Presents: Alana B. Lytle in Conversation with Carleton Eastlake

YOU MUST RSVP HERE TO ATTEND THIS EVENT!

Harvardwood and Zibby's Bookshop are excited to host Alana B. Lytle as she celebrates the launch of MAN'S BEST FRIEND. Alana will be joined in conversation by mystery author Carleton Eastlake!

About the book:

A failed actress must decide how much she will give up—and what lies she will overlook—in order to live a life of luxury, in this irresistibly suspenseful and slightly surreal debut that is The Talented Mr. Ripley meets Nightbitch.

Ever since her year as a scholarship student among the ultra-wealthy at a Manhattan private school, El knows what it is like to feel rich—to feel chosen. And being not chosen is her current living nightmare: at age thirty, she has given up her dream of becoming a famous actress, she has no passions, no great love, nothing to look forward to.

Then El meets a mysterious trust-fund Cambridge grad who holds the keys to the world she has long dreamed of. Bryce may not be particularly good-looking, charming, or interesting, but he has chosen her. El allows herself to be lulled by the ease and safety that his wealth provides, becoming Bryce’s little pet, and giving up her job, friends, and apartment in short order. But when a series of disturbing and slightly surreal events reveal that Bryce is not quite what he seems, but something entirely more sinister, El must face the consequences when his darkness—and her own—are unleashed.

About the authors:

Alana B. Lytle is a screenwriter whose recent credits include Netflix's Brand New Cherry Flavor and Peacock's A Friend of the Family. Her short fiction has been published in Guernica. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and sausage-shaped dog. Man's Best Friend is her debut novel.

Carleton Eastlake was named a 2022 Who? New! debut author by the Brooklyn Book Festival for his novel Monkey Business. He has also shared in Edgar and Saturn awards for his work in television and is a past President of PEN Center USA and a former board member of the Writers Guild of America West. He now sits on the WGAW Membership & Finance, Strike Fund, and Television Credits Committees and is a member of PEN International’s Writers Circle.

He graduated from UCLA in political science and psychology and from Harvard Law School with a concentration in law and the social sciences. After a career in public policy and consumer protection law, being hired as a Co-Executive Producer on Steven Spielberg’s series seaQuest DSV confirmed him as a television writer-producer as well. In recent years he has been affiliated with USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies as a media consultant and futurist on projects related to national defense.

He has also served as an instructor in the UCLA Film School’s Professional Screenwriting graduate certificate program and appeared as a guest panelist at the American Film Institute, Emerson College, and Harvardwood.

His wife Loraine Despres is a best-selling novelist, television writer, and tree-farmer. They live in Los Angeles, California.