila must now juggle the demands of her perplexed husband, her successful career, and her baby boomer past, endangering her survival and challenging her conscience. She learns that the lines between right and wrong are often blurred, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself.
EDITORIAL REVIEWS:
“In Reznik’s debut novel, a woman confronts long-buried secrets when an old college friend commits suicide. . . . While effective as a page-turner, the novel also tells a timeless, universal tale of a woman’s journey toward self-acceptance. An exciting tale of past crimes and dangerous friendships.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Laila Levin is an I.T. executive in Austin, TX, with a happy marriage and a successful career. But her life is about to get much more complicated. Laila is forced to confront a dark part of her past that she never shared with her husband. . . . Readers, particularly those who remember the late 1960's, will find this an entertaining read.”
—Publishers Weekly
★★★★★ “I love a mystery and I love stories about the late 60's/early 70's and this book has both! Really fun read."
—Barbara Gaines, Executive Producer, The Late Show with David Letterman
★★★★★ “GONE GIRL in the sixties.” —Amazon Reviewer
★★★★★ “It's one of those books that takes two different time periods in a women's life and as the story unfolds weaves them together gradually in a very clever way. Reznik uses a great technique going back and forth constantly building suspense along the way. … As someone who is selective about what I read, this book didn't disappoint. Great mystery and suspense. Add a star if you were a " flower child " from the sixties. — Les Goodstein, Former President and COO, New York Daily News
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940152433036 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Lara Reznik |
| Publication date: | 10/26/2015 |
| Sold by: | Smashwords |
| Format: | eBook |
| Sales rank: | 983,038 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Lara Reznik, a native New Yorker, escaped to New Mexico in the 1970s in a Karmann Ghia that she jump-started cross-country. As an English major at the University of New Mexico, Lara studied under esteemed authors Rudolfo Anaya and the late Tony Hillerman. She also attended a summer program at the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop.
Ambidextrous from birth, Lara preferred her right-brained creative side, but discovered she could make a better living with her left-brain skills, so entered the I.T. field in 1985.
Lara published her first novel, The Girl From Long Guyland, a psychological thriller with an alternating storyline set in 1970 and 2012, in November 2012. Guyland has over 125,000 digital downloads and has achieved a rank of number 1 in thrillers and women’s fiction during 5 Amazon promotions.
Following the breakout success of Guyland, Lara retired from her day job to write full time. The M&M Boys, a coming-of-age baseball story set in New York in 1961, was published in May, 2015. The novel has been ranked #1 in historical fiction and coming-of-age genres during Amazon promotions.
Lara's third novel, Bagels & Salsa, a romantic/suspense novel, and prequel/sequel to The Girl From Long Guyland, was published in January, 2018. The story came about after numerous reviewers of The Girl From Long Guyland wanted to know more about Laila, the Jewish heroine of Guyland, and her Hispanic husband Eduardo. Bagels & Salsa recently was a finalist in the Texas Writer's League novel contest.
Currently, Lara is working on a psychological suspense novel, The In-laws, the Ex-laws & the Outlaws.
In addition to her novels, Lara has written and optioned three screenplays that have garnered semifinalist and finalist wins in the Austin Heart of Film, Southwest Writers, TV Writer, Chesterfield and Writer's Digest contests.