BELVA PLAIN

It happened as car accidents often do, violently and without warning. In a flash of steel and glass, lives are lost, dreams shattered, and families forever changed. Thats how it happens for Jean Wright. In the days that follow, as neighbors stop by with plates of food and words of comfort, Jean knows one thing for certain: her carefully ordered world will never be the same. For there is the surviving child to think about nowand Jean must put aside her grief to take in one-year-old Guin, who has no one else to raise her. But as Guin grows up into a shy, dreamy girl, their life together is fraught with conflict. When Guin defies the only mother shes ever known by striking out on her ownwriting childrens books and eloping with a man far below her social standingtheir relationship seems irreparably damaged. It is only when Guin has a child of her own, a little girl who is so very like Jean in personality, that events come full circle...and she finds that the qualities that drive you apart can also draw you together. ReviewsAs ever Belva envelopes many intriguing characters for a delightful profligacy of non-restrained emotions...an addictive page turner. North Wales Chronicle on SIGHT OF THE STARS ''A terrific tale of a father''s devotion and its sad consequences.'' The Bookseller on HER FATHER''S HOUSE This is one book you wont be able to put down . . . be prepared for a thoroughly compelling read. Womans Weekly on FORTUNE''S HAND

Caroline Hartzinger flees wartime Europe with a shattered life and a devastating secret. Pregnant and unwed, she arrives in America in 1939. Joel Hirsch offers marriage and respectability, hoping one day to earn her love, if not the passion she feels for a man whose memory haunts them both. With Joel, Caroline builds a new life, determined to bury the past - until her daughter Eve brings Carolines carefully crafted world crashing down again, driven by rage to discover the truth. Now the legacy that has tainted lives and put generations at risk is Eves secret to keep. But with it comes a gift - a new sister who offers hope, and a truth that will finally break the hold of the past.

First came the sin. Then the lies.He was handsome, charming, irresistable, and an eighteen-year-old lady-killer, her uncle Cliffs stepson, Ted. But in one terrible night he would shatter the life of fourteen-year-old Charlotte Dawes and nearly destroy her family. Years afterward, Charlotte would remember that night with fear and loathing, with pain that could be banished only by her work as a gifted architect, building a new world for others as she conceals her own.For Charlottes family, prime employers in New England mill town, what happened to Charlotte was the beginning of the end. Her father is left shattered by his daughters pain. Her troubled mother is unable to cope. And her distinguished family has fallen from grace, plunged into debt. The only rock that sustains them in their darkest hours is a woman whose own guilty secret has given her the power to ruin--or resurrect--the family to whom she owes her life.Belva Plains searing novel cuts to the heart of a family ravaged by secrecy. But it is ultimately a story of redemption, the kind that grows when one person dares to tell the truth.

In public, Oliver Grey is a devoted father, prominent public figure and respected businessman. But in private, he has a much darker side.On a visit to her brother Dans house, Olivers niece Amanda sees a silver carousel much like the one her uncle gave her as a child. When Amanda breaks down and reveals a troubling link between her niece Caroline, her uncle Oliver and the silver carousel, events take a dangerous turn. Horrified by the revelations, Dans wife Ellen visits Olivers home to confront him. And when she leaves, Oliver is dead.But with one son mired in gambling debts and a desperately troubled niece, finding the person behind Olivers death might not be as simple as it seems.

They are the most unlikely friends: rich, kind, Cecile; brave, talented Norma; and Amanda, the poor girl they met at college. Now Cecile has married her talented architect, Amanda has married Normas brother and Norma has found a niche with her work as a teacher and her beloved music.But behind the façade of happiness and friendship lie secrets that threaten to tear the three friends apart. There will be the sorrow of one who wants a child and cannot have one; another has a child she does not want. As the three womens secrets and desires converge, there will be scandal, heartbreak - and the crime which will bring both justice and an unexpected happiness to three families . . .

Donald and Lillian were never a match made in heaven, but they have a child, Tina, and she is the love of Donalds heart.For her he would give up everything: his home, his work and even his freedom. When his marriage fails, he does just that.A chance meeting with a stranger on a train changes his life - and his daughters - in ways he could never have imagined.From her earliest years Tina is exceptional, a brilliant student and a joyous person with a loving spirit. At university she falls in love with Gilbert who, three years older than she, graduates from law school just as she is about to enter medical school. Together they go to New York, where they learn a truth about Donald that shatters Tinas regard for the father who has for so long protected and cherished her.When a terrible lie has been told for love, can it be forgiven?

From a quiet turn-of-the-century village in upstate New York to war-torn London, from the bedsides of the rural poor to the life-and-death urgency of a New York hospital, comes a powerful epic of three generations of doctors in one family. The Farrell family are dedicated, brilliant... and driven to the edge of destruction by a love no force can suppress.