Emilya Naymark
Author Interview - Emilya Naymark
Author of Behind the Lie
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.
As people closest to Laney fall under suspicion, the local authorities, and her colleagues, question her own complicity. And then there’s fifteen-year-old Alfie, her complicated, enigmatic son, obviously hiding something. Even as Laney struggles to bury evidence of her boy’s involvement, his cagey behavior rings every maternal alarm.
Laney’s personal life unravels as she’s drawn into her friend’s dark secrets, and she must ask herself: how far would a wife and mother go to keep her family from ruin? One woman’s desperation is another’s downfall, and with treachery blazing hot as the searing summer sun, Laney realizes she and Alfie are in danger and she must fight to save lives, her own and her son's included.
Author Interview - Emilya Naymark
Author I draw inspiration from: Tana French
Author Interview - Emilya Naymark | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book: Anywhere! I've spent my whole life enjoying the world with a book in my hands.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Oh dear... I think the Vampire Lestat, but only if I could have a guarantee he'd not touch me. From Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Author Interview - Emilya Naymark | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: About twelve years ago in a museum in Washington, D.C., when I realized that my design career was not creatively satisfying enough, and I needed a stronger drug.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: All of the above. I now have a device or hardcopy in every room and I just pick up wherever I left off wherever I am. Having said that, I've never enjoyed cleaning so much now that I can listen to books while doing it.
The last book I read: Girl A by Abigail Dean. Absolutely excellent book. Top notch. Highly recommended.
Author Interview - Emilya Naymark | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer: Pen & paper to get the first draft down or if I'm in a slump. Computer after that.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Since I read a lot of very dark stuff--horror, crime, domestic suspense, whatever it is that Brett Easton Ellis writes, most of the characters in books I've loved are not very nice and would not make good friends. But if he'd have me, I'd like to be friends with Jonathan Strange. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Author Interview - Emilya Naymark | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Sad person... No, I'd be what I am in my day job: a designer and developer. If I were smarter, I'd be a hacker. (just kidding)
Favorite decade in fashion history: Based on what's in my closet, the 1950s. (I'm not old, I just buy a lot of rockabilly stuff)
Place I’d most like to travel: I've been trying to get to the UK for two years, and failing for obvious reasons. So, England and Scotland.
My signature drink: Bloody Mary if in a savory mood, or a B-52 if in a sweet one.
Favorite artist: This is an impossible question! But, let's say Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, and Andy Warhol because their work is interesting and their personalities are even more interesting. Also, Lucian Freud
Number one on my bucket list: Travel internationally again
Anything else you'd like to add: I LOVE hearing from readers! Sometimes the questions I'm asked about my characters are so interesting, I have to sit back and reevaluate my own thoughts about them.
Find more from the author:
Author website: https://emilyanaymark.com/author
Facebook: @emilya.naymark
Instagram: @emilyanaymark
Author Bio: Emilya Naymark is the author of the 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.
When not writing, Emilya works as a visual artist and reads massive quantities of psychological thrillers, suspense, and crime fiction. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.
