Belva Plain Books In Order

Werner Family Saga Books In Publication Order

  1. Evergreen (1978)
  2. The Golden Cup (1986)
  3. Tapestry (1988)
  4. Harvest (1989)
  5. Heartwood (2010)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Random Winds (1980)
  2. Eden Burning (1982)
  3. Crescent City (1985)
  4. Blessings (1989)
  5. Treasures (1992)
  6. Whispers (1993)
  7. Daybreak (1994)
  8. The Carousel (1995)
  9. Promises (1996)
  10. Secrecy (1997)
  11. Homecoming (1997)
  12. Legacy of Silence (1998)
  13. Fortune’s Hand (1999)
  14. After the Fire (2000)
  15. Looking Back (2001)
  16. Her Father’s House (2002)
  17. The Sight of the Stars (2003)
  18. Crossroads (2005)

Werner Family Saga Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Belva Plain Books Overview

Evergreen

The towering modern classic of passion and ambition that forever changed the way we see the courageous immigrants who came to America’s shores the story of Anna Friedman transfixes us with the turbulent emotions of a woman and her family touched by war, tragedy, and the devastating secrets of one forbidden love…
bittersweet and Evergreen.

The Golden Cup

Beginning in 1920, paralleling Hitler’s rise to power, and encompassing World War II, Bleva Plain’s new novel weaves the threads of history into a brilliant tapestry. As vivid events plunge the world into a dizzying vortex of change, an unforgettable American Family must summon up extraordinary courage to face birth, death, murder, illicit passion, and a great tragedy…
and one passionate man must fight his own war against evil a war that can be won only with honor, integrity, and love.

Tapestry

Beginning in 1920, paralleling Hitler’s rise to power, and encompassing World War II, Bleva Plain’s new novel weaves the threads of history into a brilliant Tapestry. As vivid events plunge the world into a dizzying vortex of change, an unforgettable American Family must summon up extraordinary courage to face birth, death, murder, illicit passion, and a great tragedy…
and one passionate man must fight his own war against evil a war that can be won only with honor, integrity, and love.

Harvest

The internationally acclaimed author of Tapestry continues the magnificent Werner Family saga with this tumultuous and breathtaking novel. In the difficult times of the 1960s, a university student unwittingly precipitates a chain of events that spirals the Werner family downward with no forseeable end.

Heartwood

Few authors have understood the tender intricacies of relationships better than the incomparable Belva Plain. For three decades her deeply moving epics have captivated the hearts and imaginations of readers everywhere. Now, in her final novel, she comes full circle with the themes she took up in her very first work, Evergreen, bringing us this unforgettable story of family and friendship, love and marriage, the challenges of life and the true secret of happiness. Though Iris Stern considers herself a modern woman, with a successful academic career and a happy marriage, she still holds steadfast to her old fashioned sensibilities. But as the mother of three adult children, each with their own lives and burdens to bear, she often finds those sensibilities called into question when confronted with the choices her children have made. For one of Iris’s daughters, it s the choice of a fresh start in New York City and a last chance to save her troubled marriage. While Laura and Robbie cope with an impending separation and its effect on Iris s young granddaughter, Iris herself must come to grips with the discovery of a long held family secret. But it s an emotional parting of another kind that looms most prominently on Iris s horizon as neither her beloved husband, nor the solidity of her own marriage, is immune to the ravages of time. Through separations and reunions, the changes we cannot avoid and the love that sustains, Iris will weather whatever lies ahead with a faith that cannot be shaken. Like the inmost rings of a tree that abide through the generations, she will be as strong as Heartwood. From the Hardcover edition.

Random Winds

Though of eminent birth and status in their own right, the women of Crowned in a Far Country all left the countries of their birth to marry heirs to great thrones. They all shared an inbred sense of duty and a genuine desire to see it performed. None fought against what she saw as her destiny but only sought to fulfill it. Some were passionate, others less so. Some were good wives; some were caring mothers. They were all catalysts, the pivots of their worlds for a time.

More than just a window into the politics and power brokering of royal marriage, Crowned in a Far Country charts the transformations of privileged princesses into women of power and historical importance.

Eden Burning

Eden Burning is the story of two men and one woman a triangle as old as time, made modern by the characters and their setting. Eden is St. Felice, a lush Carribean island with extremes of privilege and want. Patrick, the fiery prime minister, seeks a better life for his people. Francis, scion of a prominent New York family, feels the tug of that other island. And Tee 15 years old when we meet her, wise beyond her years runs at life with a reckless passion. ‘A superb story in the hands of a masterful storyteller. Violence, political upheaval, clandestine love they’re all here in this great romantic saga.’ E.R.S. Reviews

Crescent City

She was the exquisite daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant. From a charmed girlhood in opulent New Orleans, she would be swept into the cataclysm of the Civil War. Forced to choose between her duties as a Southern wife and mother and her love for a forbidden man, a forbidden cause, Miriam Raphael is at the center of the whirlwind in a spellbinding novel of divided loyalties and divided hearts.

Blessings

At thirty six, Jennie Rakowsky’s dreams were coming true. She was about to marry a wonderful man, her career as a lawyer was sky rocketing, and she had never been more beautiful. Then the secret she had hidden for nineteen years threatened to shatter it all. From growing up as a child of impoverished Holocaust survivors to discovering the glittering, exclusive world of America s Jewish aristocracy, Jennie had learned how important family and heritage could be. Now she had to discover the values that went deeper still and the ties that entwine the heart with the richest love of all.

Treasures

A story of family…
the Osbornes two sisters and a brother united by family ties but split apart by different dreams. Lara, the happy young wife, longs for the family that will make her life whole. Connie, wild and lovely, is more like her brother Eddy bright, ambitious, and ready to seize all that life has to offer. A story of choices…
. Connie is looking for wealth to make or to marry. Lara, staying behind in a small Ohio town, finds everything she cherishes threatened by fate and by her own blind commitment. And Eddy, as Wall Street’s ‘wonder boy,’ can make millions…
if he ruthlessly uses his family and friends. A story of marriages…
. Lara’s held together by devotion, Connie’s shattered by infidelity and betrayal, and Eddy’s rocked by shame and prison. Torn by conflicting loyalties, they are a family caught in the tides of scandal…
and swept toward a fate where dreams may end or be born again…

Whispers

Robert and Lynn Ferguson are a picture perfect couple with two beautiful daughters and a lovely home in an exclusive Connecticut community. Robert is on the fast track of a major corporation. Lynn is devoted to her family and good works. But in the Ferguson’s closed doors hide a painful secret Lynn must keep from the world and her children at any cost…
Not even the Fergusons’s best friends, Josie and Bruce Lehman, know of Lynn’s shame. Social worker Josie sees her bruises distrusts the too ambitious, too perfect Robert, and suspects the real cause of the children’s increasingly disturbed behavior. But not even Josie can pierce Lynn’s wall of silence, a wall that will not crumble until Lynn is forced to face herself and the truth at last. Belva Plain’s searing novel of a family’s heartbreak, a woman’s courage, and a subject too often talked about only in Whispers.

Daybreak

The doctor’s office is cool, white, sterile. But the doctor’s words are searing: blood tests prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Margaret and Arthur Crawfield’s beloved, dying son is not their child. Now they must face Peter’s death and the shock of having a son they have never met. Grieving, yet compelled, they begin a search that will tear two families apart. Laura and ‘Bud’ Rice share an elegant home and two children, brilliant, handsome Tom, and cherished, chronically ill eleven year old Timmy. But after nineteen years of marriage, Laura’s respectable husband is a stranger and the reason for Tom’s escalating involvement with a group of campus bigots. Suddenly the Crawfields enter their lives and shatter their fragile world. As the Rices’ quiet Southern town explodes with hate and violence, the two familes must embrace or be destroyed by the shattering truth. From the Paperback edition.

The Carousel

In public, Oliver Grey is a devoted father, prominent public figure, humanitarian, and respected businessman. But in private, there’s a much darker side to Oliver Grey; a side so dark that someone is driven to kill him…
Though the Greys appear to be an enviable upper class family, they are not without problems. Ian, the older son, is a womanizer and compulsive gambler; Clive, the younger son, is an odd man barely five feet tall with no life outside his work as an accountant; and Amanda, Oliver’s niece, whom he raised after her parents died in a plane crash, has been twice divorced and has had a difficult life. Dan, Amanda’s brother, is the only Grey who appears to have no problems except with his six year old daughter Caroline, whose behavior reminds him more and more of his troubled sister Amanda. The trouble had started with Oliver Grey’s decision to divide his nationally known business, Grey’s Food, among Ian, Clive, and Dan. Amanda, bitter about being left out of the business, arrives from California to straighten out her financial holdings in the company. On a visit to Ellen, Dan’s wife, Amanda sees a silver carousel much like the one Oliver gave her when she was a child. Ellen says The Carousel was a gift to Caroline from Oliver. Amanda breaks down and tells Ellen that Oliver had given her The Carousel to keep her from telling the truth about the unspeakable things he had done to her. Ellen, horrified by this revelation, finally understands why her daughter has been acting so strangely and why a therapist had raised the possibility that Caroline may have been sexually abused. Ellen goes to Oliver Grey’s home that evening to confront him. And when she leaves he is dead. Belva Plain breaks new ground in this stunning new novel. A family drama with a strong strain of mystery, The Carousel confirms her standing as one of today’s most compelling and popular writers.

Promises

With her three children, beautiful home, and loving husband, Margaret Crane is a woman others would envy. Adam’s job has cushioned them nicely over the years, and it should be a time of contentment, rewards, of new challenges together. But lately Adam has been working too late, too hard, at the office. Margaret is sure it’s just the rumored takeover of his company until she meets Randi, The Other Woman…
Meanwhile, Nina, the orphaned cousin the Cranes raised as their own daughter, is reveling in New York. She thinks she’s found Mr. Right in Keith, a brilliant investment banker. But Keith has a secret he has not shared with Nina. All he asks for is time…
and patience. And as Nina clings to stolen weekends with Keith, Margaret plays dutiful wife, trying to ignore warning signs of her own failing marriage. A rift has developed between the two women who have loved each other as mother, daughter, friends. Keith is not welcome in Margaret’s home. And Nina herself is the other woman…
From the Paperback edition.

Secrecy

From the New York Times bestselling author of Promises and Secrecy comes a stunning novel of a family divided and the proud matriarch who takes a bold last stand to unite her warring children in what may be their last Homecoming. It is a crisp December day when Annette Byrne walks to the end of her long, curving driveway and drops five sealed envelopes into the mailbox. Quickly. Before second thoughts stay her hand. Shortly thereafter, with the holidays approaching, her estranged family, intimate enemies, will be gathered at her country estate for the first time in years. The sons…
two brothers embittered by a breach of ethics, honor, and trust. The grandchildren…
one young couple on the verge of divorce; another, lovingly united against the parents who have tarnished their lives. As the ill fated meeting hurtles toward a bitter and abrupt conclusion, not even Annette Byrne’s indomitable will can heal the rift until a shattering event alters the landscape forever. With unerring insight and emotional power, Belva Plain has created a beautiful, heartrending story of healing, love, and forgiveness. Lindsay Crouse, a long time veteran of Broadway and regional theater, has appeared in such stage productions as Hamlet, Richard II and David Mamet’s Reunion. On television, she guest starred on Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, L.A. Law and E.R. Highlights of her film credits include All the President’s Men, The Juror, and Places in the Heart, for which she received an Academy Award nomination.

Homecoming

From the New York Times bestselling author of Promises and Secrecy comes a stunning novel of a family divided and the proud matriarch who takes a bold last stand to unite her warring children in what may be their last Homecoming. It is a crisp December day when Annette Byrne walks to the end of her long, curving driveway and drops five sealed envelopes into the mailbox. Quickly. Before second thoughts stay her hand. Shortly thereafter, with the holidays approaching, her estranged family, intimate enemies, will be gathered at her country estate for the first time in years. The sons…
two brothers embittered by a breach of ethics, honor, and trust. The grandchildren…
one young couple on the verge of divorce; another, lovingly united against the parents who have tarnished their lives. As the ill fated meeting hurtles toward a bitter and abrupt conclusion, not even Annette Byrne’s indomitable will can heal the rift until a shattering event alters the landscape forever. With unerring insight and emotional power, Belva Plain has created a beautiful, heartrending story of healing, love, and forgiveness. Lindsay Crouse, a long time veteran of Broadway and regional theater, has appeared in such stage productions as Hamlet, Richard II and David Mamet’s Reunion. On television, she guest starred on Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, L.A. Law and E.R. Highlights of her film credits include All the President’s Men, The Juror, and Places in the Heart, for which she received an Academy Award nomination.

Legacy of Silence

From the New York Times bestselling author of Promises and Secrecy comes a stunning novel of a family divided and the proud matriarch who takes a bold last stand to unite her warring children in what may be their last Homecoming. It is a crisp December day when Annette Byrne walks to the end of her long, curving driveway and drops five sealed envelopes into the mailbox. Quickly. Before second thoughts stay her hand. Shortly thereafter, with the holidays approaching, her estranged family, intimate enemies, will be gathered at her country estate for the first time in years. The sons…
two brothers embittered by a breach of ethics, honor, and trust. The grandchildren…
one young couple on the verge of divorce; another, lovingly united against the parents who have tarnished their lives. As the ill fated meeting hurtles toward a bitter and abrupt conclusion, not even Annette Byrne’s indomitable will can heal the rift until a shattering event alters the landscape forever. With unerring insight and emotional power, Belva Plain has created a beautiful, heartrending story of healing, love, and forgiveness. Lindsay Crouse, a long time veteran of Broadway and regional theater, has appeared in such stage productions as Hamlet, Richard II and David Mamet’s Reunion. On television, she guest starred on Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, L.A. Law and E.R. Highlights of her film credits include All the President’s Men, The Juror, and Places in the Heart, for which she received an Academy Award nomination.

Fortune’s Hand

In this remarkable new novel, Belva Plain creates a brilliant portrayal of a man’s descent from idealistic beginnings into a world of dishonesty and greed and of the two women who love him. Robb MacDaniel, a schoolteacher with noble intentions, comes into a little money, enabling him to go to law school. Upon graduation, he goes to work for a fine, honorable firm, and marries the daughter of the senior partner, leaving behind the hometown girl he had planned to wed. From then on his career brings enormous successes but then takes a shocking turn that changes his life, the life of his family, and reverberates into the next generation. With the magic of a born storyteller, New York Times bestselling author Belva Plain unfolds the devastating tale of a man whose dreams come true. Fortune’s Hand is a novel of temptation, betrayal, and greed and of the redeeming power of love.

After the Fire

It began almost like a fairy tale. Plain Jane and Prince Charming met in college, fell in love, and were married soon after graduation. She shelved her dreams of a career as a painter to help him through medical school, and to be the perfect doctor’s wife. He became a successful plastic surgeon and they had two beautiful children together. But real life is no fairy tale. Suspecting there was another woman behind his erratic schedule, she went to his office to confront him. What happens that night leads to the end of a marriage and the breakup of a family. Like Whispers, Belva Plain’s novel about spousal abuse, After the Fire deals with one of the more provocative issues of our time: the battle of child custody as a woman finds herself overpowered by her husband’s ruthless actions. Here is the story of one such woman who, in the aftermath of an ugly divorce, alone must rebuild her world, find the strength and wherewithal to live in it, and regain a life with her children. Only Belva Plain, with her insight into the American family and the hearts of those who comprise it, could create a novel like this, showing that sometimes even real life can have a happy ending.

Looking Back

Four cassettes, 6 hrs. Performance by Anne TwomeyThe novel opens with a chance meeting between two old friends. One proposes to tell the other a story about his life years ago…
Cecile, Norma, and Amanda are three college friends with varied backgrounds, whose lives become intricately intertwined when Amanda, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, marries Norma’s brother, Larry, a real estate broker who works for his father, Laurence. When Amanda becomes pregnant as a result of an affair with Laurence, her father in law, her life is thrown into turmoil. After little Stevie is born, she flees, and Norma and her new husband, Lester, take care of the depressed Larry and the new baby. Meanwhile, Cecile’s loving marriage to the talented architect Roger is faltering. Roger is torn between following his father in law Amos’ wishes to develop a railroad yard project and his own desire to preserve historic land. Finally he succumbs, and produces an amazing plan to renovate the railroad yard. But things take an odd twist when Norma, known for her phenomenal photographic memory, memorizes the plans and gives them to Larry, her brother, to use as his own in an attempt to help him restore his life and his career. Amos and Alfred, Norma’s father in law who has been assisting Larry, have a bitter confrontation over Norma’s betrayal of Roger, and the two friends part ways until a meeting years later brings them together again, and they relive all the heartbreak and pain, triumphs and joys of their lives so many years ago.A wife’s infidelity, a husband’s heartbreak, the complex and interwoven lives of family and friends…
Belva Plain captures them all with her unerring gaze into the heart of human relationships. Belva Plain’s unrivaled power as a storyteller guarantees that she will continue to win fans and acclaim for generations to come.

Her Father’s House

Beloved storyteller Belva Plain understands the rich tapestry of the human heart like no other. Her many dazzling New York Times bestsellers probe the shifting bonds of marriage and family with insight, compassion, and uncommon grace. And her new novel is no exception. A tale of fathers and daughters, lovers and families, acts of love and acts of betrayal, Her Father’s House is Belva Plain s most powerful and unforgettable novel yet. It is the spring of 1968 when Donald Wolfe, a young graduate of a midwestern law school, arrives in New York. Filled with ambition and idealism, he is dazzled not only by the big city but by the vivacious, restless Lillian, whom he marries in the heat of infatuation. Surely theirs is no marriage made in heaven, but they have a child, Tina, and she is the love of Donald s heart. For her he would give up everything his home, his distinguished career, and his freedom. When his flawed marriage begins to fail, a choice must be made. Shall he consider a step that would force him into flight and a life of hiding?From her earliest years, Tina is exceptional, a brilliant student and a joyous, loving spirit. At the university she falls in love with Gilbert, who graduates from law school just as she is about to enter medical school. Together they go to New York, where she learns the truth about her family s past, a truth that must change her regard for the father who has protected and cherished her. When a terrible lie has been told out of love, can it be forgiven?With courage and compassion, Belva Plain paints a moving portrait of the choices that shape the course of our lives, the secrets that haunt us, and the love that helps us heal and move on. It is a work of riveting storytelling and rare emotional power by one of the most gifted novelists of our time. From the Audio Cassette edition.

The Sight of the Stars

New York Times bestselling author Belva Plain beguiles us once again with a novel that explores the bonds that sustain families and the lies that can shatter them forever. Sweeping through the pivotal events of twentieth century America, The Sight of the Stars chronicles four generations of one remarkable family as they journey through years of love, loss, sacrifice, and unimaginable betrayal.

Dressed in a brand new suit, with one hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket, Adam Arnring says good bye to his family and boards a train for the fabled West. The year is 1907. Adam is nineteen years old, a young man with stars in his eyes who has always dreamed of a future in the great open spaces of America. Now, far from his New Jersey home, he takes the first step toward attaining that dream, landing a job in a small department store in a booming Texas town. Here he meets a woman who excites him beyond all measure. The exquisite, untouchable Emma Rothirsch lives in a world whose doors are firmly closed to him. But Adam is a man willing to take great risks to get what he wants.

One is Emma. The other is to build a lasting business enterprise that will live on through his children and grandchildren. But just when Adam’s dreams are within reach, fate intervenes. Tragedy strikes from the trenches of World War I, setting in motion a series of events that echo down through the years. The owner of a prospering department store and the head of a growing family, Adam succumbs to a moment of weakness that culminates in an unforgivable act of betrayal. And now, as another generation prepares to take its rightful place in the family s legendary empire, the tenuous threads of the Arnrings past begin to unravel, revealing a shattering secret that reaches back nearly a century.

Across a teeming canvas of history, through world wars and the close of a century, The Sight of the Stars tells a deeply affecting story of family and forgiveness, guilt and redemption. Brim*ming with the emotional depth and moral complexity we have come to expect from this incomparable storyteller, The Sight of the Stars is about what happens when we dare to dream, and the moments that can change families forever.

Crossroads

No one explores the rich tapestry of the human heart as Belva Plain does. Her more than twenty New York Times bestsellers have captivated readers and garnered legions of devoted fans. Now Plain dazzles us once again with a new novel of rare eloquence and raw emotion a powerful tale about the consequences of greed and the acts of love and forgiveness that can heal the heart. Cassie Wright never saw it coming. As owner of Wright Glassworks, the foremost company in a thriving New England town, Cassie’s life was quiet, focused on her work and home until a tragic accident turns her carefully ordered world upside down. For there is a surviving child to think about and Cassie must take in one year old Gwen, who has no one else to care for her. As the years pass, Cassie will raise Gwen as her own, and a little girl who lost everything will flourish in a world of privilege and opportunity. Enter Jewel Fairbanks. Beautiful and conniving, Jewel will touch the lives of both Cassie and Gwen in powerful ways. From the moment they meet, Jewel envies Gwen, who seems to have everything Jewel wants. The two couldn t be more different, but their lives will soon become inextricably intertwined. Both will marry but to profoundly different men. For Gwen, it is honest, hardworking Stan who steals her heart; Jewel will set her sights on Jeff, a shrewd businessman who owns the company where Stan works. But when Stan makes a shocking discovery on the job, relationships begin to shift and change…
and soon a tangled drama of greed, jealousy, and betrayal will encircle both couples, as a chain reaction of unexpected events changes four lives forever in ways they never could have foreseen . From the Hardcover edition.

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