Belva Plain

What happens when the picture-perfect marriage dissolves? In her unsparing evocation of a family in crisis, Belva Plain goes to the heart of a marriage between a naive young artist and her handsome physician husband. At first, everything is idyllic. Then one terrible night she commits an act she will regret for the rest of her life. An act that gives her husband the ultimate weapon: blackmail. The price of his silence is uncontested custody of their...

The owner of a New England glassworks company, widow Cassie Wright struggles to raise her surviving child, Gwen, in the face of unbearable tragedy, but as Gwen blossoms into an independent young woman, dissention drives the two apart, until Gwen has her own child, a little girl who reunites the estranged family.

In Whispers, her stunning new novel, Belva Plain shows she has no equal as a chronicler of twentieth-century American life. Here she creates one of the most realistic portraits of a marriage in recent fiction, a tale of the nineties told with shocking authenticity. In it we are privy to the secret life of one outwardly perfect family, we hear the whispers about what goes on behind their closed doors, and we experience the triumph that comes when one...

In a doctor's office, a man and a woman sit stunned as the doctor speaks: Blood tests show without a shadow of a doubt that the son they love so dearly, and who is now dying, is not their child. Incredible as it seems, there must have been a mix-up in the hospital where he was born. Enduring the pain of Peter's death is a blow they must bear, but Margaret and Arthur Crawfield must also confront the realization that somewhere their biological child...

Perceptive chronicles of contemporary family life, they have captivated wide audiences. In Promises, she portrays the devastating impact of an extramarital affair. Margaret and Adam Crane are happy with their professional careers, their three young children, and their home. But when a woman from Adam's past suddenly appears, she ignites desires that threaten to consume the very fabric of his marriage. In the resulting emotional and financial chaos,...