Connections

by Elizabeth Guider

“Set against the seismic events that have shaped the America of today, Elizabeth Guider draws an affecting tale of a mother and her two daughters, of their love for one another, and of their love for the men that matter to them. She weaves her unforgettable story with restraint and wonderfully observed detail.” – Wendy Oberman, Novelist and Playwright

Spanning the last fifty years, this family saga focuses on three generations of women, who grapple with sex and marriage, the elusiveness of success and the power of love to get them through tough times. Told chiefly from the alternating points of view of two sisters who come of age in the 1960's, the story takes us from Princess phones and prom dresses to the Vietnam War, women’s lib, the lure of Hollywood, 9/11 in Manhattan—and a family emergency like no other. Throughout the years the sisters often misread their own hearts or are mistreated by those they care about. When real crisis arises, they are challenged to summons their better angels. But can they?

Connections is a standalone Historical Fiction novel.

372 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 3, 2018

About the author

Elizabeth Guider is a longtime entertainment journalist and more recently a novelist who has lived and worked in Rome, Paris and London as well as in New York and Los Angeles. Born in the American South, she holds a doctorate in Renaissance Studies from New York University. During the late 1970s she was based in Rome where she taught English and American literature at the university level and where much of the action of her first novel, The Passionate Palazzo, takes place. While in Europe she worked as an editor for the International Daily News in Rome, a freelancer for several magazines and as an entertainment reporter for the showbiz newspaper Variety.
She also traveled widely, reporting on the politics affecting media from Eastern Europe to Hong Kong as well as covering various film events and media trade shows in Cannes, Monte Carlo, Venice, Milan, Moscow and Berlin. She also served on several film festival juries, the International Emmys judging committee in NYC, and the Peabody Board. Over the years she has moderated a number of industry-sponsored panels and Q&A’s with entertainment executives, both Stateside and abroad, and won several media awards while working for the trade papers in Hollywood.
Back in the U. S. in the 1990s, she specialized on the burgeoning TV industry and eventually held top editor positions at Variety and latterly at The Hollywood Reporter, including executive editor at Variety and editor-in-chief at THR. Most recently, she has freelanced for the magazine World Screen as senior contributing editor.
Elizabeth divides her time between Los Angeles, where she freelances, and Vicksburg, Mississippi, where she grew up and where she focuses on her fiction. Her second novel, Milk and Honey on the Other Side, an inter-racial love story in the post-WWI period, is set largely in Vicksburg. Her third novel, Connections, a family saga that spans the last fifty years, takes the reader from Atlanta, to New York City and Hollywood, and eventually to South America. Her fourth, Our Long Love’s Day, is an unflinching yet sympathetic look at a divorce between two academics at a midwestern college who struggle to find new meaning in their lives. Her fifth novel, a contemporary love story set on the California Coast, came out in November 2022.

Reviews

[Patricia Frith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The mark of an excellent writer is her ability to catch and hold on to the reader, taking them by the proverbial hand and leading them down one story path after another, each more intriguing than the next. Suddenly and oh-so-satisfyingly, you find yourself hooked. In Connections, I found myself in such a delicious predicament. Elizabeth Guider speaks so convincingly in the voices of her various characters to tell this sweeping, multi-generational family story. I was consistently surprised and engaged with the different perspectives that I couldn’t wait to read what Callie or Mellie or Elena or Richard or Erin… were thinking next. These perspectives resonate even more when Guider drops in cultural and political references that hit all kinds of emotional and nostalgic hot buttons. She taps into her journalistic skills to seamlessly connect us to time and place through this family’s uniquely American story.

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s first two novels, Guider’s latest effort takes the cake. I “connected” in fact with all the characters who play a part in this fascinating family saga: in particular, with the two sisters who grow up, grow apart and grow back together over a decades-long span and with adventures in love and life that take them from Atlanta, to New York, to Hollywood — and even down to the jungles of Colombia. It was a page-turner as I couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter for the personal story of each player from his or her own point of view. As the great British writer Alan Bennett said, “In reading a book you can’t be lonely.” Connections is a five-star experience that reaches out and pulls you in.
-S.A.MARATEX

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don’t want to miss this book! Elizabeth Guider engages you from the beginning by involving you in the complex relationships within the Masterson family, especially the two sisters, Callie and Mellie. The issues are familiar, intense, and told from the point of view of each character. Besides being intrigued by the family issues, I identified with the references to real life events which have happened from the 1960’s to the present time. As a reader, I was absorbed into the family’s story, but still able to appreciate it from my unique perspective.
Guider is a talented writer who knows how to entice the reader as her characters move from crisis to crisis and coast to coast.