UNITED STATES—Author Eddy Arias took an unusual path to writing his first novel ALICIA. A former senior executive with Paramount, Arias was responsible for content partnerships for the advertising-supported streaming platform Pluto TV across international markets and also led programming and acquisitions for Sony Pictures Entertainment. In addition, he produced, wrote and directed the 20th Century-Fox-distributed drama Ellipsis and the award-winning short film White & Black, which made its premiere at the prestigious Venice Film Festival.
So how does a successful studio entertainment executive and indie filmmaker become an author? We invited Eddy Arias to share his own journey with us, which you’ll discover below.
But first, a look at the book.
It’s clear that Arias brings a filmmaker’s discipline to ALICIA, because the book is meticulously crafted in a cinematic style that immerses with the first paragraph. Alicia is the housekeeper to a wealthy New York City couple. To the outside world. Claire and Andrew Cooper appear to have it all, except a child of their own. The burning desire for motherhood engulfs Claire in a desperate and relentless pursuit of pregnancy. But ultimately all attempts fail, and one solution arises, but it’s an illegal one that calls for hiring their undocumented housekeeper as a surrogate. Alicia ultimately agrees, and the pregnancy progresses – until she goes missing and a frantic search ensues.
For his first outing as an author, Arias brings the full force of his filmmaking experience to craft a powerful story of psychological suspense that moves with the pace of a gripping dramatic motion picture. An aficionado of Alice In Wonderland, Arias transforms the classic tale into a dark, adult version where New York City becomes Wonderland, Alicia is Alice, yet the story itself is told through the perspective of the Queen of Hearts. ALICIA is easy to get lost in for anyone into character-driven stories with actual emotional depth. It’s instantly engaging, thought-provoking, and filled with moments that stick. Arias’ writing is intimate and grounded, even as the themes of a broken marriage. Shattered dreams, and class struggles cut deep.
Author Eddy Arias, in his own words.
The story of Alicia began, quite literally, with an image.
It was the winter of 2008 when I first imagined a wealthy couple desperate to have a child and willing to cross every moral boundary to get one. In my mind’s eye, I saw them hiring a woman to carry their baby—but doing so illegally—and her eventually disappearing weeks before giving birth. The most compelling image was of the couple searching for the missing woman, when the true purpose of their search was not the woman herself, but the child she carried inside her. That single image lingered with me for years. I wrote a treatment, then set it aside, unsure what to do with the story.
Over time, the world caught up to the idea. The themes I had once viewed as private—fertility, control, immigration, power—became headlines. Surrogacy was no longer just a niche moral debate but a global industry, often operating in legal gray zones. At the same time, the national conversation around undocumented immigration reached a fever pitch. I began to see that the story wasn’t simply about a couple’s longing for a child—it was about the invisible systems of privilege and desperation that define modern life. So this year I dusted off that old draft and complicated it further: what if the surrogate was also the family’s undocumented housekeeper? What if her pregnancy—and her disappearance—forced the couple to confront not only their moral choices but the quiet bargains that sustain their world?
From that premise, Alicia was born.
At one level, Alicia is a literary mystery: a domestic drama about a couple whose surrogate vanishes weeks before giving birth, leaving behind a trail of secrets and moral ambiguity. The search for her—led by a private investigator named Fletcher—becomes a psychological excavation into guilt, privilege, and love disguised as control. But beneath that mystery lies a second layer: a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, one of my favorite stories since childhood.
In Alicia, Wonderland is today’s New York City. The Queen of Hearts becomes Claire Cooper, an elegant art dealer whose calm exterior hides a desperate need for control. Andrew, her husband, embodies a modern King of Hearts—successful yet morally compromised. And Alicia, their housekeeper and surrogate, is the modern Alice—falling through a very different kind of rabbit hole: a long, dark, and forgotten tunnel across the border. Each character chases a version of their own white rabbit.
Alicia is a story about control, motherhood, and hidden fractures in a marriage—but also about borders: physical, emotional, legal, and moral.
For me, the process of writing it was as much a journey as the story itself. After years of working as a media executive for Paramount and Sony Pictures, and as a storyteller, I approached the novel as both a filmmaker and a novelist, layering the prose with cinematic tension but grounding it in emotional realism. The result is a work that can be read on two levels: as a suspenseful search for a missing woman and as a literary allegory about how we lose ourselves in the pursuit of what we most desire.
Ultimately, Alicia is not just a story about a missing surrogate. It’s about the invisible worlds that exist beneath the polished surface of privilege—the quiet moral cracks that run through even the most beautiful homes. It’s a descent into the rabbit hole of modern life, where every choice has a shadow, and every act of love hides a secret.
A graduate of NYU Law School, Arias currently teaches Media Negotiation at the University of Miami. ALICIA is available on Amazon or by visiting https://aliciathebook.com/.
