Layla and the Lake

Marcia D. Ross

Layla, an aspiring poet and third string editor in Boston, brings her two children to visit her former in-laws at a lakeside cottage in rural Maine. There she is greeted with wariness, and there she discovers love and trouble across the water.
Set in the early 1980s, with interludes glimpsing the past, Layla and the Lake releases vivid emotional scenes from both the United States and Canada into an idyllic but tense setting. Gradually, a labyrinth of faulty ethics, expectations, and boundaries is revealed as Layla struggles to mend her messy life and protect her children’s future. The story exposes the harsh fallout from a failed marriage and a quest for writing with courage in the midst of a doomed affair that itself takes place amid a family crisis.
Layla and the Lake is the story of a family that is no longer a family. Its narrative mines the riches of the written word, the awakening of conscience in even the very young, and the inexplicable beauty of natural existence.


“For sheer reading pleasure, it would be hard to beat this debut novel by Marcia Ross. Fast-paced, psychologically astute, full of memorable characters, and written with a joy that’s palpable on every page, Layla and the Lake is a guaranteed winner.” Alan Helms, author of Young Man From The Provinces

“Like Emily Brontë’s moors and Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, Ross’s lake is a fully realized participant in Layla’s attempt to find and make meaning in a psychologically treacherous world. Ross’s ability to register the finest shades of light and color is deeply satisfying.” Edward Zlotkowski, Professor Emeritus of English & Media Studies, Bentley University

Marcia Ross writes fiction, essays, and poems, and is an editor at MarciaRoss LLC. She grew up in California, has lived in Ohio, Pennsylvania, England, Scotland, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia, and now resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Marcia taught British and American Literature for 22 years at the University of Massachusetts. She enjoys edgy flicks; various literatures, conversation; children, French and Spanish cooking, and walking around doing nothing with her dog, Finnegette.