Today’s special guest author is Emilya Naymark. We’re talking a bit about her new thriller, Behind the Lie.
Bio:
Emilya Naymark is the author of the Sylvan crime novels Hide in Place and Behind the Lie.
Her short stories appear in A Stranger Comes to Town: edited by Michael Koryta, Secrets in the Water, After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, River River Journal, Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017, and 1+30: THE BEST OF MYSTORY.
Welcome, Emilya. Please tell us about your current release.
NYPD detective turned small town PI Laney Bird is in a fight to save lives—including her own—when an explosion of deadly violence at a block party exposes the crimes simmering underneath her neighborhood’s peaceful façade.
A transplant to the upstate New York hamlet of Sylvan, all Laney wants is a quiet life for herself and her son. But things rarely remain calm in Laney’s life.
When one neighbor, a Russian immigrant, is shot, and his Ukrainian wife disappears—along with Laney’s best friend—at her neighborhood summer block party, Laney will need all her skills as a PI to solve a mystery that reaches far beyond her small town.
What inspired you to write this book?
Behind the Lie is book 2 in my Sylvan crime series. While writing the first book, Hide in Place, I became deeply interested in one of my supporting characters—a type of woman who might be familiar to many. She is the perfect mother and wife, watches her weight, cooks deliciously for a multitudinous family, is always pleasant and polite. In other words, she’s an impossibility. Yet, so many women try to be her and die a little inside when they can’t attain this perfection.
I wanted to write about a woman like this, and how she might be nudged into a life of crime.
Once I came up with this concept, I got hooked, and my obsessive little heroine took me for a wild ride.
What exciting story are you working on next?
I have a third novel in a disarrayed state, and I’m hammering out several short stories.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I think when I received my first payment for a short story. I was so clueless, that when the publishing assistant reached out to me and asked for my social security number, I immediately contacted the editor who purchased my short story and told her there was a hoax being run on the writers. She reassured me it was legit, and I got a very nice paycheck.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I have a day job in IT. I do web design and development, as well as SEO, analytics, and usability. I love it because it’s both cerebral and creative, but in a very different way from writing.
I write in the evenings and during weekends. When the weather is nice, I write on my patio with fairy lights, incense, and a cup of tea. And when it’s not, I’m in a recliner with a blanket.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I read my horoscope before I begin to write! Sometimes I have to supplement that by listening to a song to get in the mood.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A cosmonaut. Because I grew up in the Soviet Union. Once I immigrated—an artist, which is what I became.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
I absolutely LOVE hearing from readers, even when they have questions about my characters. Lately, they’ve been asking me why my characters drink so much! I always learn something from these questions. So, keep ‘em coming!
Thank you for hosting me!
Links:
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Thank you so much for hosting me!