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Crossroads [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Belva Plain (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)


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Book Description

December 2005
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….

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Plain's tepid latest focuses on two women—privileged but plain Gwen Wright and beautiful but poor Jewel Fairchild. Their lives occasionally intersect, and eventually Jewel marries a wealthy man and discovers that money can't buy happiness. Gwen, meanwhile, marries a poor but honest man—but she still finds herself drawn to Jewel's husband, and the foursome is soon tangled in a web of deceit. Unfortunately, Jewel and Gwen don't evolve throughout the novel; Gwen is a character that some readers might find intolerably perfect—smart, privileged, shy, well-spoken, with simple needs and a tragic past—but any irritation that one might have with her is eliminated by the calculating and shallow Jewel, who is too pathetic to be a legitimate antagonist and too tragic to really be hated. It functions well as a simplistic morality tale. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

A tragic accident forces Cassie Wright, owner of the prosperous Wright Glassworks, to raise her late husband’s love child as her own. Despite the painful daily reminder of his unfaithfulness, Cassie knows she is more than able to provide a privileged upbringing for little Gwen. As a member of the wealthiest family in Wrightstown, Gwen grows up to be quiet and smart, and can’t help but compare herself to Jewel, the gorgeous, gossip-loving receptionist at the Glassworks who fantasizes about marrying money. Fast-forward a few years. Gwen falls deeply in love and marries hardworking electrician Stan; Jewel is the wife of the shrewd CEO of the electric company where Stan is employed. The four soon become entangled in a twisted web of lust, greed, and envy. Plain carefully dissects each character’s thoughts, and arouses sympathy even when the most conniving among them get their due. The plotline is comfortably predictable, sure to satisfy Plain’s many loyal fans and others who seek safely entertaining fiction. --Annie McCormick --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Audio Cassette
  • Publisher: Random House Audio; Abridged edition (December 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0739309196
  • ISBN-13: 978-0739309193
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,394,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews
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4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A TALE OF GREED, JEALOUSY, AND BETRAYAL, December 13, 2009
This review is from: Crossroads (Hardcover)
When Cassie Wright, heir to the foremost company in a thriving New England town adopts a child she names Gwendolyn, she also keeps a very big secret of the child's origins. Years later, once Cassie has established her abilities running the company and her daughter is in her teens, a jealous young woman turns their relationship upside down by what she reveals.

Jewel Fairchild is from humble origins, but her beauty is her ticket into the world she desires. But her envy and jealousy motivate many of her actions, and in the end, will these qualities be her ruination? When she tells Gwen the story of her birth parents, is she doing so innocently? Or is their a more powerful and dark emotion governing her actions?

For years, the lives of these three women continue to intersect in numerous ways until finally, years later, each of them arrives at various crossroads when decisions will move them in one direction or another, sometimes irrevocably altering each destiny.

Belva Plain's characters are alive and real, with flaws and strengths, captivating the reader and pulling each of us in to these lives as they unfold. We root for one or another at certain points along the way, but the key to this story's strength lies in how each character elicits our empathy. We can understand how and why they behave the way they do, as the author unveils back story over a period of time.

In the end, the women are all altered by their experiences, some of which have been horrific, but they stand tall in a newfound strength gleaned from their life lessons.

Crossroads is an absorbing and entangling tale of greed, jealousy, and betrayal, and earns five stars for me.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars GREEN EYED LADIES, May 7, 2010
READER WARNING: CROSSROADS by Belva Plain has also been published as RED LEAVES. The only differences being that the mother in Red Leaves is called Jean instead of Cassandra and Gwen's name is spelled Guin in Red Leaves. That being said, let me get on to the review.

Similar in some ways to her earlier works Eden Burning, Random Winds and Evergreen but lacking in the skillfully balanced bittersweet insights and heartwarming truths that beguiled her readers and brought her a legion of devoted fans, this offering tells of relationships between mothers & daughters, husbands and wives and takes the reader into the world of dirty dealings, family secrets, nasty gossip while addressing the "grass is always greener in someone else's yard" variety of jealousy. Like Bernie Madoff, Tiger Woods and the Real Housewives of New York City the characters inhabiting the pages of CROSSINGS could just as easily occupy space on Page Six of the New York Post or appear as the "flavor of the week" in The National Inquirer.

In short this book is more soap opera than literary masterpiece, and while it does do a passable job of whetting your appetite for the more provocative aspects of human nature it is definitely not of the caliber we have come to expect from Belva Plain. Just 2 1/2 stars.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Rich woman, poor woman, February 8, 2010
Gwen Wright, daughter of wealthy entrepreneur, Cassandra Wright, is introverted and holding a secret. Her chance meeting with Jewel Fairchild, beautiful,confident and making a meager living, kicks off a life-long feud that dramatically changes their lives both good and bad. I listened to the audiobook and at first thought this story was based in the early 19th century and later realized that it was a contemporary novel. It is interesting how this book could actually be interpreted in another time. I enjoyed this refreshing novel which didn't contain all the sex, drugs and violence that many contemporary books do
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