Book Launch: Ecstasy by Ivy Pochoda in conversation with Sarah Weinman

About the Book. Lena wants her life back. Her wealthy, controlling, humorless husband has just died, and now she contends with her controlling, humorless son, Drew. Lena lands in Naxos with her best friend in tow for the unveiling of her son’s, pet project–the luxurious Agape Villas.Years of marriage amongst the wealthy elite has whittled Lena’s spirit into rope and sinew, smothered by tasteful cocktail dresses and unending small talk. On Naxos she yearns to rediscover her true nature, remember the exuberant dancer and party girl she once was, but Drew tightens his grip, keeping her cloistered inside the hotel, demanding that she fall in line.Lena is intrigued by a group of women living in tents on the beach in front of the Agape. She can feel their drums at night, hear their seductive leader calling her to dance. Soon she’ll find that an ancient God stirs on the beach, awakening dark desires of women across the island. The only questions left will be whether Lena will join them, and what it will cost her.Ecstasy is a riveting, darkly poetic, one-sitting read about empowerment, desire, and what happens when women reject the roles set out for them. About the Author. Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Art of Disappearing, Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, and has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy taught creative writing at Studio 526 in Los Angeles's Skid Row. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles. About the Moderator.  Sarah Weinman is the author of Without Consent (forthcoming from Ecco in November 2025), Scoundrel, and The Real Lolita. She has also edited several anthologies, most recently Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning. Weinman writes the Crime & Mystery column for the New York Times Book Review and lives in Manhattan.