The Thursday Channel: Guest Author: Peter Golden

Synopsis of A Girl from Ohio, the new novel by Peter Golden:

It’s 1975. The war in Vietnam is ending, President Nixon has resigned, and idealistic college student, Emmet Maze, is falling in love with fellow Ohio University student, Kaya. Their story plays out against an iconic backdrop of Ohio in the mid-70s until Kaya breaks up with Emmet without explanation. Emmet soon finds out Kaya has married her ex- high-school boyfriend and is left heartbroken.
 
Thirty years later, Emmet is a widower and professor at Ohio University, and he has written a number of books about his finding missing people. One day, a young woman shows up at his office who looks remarkably like Kaya—Kaya’s daughter. She is desperate, looking for help to find her missing father. Her daughter says that Kaya won’t report it to the police, won’t hire an investigator. She knows Kaya and Emmet once shared a bond, and she leaves Emmet information on her parents’ businesses and contact information for her mother, Kaya.
 
With the help of a retired investigator, Lily, Emmet digs into Kaya’s financials. The Newlins are worth over $100 million, but some strange financing catches the investigator’s attention as does an article about the murder of the Newlins’ financial adviser.
 
Despite Lily’s warnings to stay away, Emmet meets Kaya and her younger daughter, Emily, who bears a striking resemblance to Emmet’s late mother. Emmet realizes that Emily is his daughter, the product of a one-night encounter, post breakup.
 
Told in dueling timelines, the reader discovers the truth about Kaya and Emmet’s love affair—that Kaya left Emmet and married for money in order to help her parents who were in financial trouble and needed expensive medical care. Kaya has suffered for the decision. Her husband was an abusive drunk who tricked her into signing papers that allowed him to steal their clients’ funds, an act which would land them both in prison.
 
In the present day, Kaya and Emmet travel to Europe to recover the missing money— Paris, several towns and a beach in Provence, the Van Gogh Asylum, now a museum, in Saint-Rémy, Milan, Paradiso and Lake Lugano in the Italian section of Switzerland. During their travels they rekindle their romance. In the end, we uncover everyone’s secrets and learn whether Emmet and Kaya can build a future with their daughter.

Peter Golden is an award-winning journalist, historian, novelist, and memoirist. During his  varied career, he has interviewed Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush; Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and George Shultz;  Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Shamir; and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. He is the author of fourteen books.  A Girl from Ohio is his fifth novel. He attended Ohio University in the 1970s.  For more information, please visit the author's website: https://www.petergolden.com/