When I tell people I wrote a book, the natural reaction usually is, "what's it about?" Well, sometimes they don't even ask that.

But when they do, I explain with a quick answer, "oh, well, thanks for asking. It's a love story". The typical reaction from women is "awwww". Ah, a signal of interest about the book! And then I get deeper into it for another few seconds: "Oh, "it's a travel adventure love story of historical proportions on the first days of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan." Huh? The looks become more quizzical at that point. I should have stayed with "love story."

If I'm telling a guy, I say it's about "traveling, meeting girls, fending off foreign invaders." The quizzical looks return.

It's coming up on two years of having this idea in my head, and even though the book is out, I still have a tricky time explaining it. If I go the historical route, I lose them at this juncture: "It's a love story on the day the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan in 1979". Oh boy, does that lose them. Afghanistan?

Ask my sister, who painfully sat through the first time I told the story out loud. It was at a Starbucks in Brooklyn and it was three hours of story telling. She was either being really nice (she's my sister) to sit through it or in total rapture about the story. Or, maybe because it was raining and we had no where else to go. Heck, the movie Dr.Zhivago wasn't quite three hours but that won like a million academy awards that year.

Nevertheless, I will let the book speak for itself. As you read into it, it is gripping, it's a page turner and you do really want to know what happens next.

So, if you read the book, I am open to your ideas on how to describe it and would be happy to hear from you!

Mark Stephen Levy

Prolific Writer of Love Story/Adventure

http://authormarklevy.blogspot.com